Page 29 of Wild Flame (Wild Bond #2)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I stayed silent as I took his hand, and he led me from our suite and down the hall. Not long after, we stopped at a closed door set back in a small alcove. He unlocked it with a key he removed from his pocket. When the door swung open, I was surprised to see stone stairs on the other side.

He shot me a crooked smile and took my hand again.

The guards that had followed us at a discrete distance since we had exited our room stayed at the bottom of the stairs as we took the winding steps upward.

I wanted to ask where we were going, but I couldn’t make myself speak. My emotions were still all over the place and I was trying to find my equilibrium. Though curiosity was currently winning out.

He opened another door as we reached the top of the stairs, and I was surprised when we emerged outside onto the private rooftop.

“I got carried away before,” Malik said low, his eyes watching me as I took it all in, “but I had this prepared for us.”

The stars were out in all their glory overhead and the warm night air brushed my hair with a slight breeze, tickling across my skin and making it come alive as I took a step forward and glanced around.

I wasn’t sure how it normally appeared, but the rooftop had been turned into a lush, tropical oasis. A large flat mattress adorned with a pile of plush cushions took up the center of the space. It had been surrounded by several beautiful plants and at least a dozen lit candles. Besides the stars, they were the only source of light. A small table draped in colorful silk and cushions sat off to one side. On the table sat several delicious looking desserts and a carafe of wine and two goblets.

The entire scene was romantic and sensual and perfect. My heart constricted in my chest. He had done this for me. I turned back to face him. He looked so tall and masculine and beautiful standing there.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he stepped forward and placed solid fingers gently against my mouth, halting me.

“I did not bring you here to pressure you. I only wanted this night to be special. Siren, I know our ways and beliefs are different and that you might not be ready for anything more tonight, and I will respect that. The gods know I want you, but only when you are ready.” The back of his hand glided down my cheek. “If all we do tonight is sleep under the stars, then I will be content to simply hold you in my arms.”

At his words, my eyes drifted to his right wrist, conscious of the ink there, not even hours old. I thought of the ceremony, that kiss, and how I had felt when that dragon symbol was etched permanently into my own skin. I thought of how I felt when I was around him. His warmth, his teasing, coaxing, and sometimes wicked manner. How he came to me on the balcony the night of his father’s funeral. Or held me so tenderly after the assassins' attack. How he never once belittled me or made me feel less than. Quite the opposite. He made me feel competent and desired and beautiful. I loved the passion he made me feel. I ached for it.

And he loved my voice. He made me want to sing.

I was so tired of being afraid—afraid to want things, afraid of getting hurt. Afraid of letting myself trust.

I stared up into his beloved eyes—at the question in them. And suddenly I knew I wanted to take the chance.

Words felt too trivial. So instead, I stepped back.

Malik let me go, but there was a tightness in his eyes as he did. He thought I was pulling away.

Taking a deep breath, I reached up to my hair. Slowly and carefully, I began to remove the ruby clips and golden chains that had been woven into the locks, one by one, placing them on the small table. When that was done, I started unpinning my hair from its elaborate style and methodically unwinding each braid.

I felt Malik’s eyes on me the entire time, but I didn’t look at him until my hair was completely loose and unbound. I hadn’t had my hair like this in front of anyone but family or my maids since I was a little girl, and I fought not to feel self-conscious as I met his stare.

His eyes were burning. He took in my face and hair as if memorizing it.

But still he made no move to touch me. He truly was letting this be my choice.

Taking another deep breath, I moved so I stood directly in front of him. Then I rose up, and for the first time, I kissed him .

I poured everything into the kiss. My doubts and fears, all my wants, secrets, all the times I’d wondered and hoped and imagined what it would feel like to be with him, the awakening desire and confusion I felt, that consuming need that rose in me whenever he was near, all of my anger and frustration for his high-handed ways and the sheer arrogance of him—everything. I sank it all into the kiss.

Tears fell unbidden from my eyes as those big arms I loved so much encircled me, and he returned my kiss with a swirling fever of his own. Our shallow breaths mingled as he pulled back, staring into my eyes with that familiar intensity.

“You want me, isholet ?”

I nodded my head, frantic to have his lips on mine again.

“Give me the words,” he demanded.

My voice trembled as I breathed, “I want you, Malik.”

The smile he gave me in return was somehow joyous and impossibly wicked at the same time.

He kissed me again and our mouths fused as he carried me swiftly over to the bed, lying not far away. My back hit the mattress, and he followed me down. I loved the way his muscular body caged mine—the feel of him on top of me.

For once, the warmth of the night didn’t feel oppressive or cloying, but rather decadent and relaxing against my skin. Being out in the open like this with nothing but the sky and the stars as our witness felt sensual and erotic, and I sank into the feeling. His mouth began to kiss and caress slowly down my neck while his hand slid possessively up my leg, pushing my dress up as he went.

“Azrun, he’s—he’s not . . . will he be . . .” I couldn’t finish.

Malik smiled softly. “He is giving us privacy.”

Hard lips captured mine in a kiss that should have melted the bed beneath us. But then he pulled back. “I want to see all of you.”

My heart lurched, but then I nodded. He helped me slowly remove my top and then the skirt, kissing and caressing along my newly exposed skin as he did. When I lay back, completely bare before him, his eyes devoured every inch of me. I made sure to keep my back to the bed, and he didn’t comment on it, for which I was grateful.

“Your turn,” I challenged, ignoring my own blush.

He cocked an eyebrow but said nothing as he slowly unlaced his tunic and removed it and the rest of his clothing. My mouth went dry as I took in the sight of him. He was a beautiful specimen. Every inch of him reflected the warrior he was. I blushed even harder as my eyes dropped lower and Malik’s dark chuckle rasped in my ear as he lowered himself back over me.

His hips settled against mine as he kissed my neck and his fingertips became a velvet pressure on my skin as he traced and explored the dips and curves of my body. His masculine scent surrounded me, and I breathed him in as his mouth traveled lower.

His soft lips grazed the underside of my breast all the way to the hardened peak of my nipple. A moan slipped out of me as his warm mouth encased it completely. Starbursts of sensation consumed me as I clutched at his shoulders and arched upward in silent demand.

Malik obliged and flicked the nipple with his tongue before teasingly raking his teeth over it, all while cupping my other breast in his hand. When he moved up to kiss my mouth once more, awareness gripped me, and pleasure spiked as he pressed his body to mine and rocked his hips against me.

I gasped. The area between my thighs began to throb with a deep, insistent, empty ache.

His lips found mine again as his hard length slid against my aching core and ground against me.

He muttered a harsh curse. “Realms, siren, you’re already slick and ready for me.”

“Please,” I murmured, knowing and yet not knowing what I was asking for.

His hands tangled in my unbound hair, cupping my head in his hands, as his eyes stared down into mine. “All right, siren,” he breathed.

Then he slid inside me.

I cried out at the sudden sharp slice of pain, and he stilled. His lips captured mine, his mouth and tongue demanding my attention, distracting me while one hand slid between us and began to stroke at my center. His ministrations continued as he coaxed and teased me with his mouth and fingers until my body finally began to relax and adjust to him. The pain eased, and I clung to him as the dulled pleasure began to build once more.

Slowly he began to move in and out of me with shallow thrusts.

I gasped his name. My nails sank into his back, and I loved the feel of the muscled planes flexing under my hands as he moved inside me. My body melted into his until it was impossible to tell where he stopped and I began.

“Realms, you feel unbelievable,” he groaned, as I shifted slightly beneath him. He licked my hot skin and swollen lips as our foreheads touched and his strokes increased, growing deeper, harder.

Waves of emotion crashed over me, stealing my breath as I gasped his name again. Every inch of him filled me, stretching the moment into something raw and consuming, until I was lost to it.

He pulled back, and I moaned at the loss of his skin against mine. But he only meant to brace his hands on either side of my head, his tattooed arms like two pillars of muscle as he leaned down.

Our gazes met. The dark depths of his eyes matched the stars overhead, though they were anything but remote. His dark hair fell into his eyes and that spectacular chest was on full display as his stomach muscles flexed with each driving thrust inside me.

My back arched and my toes curled.

“Yes, siren. I want to feel you shatter around me,” he demanded.

I couldn’t catch my breath, couldn’t think. Then, all at once, everything inside me contracted and a wave of ecstasy drowned me.

I heard him curse above me, and I barely had time to process the thundering pleasure racking me before I was being lifted and moved. I opened my eyes to find Malik had arranged us so I was now sitting astride him in the center of the bed, my chest pressed to his and him still hard inside me.

I sucked in a breath at the new sensations this position evoked, still sensitive after what I had just experienced.

I released a shuddering breath as his hips began to rock slowly upwards. His hands brushed back the sweat dampened hair from my face. “One more, siren,” he commanded. His breath was hot on my face before he kissed me. He worked me up slowly, my arms resting on his shoulders and tangling in his hair as he deepened the kiss and began to rotate his hips in a motion that made a bolt of something hot and needy pass through me.

“I want to possess every part of you.” He breathed the declaration, biting down on my lower lip. The growl in his voice and the look on his face were so carnal, every nerve in my body pulsed in answer.

His hands gripped my hips, using them to pull me down onto his length.

“So deep,” I whined, my knees shaking. That pulsing ache was building inside me again, but this time I thought it might consume me entirely. And when it finally did, Malik joined me, bellowing his release to the stars as I felt a warm pulse of heat inside me.

When the pleasure finally abated, phantom shocks still pulsing through me. I opened my eyes to find I was lying back on the bed once more with Malik smiling down at the mess he’d made of me.

“Welcome back, isholet .”

I would have smacked the smug male satisfaction off his face, but my body felt too relaxed and languid at the moment to even consider moving. “You seem very pleased with yourself,” I griped.

Chuckling, he softly kissed my swollen lips. “Should I not be? With my lush little wife soft and sated in my bed?”

Lethargy pulled at my limbs and body, beckoning me to sleep. “Such an arrogant dragon,” I murmured.

That dark chuckle again, fingers tracing lightly over my closed eyelids. “A dragon, am I?”

“Hmm . . . my dragon,” I yawned before giving in to the pull of happy oblivion.