Page 130 of Burn of the Everflame

I found Luther’s hand in the darkness and guided it to my breast. He needed no more encouragement than that. He greedily palmed its soft swell, kneading the peaks between his fingers until they were tender and hard. Muffled cries of my own escaped from beneath the shadow hand across my mouth.

He shifted to the other breast, coming perilously close to the mating mark. I wondered, with a mix of terror and excitement, what would happen if he touched it. Would I light up like the midnight moon? Would his blood sing in harmony with mine?

The risk heightened my passion, making every stroke of his thumb a flying arrow. For once, the danger of being discovered became something I craved. I could no longer pretend that I was in control. Luther had me entirely at his command, and I fucking loved it.

His hand roamed—lower, lower—tracing the waist of my pants. I opened my legs, trying to will him on without words. He cupped my sensitive core, massaging through the leather. His warm breath spilled across my cheek as he leaned in to my ear.

“I wonder,” he said, “are you wet for me, too?”

Oh, I was soaked. My heart raced with exhilaration at the prospect of letting him find out for himself.

The woman’s moans turned into screams as she crested her release. The sounds of passion gave way to soft kisses, then silence. Luther stilled, and I sulked with disappointment. I wasn’t ready to face the distance between us that I knew would return once this moment ended.

Not yet. Please, not yet.

Then—

“You taste so damn good when you come for me, baby,” the man’s voice growled. “Bend over and give me that tight little ass. It’s my turn.” Wood creaked, the woman gasped, and the man let out a deep, guttural groan of satisfaction.

Every nerve ending sparked. Scandalous scenarios played in my head—how much could Luther’s shadows hide? How quiet could I be? Was I willing to risk being discovered face down on the council table, the Prince of Lumnos buried inside me?

I squeezed Luther’s wrist in a silent plea and bucked my hips, desperately searching for relief. He didn’t pull back, but didn’t move either, forcing me to guide his hand up and down my center.

Forcing me to admit to us both what I wanted.

He nipped at the lobe of my ear, and I might have come right then and there, were it not for the next words whispered:

“Make any noise, and I’ll stop.”

It was a promise as much as a threat—especially when his fingers slid beneath the leather of my pants, then the lace of my undergarments, straight to the slick heat that gave me away.

“That’s my girl,” Luther breathed, slow and reverent.

The shadow hand loosened from my mouth and wrapped around my throat, laying the gentlest of pressure against my pulse. I hardly needed to be quiet any longer, thanks to our noisy friends across the room. She was very vocal, and he was, apparently, very skilled. The darkness echoed with a symphony of carnal slapping sounds, but the secrecy made it all the more exciting, so I swallowed my cries as Luther’s thumb swirled around my clit.

The dark, wisping hands on my shoulders moved to my breasts and toyed with my nipples. Two more took me by the hips, their possessive grip somehow both ephemeral and impossibly strong. Blinded by the darkness, every sensation was heightened—icy shadows prickling my heated skin, the scrape of his beard against my jaw, and the languid stroke of his very rough, very real fingers.

The feeling of his touch enveloped me. Even the shadows thrummed with his energy. With one hand still guiding his wrist, I reached out into the darkness with the other, and when it found his face, my heart sang at his contented hum.

Two of his fingers plunged inside me. I arched forward, burying my face in his shoulder to hold back my cries. My panting breaths drew in his woodsy smell—earth and cedar, pepper and musk—and filled my lungs with his scent, his name, his desire.

Elsewhere in the ballroom, the rhythmic sound of skin against skin grew louder and faster. Luther’s fingers pushed in and out in a matching beat while his thumb kept up a maddening dance around my swollen, sensitive core. Though I was desperate to make this last, pressure built faster than I could stop it.

I felt along his cheek until I found the ridge of his scar. I set my palm against it, letting it ground me in my disorienting passion. He pressed his lips to the crescent-shaped mark on my collarbone in tender response.

The sweetness of the gesture and what it stood for—our acceptance of each other, exactly as we were—were my undoing. My muscles went tight, then blissfully loose, and a whimper escaped as ecstasy shattered through me. He stroked me through each quivering wave, and I turned to liquid in his arms. I laid my head on his shoulder, and he held me as close as our chairs would allow.

I was happy.

Even if just for one heartbeat, I was happy.

And so was he. His contentment filled my chest with twinkling warmth that might have set my skin alight, were it not for the cuffs on my wrists.

In the post-bliss glow, the answers to the questions that plagued me seemed so different. Of course I should tell him the truth and let him complete the bond. Of course we could find a way to change Ophiucae’s heart. With Luther as my mate, there was nothing we couldn’t do.

He pulled back slightly, the sparks of magic in his blue-grey eyes casting just enough of a glow for me to see his face. He smirked at my tiny whine as his fingers slid out of me. A tendril of shadow took me gently by the chin, forcing me to hold his stare. He raised his glistening fingers to his mouth and, one by one, he licked them clean.

My thoughts emptied.