“Do you know what I want to do to you?” he rasped against her lips. She was nodding, knowing nothing, certain of everything.
His hand slid up her ribs and closed around her breast. Gwyn’s world slewed sideways. He was a magician, he knew exactly what he was doing to her, working her with expert caresses, making her cry out in longing and hope for some unknown release. Never before had she felt heat where she felt it now, sizzling through her blood, throbbing between her legs. He moulded his hands against the tapestry like it was her skin, seducing her, loosing little rivers of hot wanting that pulsed up and down her spine, laying claim with such breathtaking skill her body bucked of its own accord.
When her body shuddered, Griffyn almost took possession of her right there. Spread her thighs apart with his knee and plunged himself into her wetness. The hot place between her thighs stroked against his erection, pushing, prodding, dangerous, perfect pleasure. Tongue, lips, sucking, teasing, the woman was good and he ached to slide her legs apart and make her fill the room with howls of pleasure. Her hands were around his neck, her thighs quivering on the tabletop, her body arching backwards into his invasion. She was ready.
A pounding erupted at the door. Bham, bham, bham!
Someone was hammering at the door.
He ripped his mouth away. “Leave us,” he growled, but the door was flung open before the words were out.
“Pagan!” Alex ran in shouting. “There’s news!”
Griffyn spun, planting his body in front of Raven’s, his hand going reflexively for a non-existent sword.
Alex put his heels to wood. “Pagan?” he said more quietly, and hesitantly. His gaze avoided lifting over Griffyn’s shoulder. “There’s news.”
Griffyn nodded, but his words were soft-spoken and lethal. “Go. Now.”
“My lord.” Alex bent his head and retreated out of the door.
Gwyn sat up. They were frozen in their positions for half a minute, then he felt her shift behind him.
“I should just shrivel up and die now, really,” she said quietly.
He turned around. Poor idea. She was barely human, all hot desire and imagination. Quivering body, dark hair spilling over the table, tapestry beginning to part and reveal silky inner thighs, debauched she would be if she did but inhale again.
He spun on his heel and crossed to the opposite end of the room. Outside the storm had descended with riotous enthusiasm. Propping the heels of his hands on the wall, he dropped his head and stared at the floor, trying to calm his breathing.
A rustling drew his attention back to the table. He shifted his gaze to peer under the length of his outstretched arm. She was sliding off the table. Her feet hit the ground with a small thump.
“I believe ’tis my turn to say I am sorry,” she said.
He looked away and shook his head. “Nay. ’Tis I, again, who am at fault.” His muffled words rose up from between his outstretched arms.
“No.” He heard her coming, the soft padding of her feet, the slight whisper of the ridiculous tapestry trailing behind her. He spotted a blotch of red fabric out of the corner of his eye. “You told me,” she insisted. “You warned me.”
He took one hand off the wall and rubbed it along his jaw. He drew a deep, centering breath. “And I knew you were not one to listen. I should have left.”
Her hand touched his arm briefly, then dropped away. “I knew what was happening.” Her face flushed pink. “I mean, I did not know, but I…I am sorry. I will be…good.”
Feeling slightly relieved that they were talking again rather than wrapped in a lust-pounding embrace, he pulled back from the wall and looked at her skeptically. “Does that mean obedient?”
A smile pressed against the corners of her lips. He could see the dented dimple beginning to peek out again. God, to have a woman like this.
“I expect it does not, but we may hold out hope,” she observed dryly.
He chuckled low in his throat, feeling strangely weary after this battle of seduction. “Mistress, if ever you become docile, may God have mercy on all our souls.”
“He will surely spare a pagan.”
“He will surely damn me for what I was about to do.”
“But I would not.”
God’s truth, she was perfection. Brave spirit, intelligent eyes, body of a seductress, she was funny and sweet and like nothing he’d ever known before.
Not for him.