Page 18 of Kingdom of Darkness and Dragons (Empire of Vengeance #4)
My breath hitched, my mind reeling. The air was thick with a current of raw want, so potent I could taste it on my tongue.
Marcus just grinned, a slow, predatory smile that suggested he knew exactly how this was going to end.
He took a deliberate step back, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. "Don't mind me," he said, his voice laced with amusement. "Just enjoying the show. For now."
Jalend’s dark eyes flashed with amusement, but his focus remained on me. He tilted my head back again, his gaze dropping to my lips, still swollen from Antonius’s kiss. “Tell me what you want, Livia,” he commanded softly.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I looked from Jalend’s intense, intelligent face to Antonius’s rugged, loving one. I wanted them. Both of them. The admission was a silent scream in my mind.
“I want…” My voice was a broken whisper. “Everything.”
That was all the encouragement Jalend needed.
His mouth descended on mine, a stark contrast to Antonius’s kiss.
Where Antonius had been a wave of desperate longing, Jalend was a slow, deliberate fire, a strategic conquest of my senses.
He kissed me with a devastating skill that left me breathless, his tongue tangling with mine.
I felt Antonius’s body tense behind me, his arm tightening around my waist, but he didn’t pull me away. He held me in place for Jalend’s kiss, a silent, stunning act of consent.
When Jalend finally lifted his head, his dark eyes were blazing with a possessive fire. "You see?" he murmured, his thumb tracing my kiss-swollen lower lip. "We can share."
"Good," a low voice rumbled from behind me. Antonius spun me around in his arms, his mouth capturing mine before I could draw a breath. This time, there was no hesitation, only raw, claiming heat. He kissed me like a starving man, his big body caging mine against Jalend’s body as he devoured my mouth.
I clung to him, my head spinning, overwhelmed by the sheer force of his need.
He pulled back, his chest heaving, and pressed his forehead to mine. "Mine," he growled, the word a low vibration against my lips.
"Ours," Marcus corrected, his voice a silken purr from across the room.
We both looked over. He had moved to the centre of the room, and was slowly unlacing the front of his tunic, his eyes raking over me with a look of hungry promise that made my stomach clench. "I do hope," he said, his grin widening, "you've saved some of that celebration for me."
My knees felt weak. Marcus’s gaze was a physical touch, pinning me in place as surely as Antonius’s arms. He moved with the fluid grace of a predator, his tunic hanging open, revealing the hard planes of his chest and the familiar scars that mapped his skin.
He stopped in front of us, so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body.
His eyes, a warm, intelligent brown, held mine, and the teasing light in them was replaced by something hotter, more primal.
Antonius slid his hands down my back, cupping my ass and pulling me against his body. I felt his hardness press against my stomach, and I whimpered a little as Marcus took hold of my chin and pulled my face around to his, looking down into my eyes.
“There she is,” he murmured, his voice a low, intimate rumble. “The woman who brought us all to our knees.”
Then his mouth was on mine, and it was nothing like the others.
It was a dance of teasing nips and slow, deliberate licks, a playful assault that promised heat but held it just out of reach.
I whimpered against his lips, my body coiling with a need he was expertly stoking.
He chuckled, the sound vibrating against my mouth, before deepening the kiss, his tongue sweeping in to claim me with a confident heat that stole my breath.
While Marcus’s mouth plundered mine, Antonius’s hands slid from my ass to my thighs, his fingers trailing over my bare skin as he hiked my dress up, exposing my skin to the cool air.
At the same time, Jalend’s hand slid from my neck down my spine, his long fingers tracing a path of fire over the thin fabric of my dress until they rested at the small of my back, just above Antonius’s.
I was surrounded, claimed, their touches overlapping in a dizzying assault on my senses.
I felt Antonius release me slightly, just enough for Jalend to slide his hands over my shoulders, releasing the fastenings of my dress.
It rustled to the floor, pooling at my feet.
Jalend’s hand skimmed down my sides to reach my undergarments, and soon they joined my dress at my feet.
Marcus pulled back, his dark eyes running down my naked body, devouring me.
A slow, appreciative heat that made my cheeks warm under his gaze.
The cool air of the room was a shock against my bare skin, but the heat from their combined gazes was a bonfire that scorched away my last vestiges of shame.
I stood there, utterly exposed, my body thrumming with a mixture of terror and white-hot anticipation.
"To the bed," Marcus murmured, his voice a low command that brooked no argument. Before I could process the order, Antonius swept me off my feet, cradling me against his powerful chest as if I weighed nothing. My head fell back against his shoulder, my gaze finding Jalend’s as he followed us. His eyes were dark with an intellectual lust, a look that promised he would learn every secret my body held before the night was over. Antonius laid me on the centre of the bed with a reverence that made my heart ache. He didn’t move away, but knelt beside me, one large hand resting on my hip, a silent, possessive anchor.
Jalend and Marcus took the other side, a scholar and a gladiator, two halves of a different kind of power.
Marcus leaned over me, his lips brushing the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, sending a jolt of fire straight to my core. "So beautiful," he whispered against my skin. "So strong."
At the same time, Jalend’s mouth found the pulse point in my neck, his kiss slow and deliberate. "You are magnificent," he breathed, his words a brand against my throat.
Antonius didn’t speak. Instead, I felt the scratch of his beard against my breast as he sucked my nipple into his mouth.
I arched into their touch, a prisoner of their adoration, an offering on an altar of my own making.
I cried out, a raw, needy sound that made him groan in satisfaction.
His hand remained on my hip, a grounding force, his thumb stroking my skin in slow, possessive circles.
Marcus’s tongue traced a fiery path up my inner thigh, making me tremble when he finally brushed his lips over my core.
“Look at you,” Marcus whispered against my thigh, his voice thick with want. “So beautiful. So ready for us.”
His tongue, hot and wet, finally touched the heart of me.
A cry ripped from my throat, a sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure that was stolen by Jalend’s mouth clamping back down on mine.
I arched off the bed, my hands fisting in the sheets, my body a live wire of sensation.
I was trapped in a web of their making, their mouths and hands a symphony of pleasure that threatened to shatter me completely.
Each touch was a reclamation, erasing years of pain and replacing it with this desperate, overwhelming adoration.
It was too much. It was not nearly enough.
My hips began to move, an involuntary rhythm seeking more of the friction, more of the heat.
Marcus chuckled against my skin, his tongue delving deeper, expertly finding the hard nub of my pleasure.
A bolt of lightning shot through me, and my vision went white at the edges.
I was coming apart, unravelling at their hands, and for the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid to fall.
I screamed their names, a tangled prayer, as my release tore through me, a violent, beautiful wave that left me shaking and utterly undone in their arms.
Antonius moved from my breast to my stomach, his lips tracing a fiery path downward, his beard a delicious abrasion against my sensitive skin.
I felt Marcus move away as Antonius took his place and I gasped as the older man grabbed my ankles, lifting them onto his shoulders in a way that completely exposed me to him.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, before his mouth closed over me.
It was a devastating assault, utterly different from Marcus’s teasing exploration.
Where Marcus had been playful, Antonius was a man starved, his tongue a hot, wet brand that licked and lapped at me with a desperate, frantic rhythm.
He was worshipping me, devouring me, his big hands gripping my thighs to hold me still for his relentless pleasure.
A choked sob escaped my lips, and Jalend immediately covered my mouth with his, swallowing the sound.
He kissed me with a slow, deep intensity, his hands cupping my breasts, his thumbs stroking the hardened peaks until my back arched off the bed.
I was trapped between two fires, one slow and deliberate, the other a raging inferno threatening to consume me completely.
Marcus moved to lie beside me, his hand finding my breast, his thumb circling my nipple until it was a hard, aching peak that mirrored the coiling tension deep in my belly.
“Look at her,” he said. “So beautiful when she comes apart for us.”
The pleasure was a tight, coiling knot in my belly, building with an agonizing speed. Antonius’s mouth became more demanding, his rhythm turning frantic as he felt the tremors begin in my thighs.
The pleasure was building again, a frantic, desperate climb toward a peak I wasn't sure I could survive.
My hips bucked against Antonius's mouth, a wordless plea for more. He groaned, his grip on my legs tightening, his mouth becoming more insistent, driving me higher. I was lost, drowning in a sea of their touch, their scent, their need. This was home. This was everything. Jalend leaned down, his mouth finding mine again, swallowing my cries as Antonius’s relentless assault finally tipped me over the edge, a violent, shuddering wave that left me gasping and boneless.
Antonius finally pulled back, his face flushed, his eyes blazing with a fierce, possessive satisfaction.
He moved up my body, his mouth finding mine for a deep, tongue-tangling kiss that tasted of me.
As he kissed me, Jalend shifted, his hand sliding down my stomach.
I felt his fingers brush against my wet curls, and then he was sinking one, then two, fingers inside me, stretching my slick, sensitive flesh.
I gasped into Antonius’s mouth, my body clenching around the intrusion.
“So wet,” Jalend murmured against my ear. “And ready for more.”