The cold stone floor bit into her bare knees, but the pain was a distant echo compared to the fire in his grasp. His fingers, iron-strong, dug into the soft flesh of her jaw, forcing her to look up into the stormy grey eyes that had haunted her dreams for weeks.
“You belong to me now,” he growled, the low rumble of his voice vibrating through his hand and into her bones.
She trembled, a full-body shudder she couldn’t hope to control. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird in a cage. Run. Fight. Something. But her limbs were leaden, locked in place by the sheer force of his will and the terrifying truth of his words.
And then it pulsed.
A searing, white-hot throb around her wrist, right beneath the leather cuff she’d used to hide it. The mark. His mark. It burned with a vengeance, a cruel, magical reminder of the bond she’d signed in a moment of desperate hope, the bond she’d later tried to flee.
A whimper escaped her lips. His gaze, sharp and predatory, flicked down to her wrist and a dark, satisfied smile touched his mouth. “It remembers. Even if you choose to forget, your flesh remembers its master.”
He released her chin, his thumb stroking almost gently over the spot where his fingers had been. The contrast was maddening. He knelt before her, his large frame blocking out the rest of the world. The firelight played over the hard planes of his chest, visible through the open laces of his tunic.
“You ran from me,” he stated, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. His hand trailed down the column of her throat, over the frantic pulse there, and lower, to the neckline of her thin shift. A single calloused finger hooked into the fabric. “Did you think you could?”
She tried to shake her head, but the movement was feeble. Her breath hitched as his finger dipped lower, brushing the upper curve of her breast. The mark on her wrist pulsed in time with her heartbeat, a traitorous drumbeat of arousal that began to spread through her veins, warming her from the inside out. No. Don’t want this. But her body, attuned to his, was already betraying her.
“Answer me,” he commanded, his voice laced with a dark promise.
“N-no,” she breathed, the word barely audible.
His smile widened. He didn’t tear the shift. Instead, with a painstaking slowness that was its own form of torture, he began to pull it down. The rough-spun fabric dragged over her sensitized skin, inch by agonizing inch, until her breasts were bared to the warm, smoky air of the chamber. Her n*****s tightened instantly into hard, aching peaks.
His eyes darkened with pure, unadulterated hunger. “There she is,” he murmured. “There’s the truth you try to hide.”
He leaned forward, and his mouth, hot and demanding, closed over one taut peak.
A sharp cry was torn from her. It was not a sound of protest. It was a raw, shattered thing, born of overwhelming sensation. His tongue lashed her, a rough, wet caress that sent jolts of pure lightning straight to her core. He suckled deeply, possessively, and her back arched of its own volition, pressing her breast more firmly into his mouth. Oh, yes.
Her hands came up, not to push him away, but to clutch at his broad shoulders, her fingers digging into the hard muscle there. The mark on her wrist burned with a new, different fire, a pleasurable agony that sang through her blood. Every pull of his mouth echoed deep within her, a throbbing, empty ache beginning to bloom between her legs.
He switched his attention to her other breast, lavishing it with the same relentless attention, his teeth grazing lightly over the hypersensitive n****e before soothing it with his tongue. She was panting now, little broken gasps that filled the space between them. Her mind was fracturing, the reasons for her flight crumbling under the relentless assault of sensation.
He laid her back on the fur rug before the hearth, the stone floor no longer cold, forgotten. His body covered hers, a delicious, heavy weight. He kissed her then, his mouth claiming hers with a ferocity that stole what little breath she had left. It wasn’t gentle. It was a conquest. His tongue plunged into her mouth, tasting of wine and dark magic and him.
She kissed him back, her resistance ash. Her tongue met his, a shy, then desperate dance. She was melting for him, dissolving.
He broke the kiss, his own breathing ragged. He yanked her shift down the rest of the way, tossing it into the shadows. Then his hands were on her thighs, pushing them apart. She was exposed, utterly, to his burning gaze. The slick heat there was undeniable, glistening in the firelight.
“Mine,” he growled again, the word a primal sound that vibrated through her very soul.
He didn’t enter her. Not yet. He lowered his head between her thighs, and his breath, hot and moist, washed over her most intimate flesh. She cried out, a wordless plea, her hips lifting from the furs.
And then his tongue was on her.
It was a flat, slow, devastating lick from her entrance all the way up to the throbbing apex of her pleasure. Her entire world narrowed to that single point of contact. She bucked beneath him, a sob catching in her throat. He held her hips down, pinning her effortlessly.
He did it again. And again. Each stroke of his tongue was a masterful act of claiming. He explored her, learned her, with a lazy, confident cruelty that drove her to the brink of madness. He circled her c**t with the very tip of his tongue, a teasing, torturous rhythm that had her begging.
“Please… oh, please…”
He chuckled against her, the vibration nearly undoing her completely. “Please, what?” he murmured, his voice thick with her scent.
She couldn’t form the words. She could only moan, her head thrashing from side to side.
He intensified his efforts, his mouth latching onto her c**t with a firm, sucking pressure while two of his fingers slid into her with ease. She was so wet, so ready for him. They curled inside her, finding a spot that made her see stars. He pumped them slowly, in time with the sucking pull of his mouth.
The coiling tension in her belly was unbearable, a spring wound too tight. She was fracturing, coming apart under his mouth and hands. The mark on her wrist blazed, a brand of pure ecstasy. Her climax ripped through her with a silent, searing intensity, her body bowing off the floor as waves of pleasure crashed over her, again and again.
She was still trembling with the aftershocks when he rose above her, his eyes blazing with triumph. He freed his erection, thick and hard and demanding. He positioned himself at her entrance, the broad head pressing against her slickness.
He gripped her hips, his hold unforgiving. “Look at me,” he commanded, his voice rough with need. “Look at me when I take what’s mine.”