by Bec McMaster
The sounds he made were delicious. And she licked and lapped at him until he was begging her for respite.
Every inch of him was shaking as she straddled his hips and tiptoed her fingers up his abdomen. “Half a minute, Marduk. I’m a little disappointed. I thought you had more restraint than that.”
Marduk raked a hand over his face, breathing hard. “I have no restraint when it comes to you. You’ve been torturing me for years. What did you expect?”
She laughed.
“But be warned, sweetheart. Turnabout is fair play.” He captured her bottom in both hands, hauling her forward until she was straddling his shoulders.
“Marduk!”
“Now this is a familiar sight,” he whispered, his palms urging her forward even as his eyes gleamed with wicked delight.
“Marduk,” she cursed, capturing the headboard.
She was supposed to be in control.
“Tell me yes.” He said the words like some sort of challenge. “Let me apologize. Let me worship you. Command me, Solveig. Tell me to fuck your sweet wet quim with my tongue.”
The muscle in her thighs strained.
This was a foolish idea.
He was merely mocking her again—presenting to her the precise nature of her weakness.
But goddess, how she wanted it.
“How long do you think you can last?” he taunted.
“Longer than half a minute,” she whispered.
“Then sit on my face.”
Grabbing a fistful of hair, she ground herself against his mouth.
His tongue found her, and then she was at his mercy, truly at his mercy. Thighs clenching on either side of his face, she gripped the headboard and cried out, because true to his word, he was good at this.
Every stroke of his tongue was like the lash of a whip, sending shockwaves of pleasure through her. There was no hesitance. No teasing. He ate at her as if he wanted to remind her who she belonged to. Fingers digging into her ass, he dragged his tongue along her, flickering it lightly over her clit.
And then he looked up the length of her body.
It was the look in his eyes that did it for her. Heat. Desire. A wicked, wicked intensity, as if he knew how easily he undid her. A finger found her from behind, teasing at her.
Solveig gasped, fighting the tremor running through her.
“That’s it, my queen.” He nuzzled at her thigh. “Scream my name.”
Surrender did not come naturally to her, but as he suckled at her clit, she found herself doing exactly that.
Solveig cried out as her entire body spasmed, biting into the flesh of her forearm. It was like lightning in a bottle, finally released. She broke and broke again, shuddering and whimpering as she rode him through it, his merciless tongue the whip that pushed her over the edge, again and again….
Until she could no longer move.
No longer breathe.
“Stop!” she gasped, clutching the headboard. “Stop.”
Marduk eased her down, and she collapsed against his chest, shuddering in the aftermath. Callused hands slid up her spine in gentle strokes. “Tiamat’s mercy, I’ve been dreaming of that for years.”
Every inch of her wanted to lie here in his arms, but she had to recover some decorum.
Solveig pushed herself upright, her thighs still quivering. “My turn,” she whispered, reaching between them.
His cock was throbbing with need, slickness leaking from the tip.
She sank down, sheathing the hard steel of it, a hiss driving from her lips. Gods. It had been too long, but she was so wet, it felt like she melted into him.
“Mercy.” Marduk’s hands clenched in her ass, a silent snarl curling his upper lip. He urged her to move. “You’re so tight.”
“All the better to ruin you with.”
Thighs flexing, she started to move. A slow, dangerous grind, her hands digging into his chest.
Their eyes met.
“My queen,” he whispered, surging up to capture her mouth even as he drew her closer.
Their lips clashed, tongues darting over each other. He tasted of her. And she licked it from his lips, even as she fought to ride him.
She couldn’t flex enough, couldn’t move.
It forced her to undulate instead, a slow roll of her hips that was not so much a claiming as a meeting of their bodies. She couldn’t fuck him. Not like this. Instead he kissed her and caressed her, luring her into some sort of semblance of mating.
Marduk growled in his throat, his teeth bared. “You’re so fucking perfect.”
Clasping her bottom, he ground her against the base of his cock, and she nearly saw stars.
“Marduk.”
“What’s wrong, love?” His whisper held a soft laugh.
“I’m supposed to be in control.”
“You are.” His whisper was a confession as he bit her shoulder. “You’ve always been in control. Maybe it’s time to let go?”
Soft kisses caressed her throat. She arched her neck, allowing him access. It felt so good. She was overwhelmed by sensation. His hands, his mouth, his cock filling her….
Hands skated up the muscles on either side of her spine. “You’re so beautiful and wild. I love it when you scream my name. I love it, Solveig.” He captured her face, and kissed the tip of her nose, his eyes serious.
She had nothing to say to that, because he was kissing her throat again, his hips rocking against her. His fingers clasped hers, until they were palm to palm.
And she was suddenly breathless with fear.
This was too much.
Too intense.
She bit his lip to reassert control, guiding his hands down her body.
He was merciless, his thumb splaying her wide open even as she rocked against him.
“Come for me,” he whispered. “Come, Solveig. Ride the winds.”
And she surrendered, her entire body arching as pleasure shattered through her once more.
Marduk rolled them, and then he was slamming into her, driving her pliant body into the bed, even as she screamed.
She was a mess of fury and motion, teeth sinking into the firm muscle where his shoulder met his neck. Nails digging into the skin of his back. Goddess. Harder. She wanted it to be harder. She wanted to ache, even as she wanted to claim him and mark him and destroy him in all ways—
Capturing her knee, he drove it upwards in a cage around his ribs. And then he was hammering into her, flesh slapping against flesh. His spine bowed, and she cried out as he threw his head back and came with a muffled groan.
Marduk collapsed atop her, gasping for breath. They were both sweat-slicked and panting, and for some reason she laughed, because she felt so relaxed she could stay here forever.
“I knew you’d be perfect,” he whispered, as he captured her hands and laced their fingers together on the pillow beside her face.
She could barely breathe herself.
Every inch of her was languorous with release. She felt shattered. Empty. Peaceful. Finally, finally at peace….
But now that she was coming down from the edge, there was a sense of blissful silence within her that made her wonder.
Her dreki lay at ease. She could sense it lashing its tail within her watchfully, but it was no longer tearing at her from the inside, trying to get out. No more claws shredding her from within. No more wings smashing at their cage.
What did this mean?
Solveig tried to reach within, but a rasp of stubble brushed against her throat, teeth threatening to mark her skin.
“Mmmm.” Marduk was moving within her again, his cock stiffening as if he’d caught his second wind.
“Again?”
“What’s wrong? Afraid I’m going to ruin you for all other dreki?”
“Hardly.”
“Really?” A chuckle burst through him, and he deliberately rocked against her firmly enough to touch on that center of nerves. Lightning laced through her as he laughed. “Because I’m fairly certain you
lost control of yourself there for a moment. Admit it, Solveig. There will never be another in your life.”
She tangled a fist in his hair. “You’re not that good.”
“No?” He withdrew from her body, and then his hands found her hips and he flipped her onto her knees.
She had never, ever found herself on hands and knees before a male before, and even as she threw a hiss over her shoulder, he set both hands on her hips and thrust within her again.
The shock of his depth tore a cry from her throat. She stopped fighting. Instead, it became a battle to keep herself from collapsing as he ground within her, his hand skimming along her spine and knotting in her hair.
“Do you want to know a secret?” Marduk whispered in her ear as he hauled her upright, one hand sliding over her breasts and the other still knotted in her hair.
“What?”
“You lied to me before when you said you didn’t lose control. Do you want to know how I know?”
Solveig turned her face and bit his wrist, but he laughed and flexed within her. Her eyes nearly rolled back in her head.
“I know,” he whispered, as he forced her back onto her hands, “because I can still feel your teeth in my throat. You marked me, Solveig. And I liked it. And now it’s my turn to leave my mark on your skin….”
17
“Do your shirt up,” Solveig said primly, as they ventured toward the set of apartments Árdís had been given. “We’re at a foreign king’s court. Nobody needs to see your chest.”
Marduk shot her a lazy smile. “It’s not the sight of my chest that bothers you though, is it?”
He could still feel her teeth sinking into his throat, and the perfect imprint of them remained behind, bruised into his skin.
If it was up to him, he’d show the world. She’d lost control and marked him, and he loved it.
“You want my shirt closed,” he told her, “then close it.”
It was close enough to her commands last night that he saw fury flash through her dark eyes. A queen on the edge. But it wasn’t mere anger that lit her face like that.
They paused outside Árdís’s door. Yanking his shirt together, she shoved the buttons through each loop. “One night, I promised you. One. And it’s done, Marduk.”
It was far from done.
He leaned closer, sleepy-lashed and hungry. “So you’re going to share a bed with me tonight and not touch me?”
Solveig glanced up from beneath her lashes.
He wanted to kiss the tip of her stubborn nose.
“Fight it,” he whispered. “You’ll lose. Eventually. And then we can come together like a clash of storms again.”
“So. Arrogant.” She tugged the top button of his shirt together. “I swear you were put on this world to frustrate me.”
Torchlight gleamed in her dark eyes, turning them into obsidian flames as she muttered to herself and slipped the last button into its loop. He didn’t even think she realized what she’d just said.
Because if he was put on this world for her, then he would have known by now. He would have felt something, wouldn’t he?
Sharp fingers squeezed his heart. He’d never dreamed of such a thing before. He’d never desired it.
Until he finally realized what the lack of it meant.
They were not soulmates, destined for each other.
And for the first time in his life, as he looked down at her dark head, he wanted it to be real.
“Marduk?” She glanced up as if she’d sensed his distraction.
He had to say something.
“You’d think the mark would fade,” he whispered as she released the top button. “I always heal within a matter of hours. But the bite is still there.”
“Shut up.”
“Is yours still there?” He let his thumb brush against the undercurve of her breast, right over the spot where he’d bitten her.
Heat surfaced in her cheeks. Fury in her eyes.
But as their gazes met, he saw a sense of hesitation there. She who never hesitated, and yet it was written all over her skin.
“What?” he whispered, trying to chase down her thought.
“Nothing.”
“You’re such a liar.”
She growled in her throat.
“You are,” he told her. “I thought we were sharing secrets now. What’s wrong?”
Solveig glanced half to the side, her hands resting on his shirt. “My dreki’s gone quiet within me. I don’t know what it means.”
“Maybe she’s exhausted? I did keep you busy last night.”
Confusion notched itself between her brows. “You don’t understand. It’s never quiet when you’re around. It’s always….”
“What?”
But she drew back as if she realized she’d said too much.
“Solveig.” He caught her wrist. Why would she never simply give in? Why did everything between them have to end in a fight? “It’s always… what?”
Solveig glared at him. “Fighting me. It’s always fighting me.”
It wasn’t what he’d expected her to say.
Marduk drew back. To be attuned to your dreki was to be one with yourself. Sometimes it overruled him—there’d been that moment in the throne room the other day when he’d nearly torn Draco’s head from his shoulders for daring to touch her—but he was mostly in control of himself. And while it sometimes overwhelmed him with its primal instincts, it was never a battle between them.
“How long has it been fighting you?”
Her lips pressed firmly together.
But it felt as though the skies suddenly opened.
It’s never quiet when you’re around….
Why do you hate me so much? You hated me from the first moment you saw me….
“That’s why you hated me? You took one look at me and your dreki decided to hurt me?”
“Not you!” Frustration darkened her face. “Me. It was trying to…. I don’t know. It just…. It hurt. It feels like being ripped apart from the inside. There you were, and all of a sudden my dreki was screaming inside me, trying to batter its way out of my chest. Every time I saw you it felt like an explosion of pain and fury and need and—”
“Need?”
Color turned her cheeks a pretty rose color. “Of course, you would focus on that one word. Of course. You were pretty, Marduk. I’m not going to lie. And this… animosity between us could always have gone one of two ways. To bed. Or to war. But I always knew that if we ended up in bed, you would destroy me—”
“Destroy you? I never intended anything of the sort. I’ve never once given you reason to think that I wanted to—”
“Oh, really?”
“Not then. Not when we first met. I was trying to be polite. You tried to murder me. And even when I sang that stupid poem, I had no intentions of hurting you. I was…. Fuck, I was young, and stupid, and you’d put a knife in me for daring to try and kiss you.”
“If I’d meant to kill you, I wouldn’t have given you a mere flesh wound.”
“Flesh wound?”
“None of it made sense,” she snapped back. “It hurt, and it was all you, and I was…. I was out of control for the first time in my life. I didn’t know what was going on. I still don’t! Except, for the first time since I met you, it no longer hurts!”
Marduk stilled, his chest heaving.
Because he was no longer that foolish young prince, and they’d spent so many years fighting that he was well and truly tired of it.
Damn it. Marduk cupped his palms behind his head, trying to think. “When precisely did it fall quiet?”
Her mouth took on that mulish slant he knew too well.
Despite himself, he smiled. “So I was that good, huh?”
He was ready for the punch that came his way and caught her fist in his. Hauling her into his arms, he dragged her toward the nearest window ledge and sat, pulling her into his lap. “Relax. I was joking.”
“It is not a laughing matter.”
/> She sat so primly, but at least she was allowing him this. Marduk brushed the backs of his fingers up and down her spine. In the wake of last night, when he’d spent hours pleasing her, he’d have expected to have had his fill, but he couldn’t stop touching her.
“Sex is primal,” he said with a shrug. “So is the dreki. Maybe it’s had its fill of whatever it needed?”
“I’ve had sex before.”
“Not with me.”
Solveig’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”
His heart skipped a beat. This confession was worth its weight in gold, because she never dropped her guard. Ever.
And he forced himself to stop smiling, because if she was going to lower her shield, then he could only do likewise. “Maybe we should have done this ten years ago? It might have saved us both a lot of heartache and suffering.”
“Heartache?”
He gave her a slow, determined look. “You can pretend if you want to, but I know I hurt you.” He chewed on his lip before confessing in a quiet voice, “And I know you hurt me.”
It made her draw back, until they were nose to nose. Light spilled through the window, her hair shining like black silk.
“Did you think you hadn’t? I lied when I said I didn’t think of you in those ten years. I did.”
“Dreki can’t lie.”
“They can if they believe it,” he pointed out. “And I was willing to take the risk that my magic might latch onto the words, because to tell you the truth meant… admitting it to myself.” He brushed his fingers through her hair. “You were the one woman who might have ruined me.”
She sat so still, he could hear her heart racing. “Stop telling me your weaknesses, Marduk. I’ll only use them to destroy you.”
“If you truly meant to destroy me, then you wouldn’t warn me. You speak a good game about being ruthless, but you have morals and you have self-imposed rules. You won’t break them.”
Stalemate. He could see it in her eyes, and he gave into desire and kissed her.
It was a soft kiss. Gentle. A little tender.
Solveig squirmed and then broke the caress with a gasp. But she didn’t fight her way free of him. Merely rested her forehead against his.
It felt strange to nestle here with her in his arms. His thumb slowed its hypnotic glide over her hip. His heart skipped a beat.