Chapter 23
C lara lifted her eyes, met Bronze’s gaze through the mirror, and saw a gathering storm reflected back at her. It was a punching answer to any doubt that had still swirled around them in the hall, and she’d be damned if she’d let her analytical mind cough up any more questions.
She needed to feel, not think. Lord knew she’d done enough thinking for a lifetime, and it had nearly gotten them both killed.
“Bronze—”
“Tell me you want this, princess.” He prowled closer to her, never letting his eyes leave hers through the glass.
Before another question could rise up, she swatted the thing away like the pest it was and met his challenge with one of her own. “Tell me you don’t want this, warrior. I think it is, perhaps, something we both need tonight.”
“Not perhaps,” he said sharply. “Absolutely fucking sure. I need certainty from you because I got out of the regret peddling business a long time ago. So I’ll make this crystal clear. Tell me you want my hands on you.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
He stepped closer. “Everywhere.”
“Yes.”
“My mouth. Tell me you want my mouth on you.”
It was no longer feet that separated them but the barest of inches. Then his chest bumped against her shoulder blades, and the heat from it nearly incinerated the fabric of her dressing gown.
“Yes.”
“Every—”
“Yes, everywhere. I want all of you, but you must promise me one thing.” She turned around to face him, and they both sucked in a sharp breath when the tips of her rigid nipples scraped across his chest through the fabric of her dressing gown. He didn’t shy away from the contact, and neither did she. The challenges were simultaneously issued and accepted.
A single arched eyebrow was all the answer she would get, and Clara’s wolf growled her lupine approval. This male, with his eyes flashing citrine and a body born of an immortal power so primal it predated predators, was hers to command, to invite inside of her.
“Promise me you won’t stop.”
The declaration hung heavy between them, like an irrevocable oath. For a moment, she feared he wouldn’t accept her terms, that he was too honorable. Then he gifted her with that devastating half-smile that always managed to unravel her, and she knew she’d never be able to forget that grin for as long as she lived.
His fingers tightening on her hips was the only warning she got before his mouth was on hers. They met in a clash of kisses that was so violent, so needy, it could have brought down the stronghold with the force of it.
Her hips writhed in a seeking rhythm against his, searching for the only answer she and her wolf would accept. When the blunt barrel of his sex pushed her farther against the dresser through his trousers, she groaned into his mouth with eager frustration. Yes, this. This was what she wanted. Something larger and heavier than anything she’d ever been allowed to experience. The bruising nature of it didn’t come close to matching any of the curse words she knew, but leave it to her champion to come up with some creative new combinations that had her flushing hot in places he hadn’t yet touched.
“Mages above,” he growled into her mouth as his hands skimmed over the peach-colored silk dressing robe. It seemed he tested every part of her, analyzed every curve, and then doubled back like some studious engineer. Not that she was complaining. Then his fingers curled into the open V neckline and paused, like a roller coaster cresting the top of its first rise before eventually plummeting to the ground.
“Yes. Do it.” She licked a trail of heat down his throat, then slid her tongue into the divot at the base of his neck. His slight jolt made her gasp as well, and it was all she could do to keep her fingers coordinated enough to rip the shirt from him.
A moment. Bronze only granted her the briefest of moments to drink in the bare strength staring back at her from the lean slabs of muscle that caged her against the dresser. Beautiful. The observation, however, cost her greatly, though not particularly dearly. He captured her mouth again, and before she could chase his kiss any further, her dressing gown was pulled apart in one effortless tug. Silk separated from silk as the chilly air shocked her skin and his hands lifted her bare bottom to rest on top of the wood.
Her cry of surprise was savored by the drugging pulls of his mouth. Good. She didn’t want him to interpret any howls of her body as anything other than complete and total exhilaration.
“Ease back, princess. I’ve got you.” With one arm banding behind her waist, the other went to his pants. Working with more diligence than she thought possible, he freed himself and pressed the weight of his cock against her trembling inner thigh.
If she thought herself hot before, she had no idea how scorching the brand of his iron would feel against her sensitive skin. He held it so firmly to her she could feel the steady pulse of his life force beating into hers.
But her focus soon faded when his tongue, that infuriatingly masterful tongue, swept a trail down the column of her throat to her bare breasts. “Call me a bastard, but I haven’t gotten these perfect tits out of my mind.” He said it as if it was a sacred vow of some kind, where vulgarity was eschewed for the truth of his words. He dipped his head again and anointed each nipple with a reverent kiss one might bestow upon a king’s ring.
Clara didn’t know desperation could be painted so painfully on a male who was on the brink of pleasure, but it was there all the same. If he looked at her again, she was certain her heart would shatter into a thousand irreparable pieces for a male she couldn’t ever truly hold, not with what lay in store for them both.
So, instead, she sought out his cock, which still lay hard and molten against her inner thigh, and gripped it firmly.
“Fuck, Clara.”
Taking her cues from the way he leaned into her hold and how his forehead tightened into ripples of tension, she strengthened her grip and brought him to her slickened entrance. “You promised, Bronze.”
“Oh, I know. I fucking know, princess. It’s just . . .”
“Just what?”
He shook his head before settling his misted forehead against hers. “It’s just a bit of paradise. I definitely don’t deserve it, but I’ll gladly take it.”
Paradise. It was an elusive wonder she’d never allowed herself to contemplate.
“I should like to know it, too. Take me with you.”
Bronze’s chest grew impossibly bigger with each breath he took, as if some great part of the male had been stripped away and all that was left to sustain his breathing were giant industrious bellows.
“Always.”
His surge forward brought something neither of them expected. His eyes sparked with flashes of citrine that battled for dominion with the dim candlelight’s flames. The effect painted his bold features in an otherworldly tenderness. With the other few males she’d taken, she’d always been left as she was when she’d started the journey: unimpressed and unchanged.
With Bronze, however, Clara knew as surely as she knew her own name that none could ever come after him. None had ever made her feel altered at the cellular level and transported her over such exhilarating edges. She knew that every shudder racking her body was a sensation only granted to seldom few in the universe, and fortune had smiled upon them both.
Warm puffs of exertion tickled the side of her throat. She burrowed her hands beneath the back of his waistband, grasping the firm strength of his backside and urging him closer against her core.
Full. She was so incredibly full, and yet a part of her could never consume all of him. The rigidity of his spine, the stiffness of his shoulders, they all told a tale that this night would be one for quiet commiseration. A near loss for both parties. A close call that highlighted far more than either was willing to examine fully.
“Bronze. By the Moon Mother, you feel good. So full, but so good.” She would have preferred her words come out strong and secure, like that of a future monarch’s declaration. Instead, they came out raspy and desperate, fueled by far too much tenderness than she’d like, but hell if she could pull it all back now.
She cantered her hips forward, chasing his as he levered out of her in slow deliberate strokes. It took a moment, but soon they’d found their rhythm, and her forbearance on Bronze’s sensuous pace soon lapsed into what she could only describe as a measured frenzy, if such a thing was possible.
He was holding himself in check, however. It was clear as day, painted all over the carved lines of his biceps and shoulders. This male, this warrior, had a preference for a punishing pace, but he kept it reserved, restrained, for her.
“Tell me,” he rasped out and seemed to search her face for any sign that she was uncomfortable. “Are you okay? Does it feel?—”
“I’d be better if you cared for me the way I need to be cared for.” She gripped his shoulders and brought her body flush with his in entreaty, easing the swell of her breasts against his hard planes. “Like you did in the infirmary. No one’s ever made me feel like that.”
They locked eyes once more, her wolf’s stare battling for understanding and encouragement with his sentinel’s gaze. And then the world shifted. It was as if she released some sort of pressure valve, letting loose whatever bottled-up hesitancy still lay between them.
“Always.”
Again, he said that word, but this time, she was not prepared for the shifting undulation of his muscles beneath her fingers.
He ran his cock wild then, spurning it on like a stallion. Great arcing thrusts drove her higher onto the dresser. Every bounce of her breasts was caught with an eager lapping tongue as he piled into her with more energy than she thought a male capable.
He was feverish in his pitch and called forth her wolf’s rutting growls. Fingers curled into grappling claws, dragging him closer, deeper, higher, until a resounding cry stormed through her throat and erupted out of her.
Much like before, every part of her quivered as she was thrust toward a release she had only one frame of reference for. She quickly discovered that, while beyond good, that sample size was far too small for adequately assessing the explosion she flung her arms around him to restrain herself against.
“Bronze!”
He dipped his head into the crook of her neck and released a deafening roar in time with her wolf that pummeled her body with a force strong enough to bifurcate atoms. There were waves, and then there were tsunamis, and it was clear that, with his final eager onslaughts, they were both riding the latter.
When his soothing fingertips snaked around her back and pressed a trail of support along each ridge of her spine, she didn’t know whether to slide off the dresser into his arms or let him move her however he liked.
Either option would have been fine.
But when his hand drifted to her arm, turned over her wrist, and held it up for his inspection, she thought she saw some of the light leave his eyes. A brief dimming of the eruption they’d just shared.
He swiped a thumb over the pale blue veins beneath her skin, and she tracked his pupils as they narrowed when his light pressure didn’t reveal what he’d perhaps been searching for.
“What is it?” she asked. “Have I done something wrong? Because I have to be honest, I don’t feel like I did something wrong.”
“Perfect,” he whispered, offering a gentle kiss to the inside of her wrist and wrapping his still-shuddering warrior’s body around her. “You’re perfect.”
Content in his honesty and the song he plucked from her body, she smiled at the male, her male, and lamented the loss of all she held within when he carefully slid out from her. Before her bare feet had time to hit the stones, he’d shucked the rest of his clothing, scooped her into his arms, and settled them both beneath the warm blankets of her bed.
When she was fully wrapped, warm, and settled nice and snug against his bare chest, she wondered how long it would take before his pupils relaxed again and that light returned to his eyes.
Soon, she figured. If she had any say in things, it would be very soon.