Page 43 of The Sea Witch (Salt & Sorcery #1)

did her power, coursing through her like liquid lightning.

Arousal and desire rose sharply. Her own pleasure climbed higher, stoked by the flame of his hunger.

“I need more,” she said breathlessly. “Will you give it to me?”

“I’ll give you whatever you want.”

“Your hand on me.”

“Between your legs?” His cheeks were flushed, his eyes fever bright.

“My cunt. Yes.”

He kissed her again, his tongue stroking against hers. She moaned her encouragement when he began to gather up her skirts.

“Take off my stockings,” she murmured.

He quickly undid her garter and slid her stocking off to cast it aside, all reserve gone.

“May I touch your legs?” he asked.

“Goddess, yes.”

His hand skimmed up her calf, then higher, past her knee, along her thigh, drawing patterns of pleasure on her skin. She’d

never thought her legs were particularly sensitive. They served a purpose, taking her from one end of her ship to the other,

allowing her to climb into the rigging, kicking away enemies in the middle of a fight. Yet now they were responsive. She writhed

like a cat as his caresses grew more confident.

“Don’t need to linger,” she gasped as she twisted against him.

“No rushing. I may be balancing you, but this is for me as well.”

“Damn you.” She moaned.

“If this is my path to damnation,” he growled, stroking her thigh, “then I forsake the Kingdom of Heaven.”

“I—” She lost the ability to speak as his fingers grazed over her sex.

His hand stilled. “Is this right?”

“It’s very, very right. You can... go between my lips. Touch me deeper.”

He did as she instructed, and they both groaned when he found her slick and soaking. “Fuck.”

Yet for all his eager caresses, he didn’t touch her exactly as she needed.

“Here,” she said, guiding his hand toward her clitoris. “This is where I need you most. Circle it, rub it.”

“Like this?”

She bowed up. “By the stars, yes. And at my entrance. Press against it.”

He joined his mouth to hers, stroking her as commanded. His navigator’s hand learned her geography, all the places that made

her cry out, all the topography that made her arch and writhe. His confidence in pleasuring her seemed to grow from moment

to moment, and the more he touched her, the brighter the glow emanating from her became, filling the room.

“More.” She gasped. “Fill me.”

He sank one finger into her passage. “Is this enough?”

“Another finger.”

When he did as she instructed, widening and filling her, she bowed up at the feel of him. “There’s a place deep inside me.

Swollen. Stroke it.”

He rubbed over the aching, enflamed place within her. She clutched at him and cried out.

“Yes, there,” she gasped. “There.”

Yet it still wasn’t enough. She thrashed, desperate for something to bring her over.

“What do you need? How can I give you what you want?”

“This is good... this is...”

“It isn’t.” His voice had firmed with determination. “Tell me. Anything. I’ll do anything.”

“Your mouth on my cunt,” she said on a tortured groan.

“Never done it before,” he confessed, his eyes blazing, his features sharpening.

“Treat it like the most delicious meal. Something you’d want to eat every day for the rest of your life.”

She lay back, and he swallowed hard as he looked down at her uncovered sex. The blue of his eyes disappeared as his pupils

widened. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

With deliberate intent, he rose and then placed himself between her legs. He didn’t seem to care that half his body hung off

the bed. All that appeared to matter to him at that moment was her bared cunt.

He wrapped his arms around her thighs, widening them, then he fused his mouth to her. He lapped at her sex, consuming her,

teasing her clitoris with his tongue as his fingers continued to pump in and out of her. She bowed upward, but he held her

hips with his other hand, pinning her to the bed. Keeping her in place so that she had nowhere to go, no choice to make, accepting

and basking in the pleasure he gave her.

She guided his head, placing him where she ached. “Lick. Suck. Yes. Like that.”

He was a very good student.

Sounds poured out of her, moans, pleas, cries. He rumbled against her, half encouragement, half bliss. She sensed him everywhere.

His hunger, his freedom from the restrictions that held him back.

Release came in a firestorm. Wave after wave harrowed her. Yet he didn’t stop, carrying her over the edge again. Once more. And again. With each climax, more power built within her, the light surrounding her almost blinding. But he kept going, as if greedy for her pleasure.

At last, she could take no more, and she panted, “Enough.”

He stopped at once. When he looked up, his face was glossy with her arousal, and his eyes blazed.

She pulled him up and they kissed deeply. The taste of her own pleasure was on his lips.

“I want it all,” she breathed, reaching for the fall of his breeches.

“You’ll have it.”

His hand tangled with hers as they struggled to undo the buttons.

“Ben,” she said, glancing down.

He pressed more kisses to her throat. “Alys.”

“Ben. Stop.”

He went still.

“Look,” she urged. “Your hands.”

He held them up, and they both cursed.

His markings covered the back of his hands, and climbed up his throat. Sitting back, he dragged off his coat and waistcoat,

then pulled open the neck of his shirt. More of the dark lines twisted and curved over his chest and shoulders, tracing patterns

on his flesh. The contrast between the figures and his skin was even more stark in the glow of her balancing.

“We’re over a mile from salt water.” He tugged off his shirt to reveal the dark lines all over his torso and arms. “Why now?”

“I’ve seen them in the past.” She pulled her skirts down to sit up as she finally remembered why they seemed familiar. “Months

before I met you.”

“What do you mean?”

“These lines and patterns. I’ve seen them once before.” She traced her finger over one arrangement of figures on his deltoid.

He flinched away from her.

“Where?” he demanded.

Her gaze held his. “In a mage’s spell book.”