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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

IN WHICH THE FLAMES OF PASSION BEGIN TO SMOLDER

Luthri froze underneath me—unable to believe how lucky he was, perhaps—but recovered quickly.

The muscles of his abdomen flexed between my thighs as he bolted upright, his hand coming around my back to keep me from retreating.

My hands shot to his shoulders, gripping the firm flesh around his neck for support.

Settled into the new position, he sought my lips again.

Our restraint was admirable given the circumstances.

Rather than open my mouth for him immediately, I tested the give of his bottom lip with light nibbles.

His breath quickened, but he allowed the exploration, not unlike how a wildlife specialist would deal with a skittish animal.

After a few moments, his tongue grazed the seam of my mouth—a gentle request. I let my lips part for him.

Like a flip was switched, the tempo between us picked up, and his tongue ravaged me.

It was firmer than a human’s and slightly pointed.

I shouldn’t have been surprised at the way it moved, the skill with which he coaxed little gasps from my throat.

How many people had he practiced this on to perfect his technique?

A brief pang of insecurity hit, smothered quickly by desire and a commitment to not let the past get in the way of the present .

My hands moved to either side of his face, and I lost myself in him—meeting every swirl and prod of his tongue with one of my own, interspersing explorative licks with playful nips and a suckling of that full bottom lip I was quickly becoming obsessed with.

A low moan tore from his throat, a heady, purely masculine sound.

His hands roamed my upper body, leaving a scorching path under my clothes.

I wrapped my arm around his neck as he helped himself to two handfuls of my backside, nearly lifting me off him in a heated frenzy. My teeth caught his lip—a warning or encouragement, I wasn’t sure. It did nothing to deter him; his fingers only dug in further.

“You’re incorrigible,” I breathed into his mouth, too distracted by the way he gripped me to focus on words.

He answered with a subdued growl that vibrated between us, zipping through my core to settle between my legs in an addictive tingle that had me squirming to seek more.

I had to disconnect from him before I dissolved into a creature of depravity.

Lowering my head to the crook of his neck, I sucked in air, basking in the sweet and spicy scent of his heated skin. He pressed kisses to the side of my face, my temple, the crown of my head.

“Goddess, Mar,” he groaned into my hair. “You have no idea how hard it is to hold back. You’re so beautiful, so vibrant, and the things I want to do to you… They’re ugly .”

My breath caught. Butterflies took flight in the pit of my stomach, a sensation a man hadn’t made me feel in a long, long time. “Yeah? Like what?” I whispered.

Luthri huffed a laugh against my head. After a beat of hesitation, his hands sought out the grooves of my hips and came to rest there. Then, he gave me what I was looking for.

“I want to spend the afternoon tracing those little round ears of yours with my tongue,” he said hoarsely, his breath fanning the side of my face. “I want to worship every bit of you with my hands and mouth. Map every inch of your skin with my touch, taste each finger and toe.”

His hips bucked to accentuate his next words.

“I want to bend you over and bury myself in deep, savor the feeling of your cunt clenching around my cock, and stay inside you until the dawn… Then do it again the next day. I want to fuck you so hard that I leave marks inside and out, marks that make it so you’ll never forget me. ”

His fingers dug into my love handles. I almost missed what he said next, as his voice lowered until it could barely be heard over the breeze that investigated the grass around us.

“I’ve never wanted someone this much. It hurts, Mar.”

The emotion in his confession wrapped around my heart and squeezed. In the end, we were all beasts at the whim of our instincts, but I understood Luthri a little better every day. Even the best of us needed reassurance sometimes.

“I want you too,” I murmured, running my fingers through the ends of his hair as I met his hopeful gaze. “And you don’t scare me.”

His lips parted, but I stopped him with a finger. We had all the time in the world for talking. “Tell me later,” I urged him, dragging one hand down the stretch of chest that peeked out from his low neckline. “Now’s not the time.”

The starstruck expression on his face didn’t suit the situation. Friends with a little something more, that’s all we agreed on. If I hadn’t already been committed to this, the unrestrained adoration there might have intimidated me, but I couldn’t think about that.

Luthri’s hold shifted, and we rolled so that I was comfortably nestled in the divot of the path with him a comforting weight atop me.

His hands roamed my body reverently before he picked up where we left off, ducking down to kiss me again.

I met his fervor, fisting a handful of his shirt for better leverage, and we engaged in a sensual back-and-forth dance.

With his heat at my front and the cool ground at my back, I was at peace.

Lu, to his credit, knew how to read a partner well.

He didn’t rush or fumble, and there was no battling for dominance or awkward clashing of teeth—we were two people in perfect sync, enjoying each other without pressure.

And God, was that doing it for me. Even the undercurrent of dirt and male sweat perfuming the air was intoxicating. Why hadn’t we done this earlier?

When one of his hands nudged my breast, it sparked a deeper need.

I expressed my approval with a breathy “mm-hmm” against his lips.

Grasping for my shirt, I yanked the fabric from where it was tucked into my belt to provide access.

It wasn’t that I intended to go all the way right here and now… But if it happened, I wouldn’t be mad.

Luthri ended the kiss and reared back, giving us both a moment to catch our breath.

We gulped fresh air in tandem. As his eyes raked down my relaxed body, he took the opportunity to slide one hand under the hem of my shirt.

His fingers skimmed one nipple, the touch accompanied by the lightest scratch of his pointed nails, and it was as though something within me went molten, rushing to heat my core. My back arched on instinct.

“No undergarments?” Luthri murmured in a tone between awed and playful. His head ducked to greet my collarbone with a trail of kisses ending in a light dusting of his lips.

“Inconvenient and uncomfortable,” I retorted, squirming underneath him. I’d never been so upset to be wearing clothing before. “Are you complaining?”

“Not at all. In fact, I approve.”

The pad of his finger teased my nipple. It took an immense amount of self-control to not press myself into his touch, demanding more.

Keen on exploring his body in return, I shifted to put my hands between us.

His dark and downy wings beckoned, and I longed to find out if they were as soft as they looked, but I didn’t dare reach for those first. Instead, my hand journeyed downward to seek the junction of his thighs.

The combination of our position and height difference put his bulge beyond reach, and I had to settle for pawing at the abdominal muscles I’d admired so often during our travels.

As my hand made its way into his shirt, appreciating the subtle curves of his torso, Luthri lowered his head once more to my neck. His lips grazed my skin.

Any coherent thoughts scattered when he suckled the flesh there and plucked my nipple in the same movement.

A hot flush spread through my chest, turning into a smothered whimper somewhere along the way.

I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, surrendering myself to his attention.

Though his mouth remained occupied with my neck, his hand abandoned my breast to seek out the waistband of my pants. I rolled my hips in invitation.

His fingers separated fabric and skin without delay.

He took his time traversing what lay beneath, hand gliding over my pubic mound with lazy, assured strokes of his thumb.

So close, but not where I needed him. The suspense had me trembling in his grip.

He brushed against my clit and paused at my sharp inhale.

“Aha!” A self-satisfied smirk was audible in that one word.

Having discovered what he was looking for, he continued his tactile exploration, hand dipping between my legs.

Fingers tested my wetness, slipping inside before retreating to paint my own moisture across my clit.

The tight, deliberate circles he drew around that small but mighty cluster of nerves had my body tightening like a bowstring on the edge of snapping.

What do you know—most fae women must have the same parts . He certainly knew his way around them. But I couldn’t be satisfied letting him do all the work.

I squeezed my legs, trapping his hand where it was.

His head lifted, but before he could ask what was wrong, I’d trapped his arm, hooked a leg, and bridged against the ground to flip us.

He pulled me with him, and our roles reversed so that his back was against the ground.

Straddling him, I paused to let him work his hand from my pants.

He and I were similarly disheveled, hair a tangled mess and lips bruised by passion.

I took some pride in that, my cheeks aching from the resulting grin.