by Nalini Singh
Still on tiptoe, she suckled kiss after kiss along his neck, his folded arms pressing against her torso. When she stopped to go back down flat on her feet, his eyebrows drew together in a heavy scowl. Heart thudding from the taste of him—hot skin and salt and Micah—she said, “If you’d sit down on the bed, I could go about this easier.”
Pure suspicion in his expression, but he stalked to sit on the edge of the bed, his thighs spread. Those thighs were thick with muscle and coated in black armor that flowed over him with gleaming faithfulness. Not giving herself a chance to change her mind, she kicked off her shoes and straddled him in an echo of their loving in the great hall, curving her legs behind his back and locking them at the ankles.
He caught her with his hands on her waist but didn’t do anything else. Leaning down, she made good on her promise, suckling long, slow kisses down the other side of his neck. She stopped to lick at his pulse before retracing her journey. Still his hands remained locked in place, but his heartbeat pulsed hotter, faster…and his armor disappeared from his arms.
Wanting to moan at the sight, she reached out to shape and caress his bare skin, using her mouth on his jaw at the same time. His stubble was rough against her lips, a decadent sensation, his own lips firm. Moving her hand back to curve around his neck, she kissed him with soft sucks and licks.
It lasted about two seconds.
Fisting his hand in her hair, he angled her head the way he liked and then he devoured her mouth with a carnal intent so blatant that her legs clenched around the intrusion of his body.
“Are you wet between your thighs?” It was a rumbling question as he allowed her to breathe. Not giving her a chance to answer, he began to tug at her dress until it was over her bottom at the back, bunched between their bodies at the front. “Shall I touch you and find out?” Fingers playing over her thigh.
“I’ll tell you,” she whispered, breath coming in jagged gasps.
“You might lie.” His fingers on the inside of her thigh now, so close to her underthings.
“I won’t.” She nuzzled at him with an affection that felt utterly natural when she’d never had a chance to be affectionate with anyone, having learned never to love anything or anyone after her father murdered Bitty, for the Blood Sorcerer would take that love from her. But she couldn’t help it with Micah. “I promise.”
The slightly rough skin of his finger stroked along the edge of the fine fabric. Her heartbeat accelerated, her breath coming in soft puffs of air. Part of her wanted him to make good on his silent threat, so starved was she for his touch. But the rest of her…she needed him to believe her. To forgive her.
“I’m still angry.” Spoken against her mouth. “But I’ll let you tell me.”
Shuddering as he moved his hand back down to close over her thigh with stark proprietariness, she swallowed, said, “Yes.”
“Yes?” He squeezed her thigh. “I want more words.”
They stuck in her throat. Even after everything she’d done with Micah, all of it so scandalous it was obvious she was no respectable girl, she couldn’t say such a thing. It was a step too far over the line.
Kisses on her cheek, along her jaw, back up to her ear. “Say the words, Lily.” A husky order. “Say them and I’ll suck your pretty little nipples for you.”
Thunder roared in her ears, her mind overflowing with images of Micah’s mouth at her breasts, tugging hot and deep and strong. Rubbing her cheek against the abrasive skin of his jaw as he caught the sensitive flesh of her earlobe between his teeth, licked, she said, “I…I’m…” Her throat dried up, her fingernails digging into his nape.
He released her earlobe. “I’ll suck so hard.” A coaxing whisper that was all male, as was the rigid cock pressed against her. “Until they’re tight and pouty and make me want to use my teeth.”
Sliding his hands down to her bottom, he repositioned her so she rode flush against his arousal. So hard and close that she realized the armor was gone. But he remained clothed in black, the fabric a thin barrier between them.
“For me, Lily.”
And the words tumbled out. “I’m wet between my legs. Needy and hot and—”
A hand gripping her jaw, holding her in place as Micah took her mouth his way again, demanding entrance and then demanding her full participation. Thrusting her hands into his hair, she gave him everything. The taste of him, dark and compelling and wild, was in her every breath, in her blood itself.
It took a deep masculine groan, his hand squeezing her bottom, for her to realize she was rubbing herself against the hard ridge of his erection in time with the thrusts of his tongue in her mouth. Too needy to be shocked, she continued her wanton actions, not stopping even when he broke the kiss to taste his way down the line of her neck, sucking hard enough over her pulse that he had to have left a mark.
He encouraged her to shameless excess, using his grip on her to urge her to increase her speed, ride against him even harder. But the position wasn’t quite right, and she couldn’t rub against the spot she needed. Brazen in her frustration, she tried to get closer, was foiled by the bunched-up fabric of her dress. “Please touch me.”
“That tiny nub?” Kissing her without waiting for an answer, he inserted his hand down the back of her underwear and touched her not where he’d said…but at the pulsing entrance to her body, pushing in with a single rough-skinned fingertip.
Her entire frame went taut, arrows of sensation spearing out to every extremity. She knew she was dampening his hand, knew she was writhing on him, but she didn’t care. An instant later, the tiny muscles low in her body clenched hard.
It left her gasping for breath on his chest, her face buried against his neck. Murmuring in complaint when he removed his hand, she raised her head and watched with passion-hazed eyes as he lifted his finger to his mouth and— “Micah.”
“You taste good, Lily.”
Wrung out from the pleasure that had just torn through her, she should’ve been limp and crawling. Instead, the place between her thighs tingled in anticipation, her breasts painfully tight against the coarse material of her dress.
“Now I will suck your nipples.” With that, he took the front of her dress in both hands and tore.
She didn’t protest, and all too soon, the coarse sensation was gone, to be replaced by the heated air. Her bare breasts rose up and down in a sharp rhythm, as if she was inviting his touch, but though he never moved his eyes off the small mounds, he didn’t touch her there until he’d torn the upper half of her dress completely off her body.
Only then did he span her rib cage with his hands. The sensation was beyond wonderful, but nothing came close to the impact of those eyes watching her with absolute focus. “They’re small,” she blurted out, because she couldn’t stand it anymore.
Micah’s answer was to dip his head and suck one begging nipple into his mouth. Trembling from the hot burn of pleasure, she thrust a hand into his hair and held on for the ride. He sucked and rolled her nipple like it was a favorite treat, playing and tugging with the unkissed one at the same time before covering her entire breast with his palm and squeezing.
“I like this,” he said, raising his head to devour her mouth before glancing down at her breasts again.
Not sure she could take that depth of eroticism, she nonetheless followed his gaze. Shuddered. Her nipple pouted taut and wet from his mouth, her breast flushed and red under the brown of her skin. As she watched, he continued to fondle her other breast with a big, confident hand.
“Don’t look away.” Switching his focus with that husky order, he began to pet her already pleasured breast with his hand, his mouth closing over the nipple he hadn’t earlier sucked. The first decadent tug had her crying out, her eyes locking with those of winter-green as his lashes lifted.
It was a shocking intimacy.
Perhaps that was why she said it. “Harder.”
Making a rumbling sound in his throat, he shifted his free hand to her back and pressed her impossibly
closer as he obeyed her command, taking more of her breast into his mouth at the same time.
“That feels so good,” she said, scandalized at herself, but continuing to speak because Micah liked it. “The other one again. Please.”
Releasing her nipple with a wet sound, he demanded a kiss before giving her what she wanted, rolling and tasting her nipple like it was a lushberry, one he intended to savor.
It made her wonder if he would give the nub between her thighs the same intense attention. “You make me have wicked thoughts.”
“Good.” He continued to suck and fondle her breasts with open enjoyment.
When she found the strength to whisper, “Are you still angry?” in his ear, he released her nipple with a graze of his teeth, and said, “Yes.”
She kissed the spot beneath his ear, made her way down his neck to the seduction of his pulse. “Are you sure?”
“Perhaps once I’ve licked you between the legs, I’ll change my mind.”
Every nerve in her body quivered in response. She knew full well he wasn’t angry at her any longer, but the Lord of the Black Castle had a way of getting what he wanted. So when he lifted her off him and placed her on the bed, she didn’t protest. Neither did she protest when he pulled away the remains of her dress, to leave her clothed only in thin underwear so soaked through it clung to the plump folds between her legs.
Coloring as he spread her thighs to kneel in between, she said, “I want to give you pleasure.” Her eyes dropped to his erection, so rigid behind the black material of his pants. “I could…I could suck you, too.”
A hard, possessive brand of a kiss. “You will,” he said, rising back into a sitting position. “Later.”
Her mouth watered. Never had she expected to have a lover, but she was a woman. She’d had dreams. However, not even in her most secret dreams had she dared hope for a lover who would be so unabashed about what he wanted and liked that he turned her bold and sinful, too.
Shifting so she could close her legs, he said, “Turn over.”
Surprised, she did as asked. He didn’t torture her with suspense, spreading her thighs again and resettling himself. Then he tugged her underwear down to just below the curve of her buttocks, as if framing the sight. Clenching her fingers in the sheets, she forced herself not to wiggle, not to protest, though she was mortified by the spectacle she must present.
Micah’s hands on her flesh. “You’re soft here, Lily.”
She moaned, because his hands, those strong, confident hands, felt exquisite on her.
“I like that sound you make,” he said, leaning down to lave kisses on her neck, the heat and weight of him making her feel deliciously trapped.
She protested when he rose back up, but he trailed a single, bold finger down the cleft of her buttocks and parts of her mind just hazed over. Then he started talking.
“When I’ve been inside you two or three times,” he said, squeezing and petting, “then I will lie over you thus while we are both naked and rub my cock along here.” That bold finger returned. “Would you like that, Lily?”
Chapter 22
Sinful, that question was too sinful to answer. But she did so, anyway, because she wouldn’t lie to Micah ever again. “Yes.”
“Good.” Sliding one hand under her even as he spoke, he cupped a taut, sensitive mound, capturing her nipple between thumb and forefinger. “I like your nipples as much as this.” A luxuriant caress over her exposed curves, his hand hot, his skin rough.
She couldn’t take it anymore. Bucking against him, she somehow managed to get herself onto her back, her hair sticking to perspiration-damp skin, her legs tangled up in her underwear. Micah tore them off, allowing her to spread her legs around his big body. She tugged at the thin black material that covered his chest. “Take this off.” She’d seen but not had the chance to caress him as she’d wanted in the great hall. “I want to kiss you there.”
He smiled.
And she realized she’d become as bad as him.
But there was something to be said for being upfront in her demands because he rose up onto his knees and tugged the fabric off over his head to throw it to the floor. Reaching up as he came back down over her, she splayed her hands over the heated silk of a chest that would have surely sent her to ruin if he hadn’t already taken care of that several times over. Lightly covered with curls of golden hair that arrowed down in a thin line to the waistband of his pants, it made her want to lick and bite and do things she’d never, ever considered doing to a man.
When she curved her hands over his sides, tugged him down, he lowered himself until she could reach him with her mouth. Oh, but he felt good against her lips, her tongue. The satin of his skin, the crisp roughness of his chest hair, the salt of his scent. She went to hook a leg over his waist, but he shifted, taking her with him so she ended up on top.
Too delighted at her new ability to explore him as she wished to worry about the wandering hands that stroked along her back to close over one of his favorite parts of her body, she kissed her way down to a flat male nipple. When she opened her mouth over it and sucked as he’d sucked hers, he fisted one hand in her hair. “Again, Lily.”
Melting at the growl she could feel beneath her palm, she obeyed. When she lifted her head, he said, “Why are you stopping?” The hand fisted in her hair nudged her back down.
She resisted. “The other side.”
He didn’t stop her as she tasted and explored him as she’d wanted to do for so long. Rubbing her cheek against his chest, she stroked her hand down his body, so hard and muscled and strong and beautiful—because he was Micah, who saw beauty in her, too, until she could almost see what he saw.
Pressing kisses down his chest, past the ridged muscle of his abdomen, she nuzzled at the line of hair that disappeared into the black of his pants. When she lifted her head to find him braced on his elbows, eyes of winter-green locked on her, she licked down the line. He made a rough, impatient noise deep in his chest. “I want your mouth on me.”
Oh, yes. Scrambling off the bottom of the bed, she undid the closures on his boots and pulled. It almost sent her tumbling to the floor but she got the left one off, then the right. But before she could crawl back up to undo his pants, he swung off the bed to take care of the task himself.
Four seconds later, he was all bare skin and muscle. Only her grip on the bedpost kept her upright. Especially when he reached down to fist the long, thick pulse of his erection. Not consciously thinking about her actions, she climbed back onto the bed and knelt on the edge, waiting. Micah’s fingers circled tight around the base of his cock as he walked to her.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” she asked, resting her palms on the rock-hard strength of his thighs, the crisp hairs on him a delicious friction.
“A little.” His breathing was rough, his skin hot. “But if I don’t do this, I will spill in your mouth.”
She clenched her thighs to quench the ache between. “I won’t mind.” Because this was Micah, the man she loved, the man who made her want to try everything and anything to see how it would feel. “You’ve tasted me,” she whispered, her breath gusting over the engorged head of his cock. “It’s my turn.”
His groan was deep as she fit her hand below his and took him into her mouth. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but loving him this way was better than anything she could’ve imagined. Though he was hard as rock, rigid and demanding, the skin against her tongue was almost delicate, the taste of him a dark musk that made her his slave.
“That feels good.” The guttural statement was followed by the removal of his hand.
He began to move in shallow thrusts against her tongue an instant later. Moaning, she sucked harder, wanting to give him the same pleasure he’d given her. When his hand tangled in her hair, she expected a push, got it an instant later.
She just barely grazed him with her teeth.
He snarled. “Lily!”
Stroking her mouth off him in a slow, teasing motion, s
he looked up. “You were trying to take over.”
The Guardian of the Abyss stared down at her. “And you are trying to make me be not angry.”
She smiled, blew a breath over the hot length now gleaming wet from her mouth. “You’re not angry.”
Growling in pleasure, he pulled on her hair. “Suck me.”
So wet between her legs that she might’ve been embarrassed by it had she not been so aroused, she held still as he slid between her lips, both of them craving the sensation. Except Micah’s patience was on a short leash—he began to speed up his short, shallow thrusts. His hands moved to cup the sides of her face at the same time, his thighs going rigid beneath her palms. Taking him as deep as she could, she heard him groan. And then he was spilling into her mouth.
Micah lay sprawled on his back on the bed, his chest still heaving from the intensity of the pleasure that Liliana had wrung from him. When she came to cuddle up next to his body, he wrapped an arm around her and tucked her to his side where she should be. They lay like that for a long time—until his blood no longer pounded, and his body began to stir again.
Taking her hand, he slid it down to his cock. “Stroke me until I’m hard,” he murmured, showing her what he liked best with his hand on top of hers. “I want to push inside you.”
Her skin heated up against him, but she didn’t hesitate in her caresses. “Are you never shy?”
Removing his hand because hers, soft and small, felt so much better, he said, “No.” He didn’t see the point of it. But Liliana was sometimes shy; he allowed it because he could tell what she wanted by her little cries and the way she twisted, and how damp she got, the scent of her earthy and erotic.
Making a rumbling sound deep in his chest, he gripped the back of her neck as she worked him with her hand. “We’ll do this often when we’re married.”
She stopped her long, hard pulls of his cock. “You can’t marry me, Micah.”
Reaching down, he urged her to continue. It felt so good. “I’m the Lord of the Black Castle. I can do whatever I want.”