Page 53 of What Whispers in the Dark (Promises of the Marked)

Garrik’s eyes heated; his breathing changed.

No doubt the same images flashed in his mind as in hers.

“There will be plenty more time for that.” A promise she knew he’d keep.

“Seeing as we engaged in such … taxing activities yesterday, perhaps we should do something … less eventful.” Garrik looked as if the very words pained him, cut into his skin, and made him bleed. A war settled in his eyes.

She intended to win it.

Alora smirked and trailed her finger along the open buttons on his tunic. Traveling down, down, down until she danced them along the first fastened one.

Garrik tracked the movement, finding her ring finger and the gift of his powers wrapped around it. And despite the warning quirk of his brow, Alora popped the button, kissed the exposed scar there, and toyed against his flesh. “What would be the fun in that?”

“Do not tempt me.” Stars, he sounded unraveled.

Teetering on the edge as she lowered another kiss.

“I have…” She may have popped another button.

He cleared his throat and tried again. “I have not yet fulfilled the library of things I wish to do to you—do with you—and am dying to carry you to our porch settee and fuck you till noon. Starsdamn , Alora. Do you see what you do to me?” He swayed backward, gesturing with his chin down the muscled planes of his body to the considerable bulge straining against his pants.

She didn’t contain the proud hum at how hard he was for her. Didn’t stop herself from venturing down his tunic so, so slowly while watching his face. Alora stopped at his belt, teasing the metal with a ravenous question in her eyes that he registered clearly.

Garrik seemed to consider for a moment. He needed nothing but a nod of warrant, allowing her further, before her hand wrapped around his cock over the leather.

She lightly squeezed.

His groan was purely undignified. It may have made her mouth water. “Do you know how hopeless I am? Wanting you—desiring you every damn minute of every day?” he rasped.

She knew the feeling.

Where months before, she never wanted the touch of a male again, but with Garrik …

with Garrik … she couldn’t explain it. Couldn’t explain wanting him— needing him—in every heartbeat.

Of craving, with one look, the feel of him.

The way he smelled, tasted, the sound of his voice, and every word he’d speak.

Just … him. All of him.

She’d think she had gone entirely mad if he didn’t look at her the same. Like she was the last star in the sky and he was the last kernel of darkness.

“Just look at you,” he breathed, though it sounded like more of a plea against his precious control. Like a dying male on the brink of unraveling, tortured by his own decided restraint and her hand palming his length. “You are exquisite, my wife. Maiezine , Alora — fucking mine. ”

She whimpered—because underneath that awe and praise, she wished the traitorous fabric between them was gone. Alora arched into him. Pressed her breasts and ashen sweater against his tunic, recognizing the moment he nearly lost his own war as she cooed, “In this old thing?”

“You could be wearing a rug from Thalon’s tent, and it would not dampen your beauty. By the stars…” He shook his head, utterly mesmerized.

“Oh, so you wish to see me in another male’s belongings?”

Her male growled. Possessive hunger darkened his eyes. “Fuck no.”

With a wry smile, she dared—actually dared —to taunt, “So, you just want me to be in Thalon’s tent? Perhaps his bed?—”

That did it.

The air shifted. Like fire pulling oxygen from the realm.

Crashing over her like waves on his mother’s oceans as she became entirely weightless, reformed with perfect velvety shadows.

The words snapped whatever thin leash he held on himself, and Garrik stole her off her feet before dawning them to the settee on the porch, flattening her on her back atop the crimson cushions and pillows.

Climbing over her, he palmed her thigh with his powerful hand and wrapped her leg around his hip as he settled between her legs. Garrik’s kiss was as punishing as the retaliation she deserved. Demanding and claiming and ruinous, yet honest and somehow tender.

His hardness pressed against her core, and they groaned into each other’s mouth at the same time.

Meeting every swipe of his lips with a wild caress of hers, Alora undulated her hips against him.

Hoping her body’s plea would have his hands traveling to that spot that would have her writhing and shattering?—

Garrik pulled away with a desperate curse. He steadied a breath. Two. Three. Kept breathing as if the simple act was renewing sliver upon sliver of his perfectly placed control. “I offer you words of enchantment, yet you elect to torment me,” he noted in a rough voice that made her writhe.

“Only a little.” She kissed the corner of his mouth.

His head twisted, kissing her fully as he took her cheek and hair into his palm. Only parting from her lips for a breath to growl, “Wicked, clever thing.”

Alora hummed her agreement, and sent down their tether as she kissed him back, I thought perhaps Thalon ? —

“I do not”—he trailed his lips along her jaw—“wish to speak”—nipped and licked and sucked down the soft flesh of her neck—“of Thalon a moment longer.”

She gasped the moment shadows lifted her sweater. Arched into his touch the moment his icy tongue swirled on the swell of her breast, lowering to suck and flick her nipple.

Garrik’s voice darkened as he peered up at her, his icy breath shuddering pebbles across her skin and peaking her nipples even more. “For your wicked torment, allow me to extend the same courtesy.”

By the stars, he did .

Torturously so.

She stopped hearing the wind around them.

The sound of the ripples on the lake. The creek of the porch swing.

Everything in her narrowed to the touch of his fingers, palming a breast as he worshiped the other with his mouth.

To the way his powerful, sinful body moved, pinning her with his slow-grinding hips.

Driving her utterly mad. Feeling every hardened inch of muscle as her hands explored down the perfect V of his waistline.

Along the smooth leather of his belt, to pop it open and?—

Shadows wrapped around her wrists and pulled them over her head, holding her there.

Garrik’s growl of pleasure rippled through her entire being as he snickered, “I do not recall giving permission to use your hands.”

The mighty, infernal, evil bastard. “I hate you,” she lightly snarled, but it only seemed to fuel him more.

“Such a deceitful mouth on you today, Your Highness,” he drawled and stretched upward to smirk against the shell of her ear. His voice so guttural she hardly held her irritation and nearly gave over to the sound and reverberations of it. “I wonder what other words I can cause it to make?”

He didn’t have to wait long to find out. Alora grumbled a string of insults that quickly turned into undecipherable groans and pleas the moment a hand slipped down her ribs and curled around?—

She gasped at the claiming squeeze at the juncture between her hip and inner thigh, so, so close that if she shifted her hips, only a little?—

Garrik darkly chuckled at her brash effort, but his thumb only brushed the fabric covering the sensitive spot that would have her reeling if only he slipped it inside and teased her with it.

But that thumb didn’t move. Didn’t budge.

Only his mouth nipped and sucked below her ear, and the steady, lazy ease of his hips tormented her further.

Her hands attempted to pull against the shadow restraints. The sensation of being bound, at the mercy of his fingers, simply increased the building wave of frustration and pleasure within her. She needed more. Needed it now .

“You enjoy teasing me, your husband, so deviously, almost begging to be punished. I would hate to disappoint.” Garrik stroked her inner thigh leisurely, drawing it out. So close.

Fire lit her eyes. “Garrik,” she moaned— pleaded. Pulled his hips impossibly flush against her with the leg he had secured around him. Desperate for any friction that the contact and pressure from his glorious cock could give.

“Fuck,” came his breathy curse against her neck. “ Fuck ,” he cursed again—growled it like a starved male—as if his name on her lips was his entire undoing. “Say it again. Just like that, clever girl. Say it again.”

So, she did. Over and over to the rhythm he set with his mouth. His tongue, teeth, and lips. Exploring the length of her body, devouring her with a ravenous hunger only satisfied by his name being moaned into the Airatheldran air.

Alora bowed off the settee, pulling on her shadowy restraints further when he lowered her leggings, and again at the first bite on her thigh. His teeth scraped inward, swirling his tongue to soothe the pleasing sting.

Silently begging him, begging his tongue—his mouth— anything to keep going. To continue moving as she arched into him, offering the place she wanted him the most. Begging he would grant it. That he would end this torment and?—

Every last thought emptied. She threw her head back as a fractured groan spilled from her when his finger parted her and glided inside.

Garrik made a sound much like a snarl of satisfaction and a desperate plea as he circled her bundle of nerves, reveling in what he discovered.

“So wet for me.” Somehow, she managed to keep breathing as Garrik’s groan of pride and approval thrummed straight to her core where that finger circled. Slow, taunting. Teasing strokes that had her hands fisting nothing but air.

His torment continued—punishingly slow. Wringing out her reply in choked gasps and whimpers, “Yes.” Those delicate inner walls clenched around nothing. Empty, needing him there too. She lifted her hips—begging?—

“Mmm,” he purred against her. Kissed her flesh just outside. “Greedy.”

Oh stars.

Begging —begging ?—