Evie was ecstatic for Clara and forgiving toward Calia.
Who would have ever guessed they would be captured?
Who would have thought that Maddoc would find her like the proverbial needle in the haystack?
She felt him at her back and relaxed against his embrace.
Evie tried not to think about her time with the Fragment.
She did not blame Dale, who had aided with their escape. But whenever she saw him, she was reminded of the things that had transpired.
Evie struggled to get beyond those vile memories that clung like a spider web.
She shivered, and Maddoc held her more tightly.
Evie realized joy was a fickle mistress, not easily obtained. All it took was a few seeds of evil and discontent to take root, and happiness could not flourish.
Something bad had entered the garden of her joy, and it sat and rotted. Evie felt as if she traveled through a garden, tending the wounds that she and Clara had discussed.
Yet they popped up like weeds, choking out the fragrant flowers inside her.
“Are you well?” Maddoc asked, his warm breath tickling her ear.
She let out a shaky breath.
“Yes,” Evie lied.
When Maddoc looked at her face, he thought her smile brittle.
Broken.
He held her close, kissing the top of her pale head.
He hoped for healing.
Uncertainty remained.
CHAPTER 24
“I am frightened,” Clara whispered. Her beautiful gown had been shed and lay in a violet puddle at her feet.
“Clara,” Matthew said quietly, his large hands kneading the bare skin of her shoulders, “I am anxious as well.”
Clara laughed. “I think for different reasons, my king.”
He kissed her ripe lips. “Aye.” He leaned back and eyed her critically.
“What are you looking at, sir?” Clara asked in a sardonic drawl.
“I know what is most attractive about you, wife.”
She giggled. “Oh, really? I imagine I might know.”
His gaze intensified as he jerked her to him so hard and fast that Clara gasped, her heart speeding.
“Do you now?”
Clara gave a small nod. Matthew had told her many times how beautiful she was, and Clara was most aware she was select. It was not mystery but pure biology.
“Nay,” Matthew said, holding her tightly against him with one strong arm. He spread his other hand across her chest, fingers splayed like lines of heat across her breastbone.
Guardian! But the man made her ache for him. She let out a low moan.
“It is who you be, Clara… who you have become.”
Surprised, she stared up at him. “What do you mean?”
Matthew feathered his fingers across her chest, dipping between her breasts. Her breath thickened inside her throat, stilling at his touch.
She swore she would not survive the lovemaking to come. However much she had longed for it, with it upon them, she knew not what to do, how to react.
“You let me be the barbarian that I am, while you remain the serene diplomat.”
“You are not a barbarian—”He put his finger against her lips.
She pulled the digit into her mouth and suckled it. He groaned.
“But I am.”
He removed his finger and sipped at her lips. He lifted his head just long enough to say, “And you love me regardless.”
Clara could not speak, think, or move.
Matthew's mouth worked across hers. His words were like water drops of regard for her, filling a bucket that spilled over the top and drowned her with his love.
He lowered his large hands to her buttocks and lifted her from the floor.
Eyes closed, she floated in his arms like a cherished feather.
He broke the kiss and lowered her onto the bed.
Candles flickered around the room, casting deep shadows on the walls.
Matthew noticed her looking around. “We are alone, Clara.”
She swallowed. “I know.”
“I have checked every door, wardrobe, cranny, and crevice, and the room be free of anything but dust.”
A nervous laugh burst out of her lips, and Clara held out her arms to him. But he shook his head.
Instead, he took off his sleeping tunic and tossed it aside.
Clara, who had seen his naked chest more times than she could count, blushed simply from the knowledge of everything else she had not. Matthew chuckled softly and swiftly untied the laces at the front of his pants. He slid off his breeches, springing free of the confines.
Clara sat straight up in bed, gazing at the proof of what made him male.
He did not move but waited through her blatant appraisal, legs spread, large hands on hips. A slow smile began to overtake his face as hers grew hotter the longer she continued to stare.
“I… oh…” Clara put a hand to her warm cheek.
“Am I up to your standard, my queen?” Though he kept his tone casual, his stomach was in knots.
He knew Clara was untried. He wanted her so badly his manhood throbbed with it.
He would rather die than hurt her.
Clara slowly nodded. “Yes, quite.”
Then all that hard-won control that Matthew had worked toward was lost when her small soft hand wrapped around the length of him.
Matthew hissed.
“Clara!” he rasped, between sweet torment and pain, his eyes snapping to hers.
She snatched her hand away. “Have I hurt you?”
Matthew sat on the edge of the bed. Clara continued to stare between his legs, and he grinned. “No. You have not… hurt me.”
“Then why did you…?”
“I want you. This part of my body cannot hide it. Your touch… is not unwanted, but it hastens my desire.” His eyes bored into hers with such intensity that a warmth spread from deep within Clara's body just from what she saw in his face.
“It will not be slaked until I am deep within you.”
Clara gripped his bare shoulders.
“I know.”
Matthew's eyebrows rose.
Clara smiled. “I am innocent, not an imbecile.” She got to her knees on the bed beside him.
Matthew turned to kneel beside her and drove his fingers through her hair. She moved against him, his rigid hardness against her belly.
He pulled away, and Clara gave a single nod of assent.
Matthew began to untie her corset, his eyes on hers the entire time.
As each string sprang free, the bodice loosened. When every tie was undone, Matthew unveiled her like a precious package, her breasts falling out of the garment.
He wanted to reverently caress what he was now allowed to have, her round creamy breasts taunting him with shell pink nipples.
He wanted to savage her with his mouth, tongue, and teeth.
He did none of it, but slowly covered her breast with his hand. Though she was small in stature, he did not have a large enough hand to hold her breast.
She was so perfect it was painful.
Clara was his.
When he had removed every piece of her clothing but her stockings, Matthew gazed up the line of her body. His eyes tripped at the cleft of her, broken only by a thatch of dark red hair, as perfectly constructed as the rest.
Her face was flushed.
“Do you like what you see?” In response, Matthew slid the silk stockings down her creamy leg, tugging them off her toes. He laid his face against the top of her foot, sucking a tiny toe into his mouth.
He looked up her body and met her eyes, her toe in his mouth as his long arm crawled up her leg. He reached the center of her, and Clara gasped at his gentle entry.
He released her toe and began to work inside her moist center with a finger, though it took a willpower he did not know he possessed to restrain himself from more.
“Yes, I like it very much.” He rose up and crawled over her body while he cont
inued to pleasure her with his hand.
“Matthew!” Clara cried softly, her head whipping to the side, tangling the hair in front of her face.
Matthew smoothed her tresses away with his free hand.
“Move against me, Clara. Let me pleasure you,” he said, daring to drive deeper.
She pressed her hips against his seeking hand.
When he felt her barrier, he did not force past it.
Their eyes met.
“It shall hurt,” Clara said.
He nodded. “Aye. Just this time.” Then he twitched his finger, and Clara moaned, arching her back against his hand. He added, “But if I can give you release, it will be easier for you. It will hurt less.”
His thumb moved to the top of her and slid inside where a bundle of little nerves lay. He moved his thumb back and forth as his other finger entered her. A wonderful tingling began, and she parted her legs further.
“That is it, Clara. Let it happen.”
He moved his thumb faster. She felt swollen and full, so full. A terrible need arose, like an itch that needed scratching. The fullness slid into an explosion of nerve endings that shattered inside her.
Clara gave a hoarse scream.
Matthew's hand was suddenly gone, and the tip of him was in its place. Her core pulsed around that little bit that he put inside her as her eyes found his.
Clara lifted her hips, but he hovered above her, seeking permission as every bit of him ached for her.
Clara smiled and pushed against him just as he rocked more deeply inside her, coming out, then in again.
The sensation was exquisite, and Matthew shuddered atop her.
“Clara…” He hung his head between his shoulders, only partially submerged within her depths.
She reached up and stroked his hair. Then she swiveled her small hips to catch more of him.
“Do not,” Matthew said, “or I may not last long enough to take you as I should.”
Clara whispered, “Take me… take me, then.”
And he did, sweeping inside her deeply with a single stroke.
Though he had prepared her, Clara cried out at the terrible burning of her innocence being torn.
She bit her lip to stifle the sound of pain.
“I am sorry,” Matthew said wretchedly, but he did not stop.
Virginity was a painful thing to transition regardless of how gentle, how ready.
And Matthew was not the smallest of males.
He rocked deeply inside her, meeting her end. He throbbed with the threat of his own release.
Clara moved her hips, breathing through the pain and urging him on. He drove inside her again, and she hissed.
“Please, do not stop,” she said with wide eyes.
Matthew pumped into her again, and when she moaned the next time, it was not from pain.
“I feel…” Clara began and bit her lip.
Matthew continued to move gently inside her. “What… do you feel?”
He wanted to hear her words… to see her pleasure.
“I want more.” She pushed against him with her hips. He stopped so he would not end it too early. “What is more?”
“Harder. Fill me, Matthew,” she said, clearly embarrassed.
Matthew grinned. He could do that. He buried himself deeply in a single gliding push that was not hard, but deep.
“Yes,” she moaned, writhing beneath him, “that is it.”
“Like this?” he asked, pulling out then filling her deeply again.
Clara nodded, and they came together, he sweeping inside, and she meeting him with her hips.
Key to lock.
“I am close…” Clara said, not knowing to what but something that built and grew to a shattering again of her senses.
She panted, meeting his flesh, and Matthew slowed, giving her the same deep rhythm but slower, fuller. When she seized from within, he could not contain his own release.
He drove inside a last time, shuddering.
Clara pulsed, and Matthew emptied inside her. They hung in the balance of that brief ecstasy but for a moment.
That lasted forever.
Epilogue
One year hence
Matthew laid his strong face against Clara's swollen belly, his large palms holding either side like a precious treasure. “Clara, he kicks.”
His grin was hidden by her belly, which arched in a graceful swell beneath breasts grown large for the babe she would bear.
For him, for them both.
He worked his hands around to the small of her back. He gently massaged the place he knew was tender from the extra weight she carried in her front.
“Mayhap it is a she?” Clara asked, her tone conveying her humor at his assumption that the baby must be male.
Matthew raised his head, his intense blue eyes drilling her to the spot, the heat in them unmistakable. Her insatiable warrior, hot-blooded and virile.
He gently pulled her against him with those hands that had moved over her body with tenderness, protected her against everything known to the sphere and beyond. They trapped her now in an erotic press of flesh that burned with their union, their biology mingling between them like food, the proof of which lay in the cradle of her body.
“I do not need two women to protect but a male child to train up as Band,” he stated emphatically.
Clara smirked, and she pressed the fullness of her bosom against the hard planes of his chest. He groaned and crushed her lips with his mouth.
When he raised his head, he gazed into her flushed face and whispered, “Minx.” His strong hands kneaded her hips as he gripped her tighter.
Then he showed her exactly what that meant.
THE END
Preorder Book Six, The Savage Dream, coming December 19, 2014
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Acknowledgments
It's been three years since my first book, Death Whispers, was published. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of my readers. Without you, I would not have an audience for my work. Your support, recommendations, encouragement, and critical feedback have allowed my improvement as a writer and as a human being. Ironically, words are inadequate for expressing the depth of my gratitude. Please know how much your support has meant and will continue to mean in the future.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Danny
Cameren: Without you, there would be no books.
Special thanks to the following special peeps: Angie, Beth Dean Hoover, Dii, Dannika, and Shana B. for all your help and support.
More Books by Tamara Rose Blodgett
Death Series:
Death Whispers
Death Speaks
Death Inception
Death Screams
Death Weeps
Unrequited Death
For the Love of Death (preorder)
Savage Series:
The Pearl Savage
The Savage Blood
The Savage Principle
The Savage Vengeance
The Savage Protector
The Savage Dream (preorder)
The Blood Series:
Blood Singers
Blood Song
Blood Chosen
Blood Reign (preorder)
The Reflection Series:
The Reflective 2014
Books written under the pen name, Marata Eros.
Dark Paranormal Erotica
The Demon Series:
Brolach
The Druid Series:
Reapers
Bled
Harvest
Sow
Seed
Plow
Thresher
The Druid Breeders
Baird (preorder)
The Siren Series:
Ember
Constantine
Brandon (preorder)
*
Dark Romance
Novels:
A Terrible Love
A Brutal Tenderness
The Darkest Joy
In Broken Love- 2015
The Token Series:
The Token
The Token 2
The Token 3
The Token 4
The Token 5 (preorder)
The Token 6 (preorder)
The Token 7- Thorn
The Token 8- Kiki
*
Erotic Shorts
The Dara Nichols Series:
The following titles in one bundle of 8 short stories:
A Hard Lesson
To Protect and Service
The Thirteenth Floor
The Boardroom
The Four Whoresman
The Masquerader's Balls
The Ball Player
The Cock Tale
The Zoe Scott Series:
Smoldering Wet
Table of Contents
Dedication:
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
More Books by Tamara Rose Blodgett
savage 05 - the savage protector Page 20