Page 51

He kicked the heavy door open, lunging back into the castle without ever breaking the carnal lock of our bodies. The corridors were a dark, passing blur, the chains of my dress rattling wildly against his white trousers as he carried me deep into the residential tier, his touch possessive, unyielding, and completely undone as he guided us toward his private chambers.

We collided with the door of his private chambers with a violent, echoing thud. Caspian didn’t slow down to clear the threshold cleanly; he reached blindly behind his back, twisting the iron handle and throwing his massive shoulder into the wood to force it open.

Inside, the shadows instantly rushing into the corners of the room to wall us off from the rest of the citadel. He didn’t make it to the bed. In one fluid, feral sweep of his arm, he cleared his massive desk. Inkwells shattered against the stone, heavy boundary ledgers scattered across the floor, and charcoal sketches of the vanguard lines fluttered into the dark like dying moths.

He lifted me higher, his grip iron-tight, and planted me squarely on the edge of the cleared wood.

The contrast of the cool oak beneath my bare thighs made me gasp, but the heat of his palms immediately incinerated the chill. Caspian’s hands slid slowly up my legs, his calloused thumbs dragging against the highly sensitive skin of my inner thighs. He gathered the damp, translucent white silk of my gown in his fists, pulling the material upward in one desperate, impatient motion. He lifted it over my head, peeling the clinging fabric from my body and tossing it into the dark. The chains clattered violently against the desk, leaving me completely bared to the room’s suffocating heat.

For a suspended, agonizing fragment of time, Caspian froze.

His eyes burned with an unhinged, predatory worship as he raked his gaze over my exposed body. He tracked the rapid, frantic rise and fall of my chest, the deep emerald fire in my stare, and the flush of my skin beneath the moonlight bleeding through his vaulted window.

Then, his restraint snapped entirely.

He lunged back into my personal space, his mouth hitting the column of my neck with a hungry, desperate ferocity. The sheer intensity of his touch turned my blood to mercury, a dizzying rush pulling hard at my stomach. I needed him closer. I needed to shatter whatever distance was left between us.

I pressed my palms against his chest, violently shoving the torn white silk shirt down his broad shoulders, pinning his arms until he wrenched completely out of the sleeves. My fingers slid instantly to the heavy band of his trousers, ripping at the fastenings with a lawless energy until the fabric pooled around his boots.

We were left in nothing but our underwear, our bare skin colliding in a chaotic rush of friction and heat.

Caspian bit softly at the curve of my shoulder, his teeth leaving sharp, intoxicating marks that tore a loud, uninhibited moan from the back of my throat. I couldn’t stop the sounds escaping my lips—it all felt entirely too good, a volatile current completely overtaking me. My hips automatically arched off the desk, my body pleading into his solid center as the Vesper-wine and the moons demanded absolute surrender.

“Caspian,” I whimpered against his jaw, the name a fractured, begging wire. “Please.”

He groaned, a dark, territorial sound that vibrated straight into my chest. He slid his large, warm hand slowly down my stomach, his knuckles trailing a path of pure fire before he parted my knees and slipped his fingers between my thighs.

My head violently shot back. The column of my throat exposed to the shadows as a breathless, ragged cry escaped my lips. The primal spark of his touch shattering the last of my control. I reached out blindly, running my hand through his thick hair, gripping the strands desperately as the raw magic of the solstice completely consumed us.

Caspian abruptly stilled, a harsh, jagged breath rattling through his chest as he pulled his hand back from between my thighs. The sudden absence of his touch left me burning, a hollow, frantic ache expanding through my core. He looked down at me, his eyes a dangerous, pitch-black abyss, his knuckles trembling against the wood of the desk.

“Are you sure, Tauriel?” he growls, his fingers biting deep into her hips with a desperate, feral urgency. “Because once I sink my hands into you, there’s no retreat. I will consume every piece of you, and I am never letting you walk away.”

Before he could question me further—before the logical traps of this castle could creep back into his head—I wrapped my arms around his massive neck and arched forward. I sank my teeth into the corded muscle where his shoulder met his neck, biting him hard enough to leave a stinging mark on his skin.

A dark, guttural growl ripped from the absolute depths of his chest, the vibration rattling straight through my ribs. The sharp strike of pain obliterated the last remaining threads of his hesitation. I slid my hands down his hips, gripping the final layer of white cloth clinging to his waist, and ruthlessly pulled it down his powerful thighs. His massive center bounced free into the shadow-drenched space, thick and heavy with an intimidating, relentless heat.

A violent jolt of shock struck my chest as my gaze locked onto him, but before I could even admire the staggering reality of his size, Caspian’s hands locked onto my hips. He ripped my own underwear down my legs in one brutal, impatient tear, sending the scrap of lace fluttering into the darkness.

He clamped his iron grip around the undersides of my thighs, his calloused fingers digging deep into my flushed skin as he violently dragged me forward to the absolute edge of the desk.

My back arched, my hands gripping the lip of the wood for leverage as my thighs were forced wide, completely exposing my weeping core to the freezing air of the room. Caspian’s chest rose and fell in hard, frantic heaves. He pressed his heavy center against me, lining himself up at the entrance of my heat.

He didn’t ease his way in. He didn’t offer a gentle transition.

With one feral, unyielding shove, he buried himself entirely inside me, driving deep until his hips slammed flush against mine.

A piercing scream of pure, unadulterated pleasure ripped from my throat, echoing off the high stone vaults of his chambers as the sheer, staggering fullness of him stretched me to the absolute limit. The physical sensation was a blinding fire that shattered my mind into a thousand pieces. I locked my legs tightly around his waist, my fingers clawing into the thick muscle of his shoulders as I pulled him down, entirely undone.

“More,” I screamed against his mouth, tears of raw ecstasy pricking my eyes as I rocked my hips into his massive frame. “Caspian, please—more. Give me more.”

He didn’t wait for the world to realign. He gripped my hips with an iron, bruising pressure. His calloused fingers digging into the flushed skin of my thighs as he drew back and drove into me again. The motion was punishingly deep, a rhythmic, feral assault that sent a seismic shockwave straight to my marrow. The cool wood of the desk slid beneath my bare back with every relentless thrust, a stark, freezing contrast to the absolute furnace of his body pinning me down.

A choked sob broke from my throat as I locked my legs tighter around his broad waist, my bare heels digging into the small of his back to pull him even deeper. I was completely undone, my hands clawing at his shoulders, my nails leaving desperate, red tracks down the dark labyrinth of his tattoos. He met my frantic movements with an unhinged force, his chest slamming against mine in a hard, ragged cadence that left no room for breath. Every stroke was pure fire, a heavy, sliding friction that targeted the very center of my pleasure until the tension inside my core tightened into an agonizing wire.

Caspian roared against my mouth, a dark, territorial sound as he quickened the pace. His head tilted back, the veins in his neck standing out in sharp relief as he drove into me faster, harder, his massive weight hitting me with a precision that threatened to shatter my sanity. The Vesper-wine and the raw carnal magic of the moons swelled to an absolute crisis point behind my eyes. I could feel the precipice approaching—a blinding, terrifying void that demanded everything I was.

“Caspian,” I panted, my voice a fractured, pleading wire as my hips rocked violently against his. “Right now. I can’t—Caspian, please—”