Page 46 of Veil of Night & Flames

Adric. It hurts because it was Adric who saved him. A deadly wound, magically healed. And yet for him, it will always be a reminder of how his brother won again, this time by claiming me.

Gently, I brush the pad of my thumb over the scar. “I can belong to you and still be his bride.”

He shakes his head. “No. You can’t.”

I want to argue—to promise him that I mean it. That I want them both. But now isn’t the time.

Now is the time to simply be his, and as heat flares inside me, I pull him back onto the bed with me, then crawl over to straddle him once his head is on the pillow. I meet his eyes, then grin as I scoot down before kissing my way back up his thigh until I reach his cock. I look up long enough to see the heat in his eyes, then tease his cock with the tip of my tongue, relishing the way he tastes, all heat and lust and male.

“Christ, Cora,” he murmurs as I draw him in. I feel him go even harder in my mouth.

I keep my eyes open, watching his face, but even so, I don’t see it coming—the way he shifts his hips and pulls me up, then kisses me deep before he rolls us so I’m on my back, and he’s moved to kneel on the floor at the foot of the bed.

“Chase,” I begin, but he puts a finger to his lips, then wraps his hand around my ankles and pulls me down so that my ass is at the foot of the bed and I’m losing my mind from the erotic feel of the cool air hitting my bare skin—and his heated, unrelenting gaze.

“Chase,” I murmur, fighting the urge to squirm, certain my cheeks are blood red.

“Hush. I want to take in every inch of you.”

I nod and bite my lower lip, ignoring my burning face as I force myself to watch his eyes moving over me, slow and hot and wildly erotic. His hand traces a slow line from my collarbone to my breast to the soft skin of my belly. Then lower and lower until his fingers slide between my thighs—and the breath leaves my body in one long, ragged exhale.

“God, Cora.”

“Chase—”

“You’re soaked.”

“I’ve been soaked since we got here.”

That gets me a soft laugh, and then his fingers are doing things to me that drive every coherent thought out of my head.

His thumb finds the place that sends wild, heated ripples through me, making me moan as I arch up, as if I can launch myself into heaven.

Then his fingers thrust inside me, slow and deep, and I cry out with a wild, desperate need. His mouth closes over my breast, and his thumb teases a path around my nipple, slow then faster as if he can tell that the heat that’s been building since the door closed behind us is coiling tight and hot, and I’m so close. So blissfully, wonderfully close…

“Chase—”

“Let go.”

“Not yet. I want⁠—”

“Let go, Cora. I want to watch you come.”

As if his words opened a gateway, the orgasm crashes over me like a wave, and now all I feel is white heat and his name on my lips and his hand still moving, riding me through it.

I squirm shamelessly, wanting to claim every tiny bit of this sensation. Wanting it to never, ever end.

As if he understands, his mouth closes on my breast, his fingers still busy between my legs, and I fist my hand in his hair as I arch up, my entire body exploding, then again and again and one last time until I’m spent and tingly and lost someplace that feels like heaven.

“Wow,” I say as he smiles down on me. “You deserve a medal.”

He laughs. “I’ll just take you as my prize.”

“I can live with that. I bite my lower lip, then lift my brows. “So long as you take payment now.”

“I do love a woman who thinks like me,” he says, as he settles back over me. Skin to skin. His mouth on mine. His cock right at my core. I try to stay still, but patience is a virtue I’ve never possessed, so I cup his ass with my hands and thrust my hips up as he pushes into me again, so deep I can’t help the wild sound that comes out of me begging and pleading for more.

“Look at me,” he says, moving inside me.