Chapter 10 #2
Mike’s eyes gleamed, turning them to the color of moss on a sunny summer day. “You’ve been frowning too often.” He trailed kisses along the side of my neck. “I need to see my Tavi smile.”
My Tavi. I wanted to be his more than anything.
When he broke away, his hands grabbing the hem of my shirt, I gladly let him tear it free. Cool air brushed against my overheated skin but we quickly burned it.
When our clothes were too slow to disappear, Mike banished them with a thought, erasing the last barrier between us. I laughed and arched my hips against him, grinding over his hard length.
When had we last been together this way?
Too long ago for the memories to stay fresh. I hadn’t tasted him or lost myself in him for much too long. My heart demanded new moments to spin into memories.
He wanted me. He loved me.
Okay, maybe Poppy did know everything, and I’d let fears craft a different version of this story of us.
No matter what else happened, though, the sense of safety was always there. Through nerves, through anxiety, through doubt, I was never more at home anywhere else. Only in Mike’s arms and only when he stared at me like he saw straight to my heart and loved every broken piece.
If fated mates actually existed, then I’d found mine on the side of a lonely road at midnight.
Mike’s lips glided across my skin and left wildfire in their wake. The tent filled with us, the char of heat and the rich woodsy scent of his skin. I wanted to wrap myself in his scent and shut my eyes.
There was comfort as much as desire with the two of us. How could anything ever compare?
He dragged me closer and reached between us to palm my breast. My nipple hardened, my throat scalding with a gasp.
“I’m too hungry to go slow,” I warned. “Hurry.”
He glanced up, a feral smile peeling his lips apart. “Too damn bad. Because I haven’t been able to touch you like this in a long time. I want it to last.”
Greedy prince.
“The prince always gets what he wants…”
My joke trickled away into another low moan when he pinched my nipple, kissing down my neck. He replaced his fingers with his teeth to roll the nub between them and clamp. His erection nestled between us. I wrapped my legs over his hips.
I’d never known Mike to take for himself. If anything, he was the kind of prince who would give everything to someone else without a thought of what happened to him. It could be good or bad depending on where he drew the line. Or if he was even capable of drawing it.
With me? I wanted no line. Nothing between us except this chemistry I’d felt from the start even when I was too scared to admit it.
The burn of my neck and the scar there from Kendrick’s forced mate bond were nothing. Tonight, the inside of the tent was our sanctuary.
There was only room in my soul for one male.
Even if he was a greedy, sometimes jealous prince, with a shortage of communication skills and slow-burn magic.
Mike lifted his head. “I want you to scream, Tavi.” A stray flick of his hand sent a silencing bubble around us. “Scream my name.”
It was an order I’d happily fulfill, especially when he broke away to kiss down my abdomen. He paused at my belly button and with another glance, the wickedness in his gaze solidified into the next step in this dance.
Mike slowly pushed my legs apart and nestled between them, my knees splayed.
The hot brush of his breath against my core had me shivering even before he lowered his mouth and his tongue danced up to my clit. I jerked, sensation lighting inside of me. His hands on my ass kept me in place while he devoured.
“I’ve missed you,” he murmured against my skin with the slight scrape of his scruff on my inner thigh. “Forget about the dungeon. There’s only this.”
Then he got to work.
His tongue circled me and flicked against the swollen nub.
Soon he brought his fingers to my entrance and teased, playing around my folds before he slid one digit inside. He worked my core in time with his mouth.
I wanted to fall.
I wanted to dive into the sensation and emotion building inside of me and let it erase everything else. There was only Mike with those hungry green eyes, his blonde head between my legs.
He lapped and licked and sucked and teased, adding a second finger alongside the first. The crook of them, the wicked grin, sent me toppling.
My head fell back and I tensed, gripping him. Working my hips through the orgasm that felt like living and dying at the same time.
This was a different kind of magic and one I couldn’t accomplish on my own. I gave Mike what he wanted.
I screamed his name.
We were too desperate for each other for words. His hand grazed up to my stomach and I gripped it, lifting him toward my breasts.
Our lips struck each other, violent and hot, and a line of fire trailed to my belly at the brush of his cock on my leg.
I wanted him more than I wanted air in my lungs. Mike grabbed my wrists and pulled my hands above my head, pinning them. Covering my body with his as he molded himself to the lines of my torso.
My knees opened.
I didn’t want to be scared anymore of what would come. I didn’t want to wonder if every second between us would be the last as we straddled the line between loving and desperation.
Mike broke away and those green eyes shut for a brief second as if he felt the unspoken words on my heart. When they reopened, there was nothing but affection, a sturdy weight and a resoluteness to stick together.
He didn’t look at the scar on my neck anymore. He didn’t see the ruin my body made of me. Only the person I was inside.
He slid one hand down from my wrists, dragging his palm—callused now instead of royally smooth—to my chest. Along my ribs. Down to my hips to cup my ass and bring me harder against him.
Mike shifted and pushed the head of his cock against my opening, stretching me slowly. Sliding home and spearing upward until I caught my breath. My heart heaved and my spine arched up to meet him until he fit like a key in a lock.
“Fuck, Tavi.” He leaned down to rest his forehead against mine. “Do you know how much I love you?”
“You’re only saying it again because you’re inside me,” I whimpered.
He cursed and pulled free like a punishment, withdrew until I ached for him. “No. Never.”
Then he thrust back inside in a single go and I squeezed around him, a combination of pleasure and pain and need and loss.
I had no idea what I’d do if I ever lost Michael Thornwood. Love wasn’t a strong enough word for this sensation.
His hips ground and he thrust into me, pumping until my eyes rolled into my head. My lips found his and we kissed each other desperately.
I pulled free of his hold and my arms circled his back to hold on tight but we were both drowning. Mike was my oxygen. My nails broke his skin.
His tongue twined together with mine and he absorbed each sound I made. He rode me through every shudder that reminded us we weren’t dead yet. This wasn’t over.
My spine bowed and my breasts pressed against his chest as I took everything he gave me.
We found a rhythm, frantic.
“Mike—” His name came out of me in a whimper now.
“Are you going to say it?” He picked up the tempo until I didn’t know where one of us left off and the other began.
My thighs shook. Sweat broke out along my limbs.
He thrust inside of me with his demand and nipped my ear to punctuate it. “Say it, love.”
He already knew.
But…
“I love you.”
Mike lost control. Utterly. He slammed into me and his teeth bit down on the place where my neck and shoulder met. I tightened around him, rose to meet him, faster and harder. Punishing.
Promising.
I love you, I love you. Always. You’re mine.
The litany formed in my head in time with the beat of his body into mine, fucking me deep and hard. A split second passed before he lost himself and my nails curved into his shoulders, scratching and digging grooves into his skin as Mike found his release.
Later, when we were both spent and sated and slicked with sweat, I lay on his chest with his cock still inside me. His chest rose, lifting me with each inhale.
We were in so much danger from both courts. Dorian Jade and King Tywin had a united goal although they’d never admit it.
Here, tonight, they didn’t exist.
What was once a dream had become my reality, and Mike and I belonged to each other in every fucking way possible.
Love was the reason we fought, why we butted heads against the impossible daily.
It meant more because we’d chosen each other. There was no forced mate bond. Which made this the most precious thing in the world.