Page 174

Not ever.

At the sound of the door, he turned, a half grin on his face. Wondered if you’d gotten lost.

I snorted. “I think I could’ve slept in there. In fact, I might go back.”

Really? He abandoned the tunic he’d been selecting in a heap on the floor. Nothing I could do to convince you to stay?

He drifted toward me. His arms encircled my waist. I sank against him, my arms going around his neck. “Maybe I could think of a few things.”

I kissed him. Together we staggered toward the bed, breathless, weary, invigorated.

With a heated gleam in his eyes, Roark scooped me up and dropped me over the mattress. He tugged the simple shift over my head, baring me to him.

With a low rumble in his chest, Roark reared over me, legs and arms tangled. His mouth trailed the soft curve of my neck. His fingertips traced over the scrapes and gashes littering my body. He kissed the bruises across my breasts, sucking and licking away the pain until I arched my spine, my throat bared, pleading for more of him, his mouth, his touch.

Roark slid his palm between my breasts, speaking there. Willing to stay yet?

I moaned when his thumb drifted over the swell of my breast, teasing one hardened nipple. “I might…need more convincing.”

All at once he pulled away from me.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I lifted my head.

Convincing you.

I thought I might scream threats against his life if he did not return until a creeping cold skirted up the inside of my thighs.

Complaints choked off. Ribbons of shadows caressed my legs, then yanked my thighs apart with enough force I cried out in stun.

A frigid breath blew against my core, and I nearly fell apart. Roark held the fractured soul with ease, shifting between his warm, commanding touch and the dangerous frost of Skul Drek.

My eyes rolled back in my head, and I opened myself, letting the dark prince do whatever he wished to me.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Roark moved his hands in the same line down my breastbone, my belly, as his mouth.

I arched my spine, desperate to feel his mouth at the drenched center of my thighs.

He paused, then grinned with a hint of slyness. Do you know that for you I would burn this world?

My breath came out in rough gasps as Roark hooked my legs over his shoulders. His vicious tongue, his wicked shadows licked and caressed my soaked core with the perfect suction and pressure.

I lost my thoughts to a bleary fog.

When the rush of release took me, I screamed his name, uncaring if the whole of the clan heard. Roark’s rough breaths heated my thighs. He curled an arm around my waist and flipped me onto my stomach.

His teeth scraped against my jawline, his fingers circling across my shoulders, one word: Knees.

Limbs trembling, I leveraged onto my hands and knees.

Roark moaned, unashamed, and ran a palm down my spine, giving attention to every divot. Darkness brushed across my cheeks and around my throat, tightening until my body trembled.

Two fingers dragged along my core from behind. Roark hummed in satisfaction, gesturing against my cheek, So wet for me.

“Yes.” I could barely mumble the word.

Roark kissed my throat, his tongue tracing a small scrape—not from anything fearsome but from a damn branch.

He pressed a palm against my shoulders and bent me forward, lowering me to my elbows. He tugged on my hips, angling them higher. The mattress shifted when he kicked off his trousers.