Chapter Thirty-Nine
The witch didn’t make it easy, even when he was stalking, toying. The rush of the hunt, the way she made him work to catch her made his blood heat, his muscles coil. Primed and ready to strike. And strike he did, but she foiled him then, too. Dodging, and constructing that icy prison...that one was a nice touch.
Oh, how decadent she would be once he finally got a taste.
But watching her fail to stop, then erect a wall of snow, the sharp, alarming scent of her panic spiking the air, he closed in fast. Astrid was capable, her magic strong, but he wasn’t leaving it to chance that she’d slow in time.
He lunged, tackling her to the ground, stopping all momentum.
“Don’t eat me!” she shrieked, tears streaking down her face as she threw up her hands.
He reared back, confused.
Eat her? He wanted to fuck her. Maybe even expand his species with her and help her build a coven of her own.
“Please, Gudarīks.” She cried harder, begging for mercy. Frost limned her fingertips, magic held back for now, but poised to unleash if provoked.
The panic, the fear, was real. He scared her, perhaps all a bit too well.
“Liebling,” he cooed, withdrawing his weight completely. “You’re safe with me. Are you hurt? Did I hurt you?”
A hiccup escaped her lips, but then she quieted, swiping at the tears freezing to her cheeks with trembling hands. “No, but I thought...” She met his eyes then, and whatever she saw there calmed her, her scent blooming into something softer, warmer. “There you are.”
“I’m here,” he soothed, clasping one of her hands, heat meeting icy bite. “I’ve always been here.”
She nodded, a smile slowly forming. “I shouldn’t have doubted.”
“Never doubt your instincts. They’re there for a reason.”
Although he hadn’t lost control, hadn’t even felt it creeping out of his grasp, she should trust herself before him. He might never intend to hurt her, but wasn’t that the hazard of life spent with others? No matter the intentions, there was always room to cause pain.
“I still want to play...” She began, brow creased. “But I need your voice as a touchpoint. Something that lets me know you’re still there.”
He tucked a wayward strand of hair delicately behind her ear, careful not to snag her with his claws. “The silence scared you.”
“Exactly. What’s between us is new, and I don’t know the difference between your regular hunting and your play hunting.”
Ah .
Hunting was second nature, as easy as breathing, and he fell into it headfirst at her command, but just because he knew a pleasurable outcome awaited Astrid at the end of the chase, didn’t mean she did. How he hunted her was important. It should be special, different from the usual.
“Thank you for telling me that, Liebling.” He let go of her hand in favor of loosening the straps at her feet, coaxing one ski off, then another. “From now on, I’ll give you no reason to doubt my intentions.”
“So, we’ll play?”
He took his time laying the skis off to the side, giving them both space to settle into the mindset. It wasn’t until she made an impatient, needy noise that he replied, “We’ll play.”
Grabbing her ankles, Gudarīks dragged her across the snow toward him, bringing her thighs flush with his haunches. The sweater she wore rode up her torso, exposing snow-white flesh. “Thought you could run from me, little witch?” He growled against her neck, his teeth bared. “And hide? I could smell your arousal for kilometers.”
As if conjured by the words, her sweet scent flooded between them, curling around his senses, making him feral with need. This must be what she meant, voice as a touchpoint, and it was working. “Better?” he whispered.
“Much,” she breathed, her rich, heady scent blooming further.
Inhaling deep, he teased outside her clothing. Even though he was the one to run her down into the snow, the one with the strength to overpower and claim, it was Astrid and her tantalizing scent that had him in her thrall, at her mercy.
Slipping past waistbands and cloth, he retracted his claws and delved into her wet seam. Teased her sensitive bud, rimmed her puckered flesh. Stretching, readying, spreading her slick and coaxing from her more of that delicious scent. His mouth watered, yearned.
Flipping her onto her stomach, Gudarīks hiked her hips high, bringing her most tender parts to his face. “I’m ravenous for the taste of you.”
It was all the warning he gave. With a careful slice of a claw, he split the cloth revealing her swollen, yielding flesh. So pink and glistening and begging to be devoured. Mouth all tingly with need, he swept his long, dexterous tongue along her seam, laving her folds in pleased, appreciative strokes.
A soft, shuddering moan escaped Astrid’s lips.
That lovely sound.
Heat suffused his limbs, bringing his already too hot body to near eruption. Nothing, not this frozen winterland nor the refreshingly cold touch of his witch, could ease the fires immolating him from within.
But he wouldn’t rush.
No, this feast was meant to be savored. He licked into her slowly and rolled his tongue, every motion languid. His winter witch tasted like holly and sweet ice, but there too were the remnants of adrenaline in every pulse. The fear, the lust, but also the comfort and confidence with which she entrusted him to ravish and ravage her body in equal measure. He would not take that trust for granted.
Ripping the rest of her pants away, and earning a cry of surprise, he hovered over her, one hand planted near her head and the silvery, snow-white braid that tumbled over her shoulder. While his fingers doled out pleasure, he murmured a reminder against the back of her neck. “You’ve a spell to cast, don’t you, Leibe?”
Gasping a curse, Astrid clawed at the snow, nails digging into the hard, cold earth, scratching soil loose. She melted snow in the palm of her hand and mixed it, creating a little paste.
He pushed himself backward to hold her fast by the hips, busying himself with tonguing his favorite confection. Waiting for her to paint her belly and utter the words for her contraceptive spell.
More tearing of cloth, then icy wind stinging the backs of her thighs, her ass, and needy, sopping seam. Astrid had gone from thinking she was the wrong kind of snack to the best kind of delicacy in the span of minutes. It should’ve been whiplash, but she craved this ravenous claiming for days, ever since she caught him pleasuring himself in the woods.
When he finally positioned himself to mount her, a hand squeezing her hip, she expected him to slam home, too overcome to wait another second. But no. He reached between her thighs. With every press and rolling touch, he earned his way into her slickened channel, so diligent and maddeningly thorough about these ministrations her body screamed permission, desperate to be filled.
“Please,” she begged, squirming beneath him. Only half impaled.
“Please what?” he rasped, rocking, gliding, but withholding his full length. Refusing to take her to the root. Evil creature.
Well, if he was going to be difficult...
She crawled out of his grasp, pushing off the ground to make a run for it, but only made it two steps before he grabbed her ankles and yanked. She landed hard on her front, but the snow cushioned the worst of the fall.
He dragged her back.
“Trying to escape me, little witch?” he growled into her ear, his wet, hot length pressed to her backside and lower back. “Did I not catch you fair and square?”
“Stop playing with your food,” she shot back, wriggling her backside in teasing circles against his groin. “If you’re to have me, take me. I grow impatient.”
Grasping the back of her neck, he pressed down lightly. “As you wish.” With one hard thrust he sheathed himself fully, meeting not even a hint of resistance. She appreciated his earlier patience and care, but after all that fine foreplay, she no longer needed so much gentleness.
Heated skin warmed her, took the cold sting away. She clenched all around him, walls already latching with merciless suction, trying to milk him.
“So desperate and needy for me,” he rumbled. “I promise every drop will be yours, in time. But I mean to savor you long and hard.”
Shivering, she widened her legs. With her chest pressed to the earth she arched her back so she could have it deeper and feel the rhythmic slap of him.
Prey in the hunter’s clutches, Astrid craved evisceration.
Head tipped back, Gudarīks moved behind her, with her, at a frenzied pace. So far gone in the feel of it, the blissful, silken glide of flesh through flesh, every single nerve ending alight, she relinquished herself to pleasure’s merciless onslaught. She’d never stop craving him, the touch, the taste, the feel, or the soul-deep mark he left in her marrow.
Coherent thought melted away. Reduced to desperate need, their bodies collided again and again, chasing friction, tearing each other apart and reassembling the pieces and finding they were more one whole than not.
“Gudarīks, I want to see you,” she rasped, her voice as thick as the feeling in her chest, her heart a racing drumbeat against her ribs.
This was wonderful. Everything she hoped for she’d gotten tenfold, but now she wanted to be held, to feel the heavy weight and warmth of him upon her. She wanted to stare into his eyes as they strained with need and unraveled together upon the snow.
The next thing she knew, he pulled her up to his chest, hugging her, caressing her. Bone to fleshy cheek. “You feel so good,” he groaned.
Roving hands trailed up her torso, clasped around the collar of her sweater, then ripped it down the center. Exposed to the cold, winter air, her nipples tightened almost painfully. His cock pulsed within, but his hips stayed still, and while she could see him if she turned her head, it wasn’t enough.
“Please, Gudarīks.”
He withdrew then, sweeping an arm under her legs to pick her up like a bride. Eyes locking with hers, two burning crimson portals, he laid her gently in the snow, her sweater open but spread out beneath her.
When she reached for him, he laced their fingers together and pinned her hands above her head, pushing himself in until they were flush. They rolled their hips together round and round in delicious circles. They built up to release engaged in this sensual dance. Swirling, climbing, reaching for mutual dizzying destruction.
“There’s a good witch,” he whispered, almost too soft for her to hear. “So generous with her offerings.”
“Anything to please you, Wald Vater.”
He swore, hips bucking forward as he came, and her body greedily clenched at the liquid heat. Like it would keep and mold it into something new. If not for the spell she cast, maybe it would have. One day. Maybe one day. With him, she might.
In one great, shared ragged breath, they fell into a boneless sated silence.