“This is...you are...” He didn’t stop until he was fully seated, filling her. His eyes rolled back in his head. “Everything!”
The pleasure...aah! She was coming undone already. Coming, coming, coming, flooded by euphoria spiced with connection and possession. Her inner walls spasmed around him, no part of her unaffected. Roux owned her, period. Had marked her inside and out. Just as she had owned and marked him.
She’d promised to give him a story for his first time, but as he rocked inside her, harder and harder, driving her bliss higher, he became the author of the tale. Confident and assertive, an animal reduced to nothing but need. Body, mind, and being, he took her—branded her.
Blythe couldn’t tear her gaze from the savagery of his expression. At this moment in time, he hid nothing from her. She saw it all, everything he felt for her. The consuming lust. The desperation and ferocity. An adoration she’d never noticed before. He looked at her as if she were his lifeline. The very reason he breathed.
“Say my name,” he commanded with his next plunge. “Let me hear it on your lips.”
“Roux. Roux.” Tension built all over again, reaching for a new pinnacle and...almost there...yes, yes... She came all over again. “Roux!” she cried, shuddering beneath him. Muscles clenched and limbs quivered.
He followed her over, throwing back his head and bellowing, “Lyla!”
When they sagged to the ground, panting and shaking, she curled into his side, wholly content. Felt so natural, being with him this way. As if they were two puzzle pieces joined together.
She combed her fingers through his hair and nibbled on his earlobe. “I hope you’re not worn out, Warden. This she-beast is far from done.”
Hours later, Roux clutched his female against him. Nonconstrictive but tight. There would be no slipping from his grip.
The contentment he felt right now...the sublime satisfaction... Nothing compared. He wanted this, wanted her, every day for the rest of eternity. He’d meant what he’d said. Anyone who tried to take her from him died screaming. But.
As they lay naked together, water crashing on the shore, smoke drifting over the blackened sky, worry infiltrated his thoughts. Had Blythe made love to Roux, or Laban?
“Do we need to stay on guard for angry wraiths?” she asked with a yawn.
“No. After the door closed, the dragons rose from hibernation beneath the cavern. Penelope healed and led her wraiths against them, but the dragon fire engulfed them, their ashes raining upon the land. If the wraiths recover, I’ll be amazed.”
“Are you kidding? How is that even possible? I was only gone a few minutes.”
His arm encircled her neck. With a little rearranging, he pinched her chin and tilted her face up toward his. “You missed a lot. Someone from a village used magic to screw with the time here. Hours have passed. I would have cut a hole in the atmosphere, but I feared bringing the dragons with me. They were starved for fried Astra.”
Her eyes widened. “Hours? Is time still screwed up?” If so, what would it mean for their return trip?
“Don’t worry. I’ll get us back.” He pressed a soft kiss into her lips. “Just want to hold you a while longer.Withoutthinking about the task.” Or her status as the queen of Ation. That he must remove her heart with trinite, killing her, or doom his brothers-in-arms to defeat. Unless he found another way.
He’d told himself he could do so. But could he? Would he? If he failed... He could not fail.
Sweat broke out on his brow. “There’s a more pressing matter to attend to, anyway. Laban.”
“Uh, I won’t talk about the task, and you won’t bring up Laban.” She squirmed and repositioned, draping her chest over his and resting her folded arms across his pectorals. Arousal surged anew, sharper and deeper despite this first true taste of rapture. “Instead, we’ll discuss my rules. For starters, your concubine gets the bootimmediately. I know you never slept with her, but I don’t care. She goes or dies, one or the other.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “I like your jealousy. And I agree. She goes. In return for my capitulation in this matter, you will move into my bedroom at the palace.”
“Capitulation, huh?” She snorted. “I’ll bunk up with you, but not right away. Not until I’ve spoken to Isla.”
“Though I wish for you to speak with her at the same time I speak with the concubine—immediately—I know it will take time for the little girl to adjust to her mother moving in with the male who killed her beloved daddy.” He wanted nothing to do with adding to the child’s suffering. Wished only to protect her from further hurts.
“Thank you for understanding.”
“But whether we are living together or not, wearetogether. From this moment forward. Say it.”
Baby blues glittering, she smiled. “Stop bossing me around, Warden. Haven’t you heard? It’s easier to catch a harphantom with orgasms than orders?”
“I’ve already caught my harphantom, and I’m not letting her go for any reason.” He slid a hand down her spine and squeezed her backside. “But Iamwilling to give her more of those orgasms.”
Her eyelids grew heavy, and her smile softened, turning wanton. “Perfect segue for my second rule. You give me pleasure where and when I want it. And Roux?” she said, wiggling against him. “I want it here, and I want it now.”
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