Excerpt from Of Claim and Throne #2
Whatever control I thought I had wrangled from him is gone. Gauron commands my mouth. Every thrust of his tongue inflames the sensations spiraling down my spine. I lose myself in his kiss. His intoxicating scent. The all-consuming lust wrecking my body.
This.
This is what I have been missing my whole life.
I wriggle in his embrace, needing more, brushing my sensitive breasts against the hard planes of his body to get closer. And it is still not enough.
Gauron fists my hair, and a moan wrenches from deep in my throat. He tenses, his big body locking against mine. His lungs heave, and when he moves to break away, I groan and dig my fingernails into his tunic.
“Do. Not. Dare.”
His mouth slides up the side of my face, trailing kisses to my ear. A shiver ripples down my arms, raising gooseflesh across my skin.
“The brew.” His husky voice incites another horde of flutters. “It clouds your judgment.”
“No, War Master.” I rub myself against him. “Believe me, it is not the brew.”
His grip tightens around my arms. Then he inhales, the air ruffling my hair upon exhale. “I won’t take advantage of you.”
I lick the side of his neck and nip his ear.
“Female,” he growls.
“Orc.” I brush his earlobe with the tip of my nose. “Perhaps it is I who is taking advantage of you? After all, you imbibed far more brew than I, not that I was keeping track.”
He chuckles, the rich, buoyant sound loosening the strain of the last four days. His hand falls along the length of my back in slow, leisurely strokes.
Smiling, I nuzzle my nose into his tunic, luxuriating in his pine and musk scent. No male should smell this good.
The purr against my cheek stops, and he sighs. “It’s better this way.” A whisper against my hair that does not echo in this rooftop loft. With his mouth pressed against my head, his hand continues to move. Up. Down. “We can’t afford complications.”
He is right. Fates, he is right. But I do not care.
I grab his wrist and flatten his palm over my breast where my heart thuds violently against his hand.
“Better for who? I want to feel. For once, my magic is not an impediment. Kiss me. Touch me. Do what you will with my body.” I sandwich his face between my hands.
“Show me what I have denied myself all these years.”
I free myself and pull my tunic over my head, baring myself to him.
Gauron stills. His eyes drop to my breasts, my nipples puckering under his perusal. Amber turns to red and glows like burning embers, making words unnecessary. He cannot deny his desire no more than I can.
But he will try.
Jaw ticking, he turns his face and immediately draws back, as if the mere act of looking away pains him. “We can’t. We can’t do this.”
A heavy breath leaves me, falling to the floor with unexpected weight. Please let there be a “but” to this equation.
“Ancestors help me, I want you, Sersha.” His voice is throatier than before. A needy growl that sends gooseflesh skating across my skin. “I want you with a ferocity I can’t explain.”
The air around me thickens with anticipation.
With want. Tension ripples down his arm and the flesh imprisoned by my fingers.
I am tempted to reach up on my tiptoes and decide for him.
But my pride holds me back. The next move needs to be his.
Yet every breath he takes amplifies my arousal until it is a living, breathing thing vibrating between us.
Nostrils flaring, Gauron leans in and groans. Then his mouth crashes against mine. The kiss is rough and savage. We break apart long enough for him to reach a hand behind his neck and work the tunic over his head.
Moonlight casts a pale light over his gray skin, and despite having seen his upper body before, the sight steals my breath.
Most of his wounds have healed, but a few puckered gashes remain after Aerin’s ministrations.
Still, every scar, every imperfection, is a masterful stroke against a canvas of a life lived in service to his people.
His mouth curls into the cocky smile that is as much a part of him as the scars etched upon his flesh.
“Show-off.” I press a hand to the center of his chest and give a hard shove.
With a laugh, he falls onto his back, pulling me atop him. I straddle his hips and smooth my hands across his pectorals, my smirk taking center stage.
“See? I take what I want, War Master. No questions. No regrets.” I lean down until my breasts flatten against his chest, my lips hovering above his mouth. “And what I want tonight is you.”
“Is that so?” His hand braces the back of my neck, and without warning, he rolls me onto my back. Clasping my wrists, he lifts my arms over my head and pins me to the floor. His mouth latches onto my nipple, and any intelligent thought evaporates.
Nimble fingers unfasten my trews, freeing one leg and then the other. His mouth sucks and nips and licks its way across my flesh while his hands explore my body until I writhe and whimper beneath him.
His fingers graze my inner thighs.
My awareness pops. Blood rushes to the sensitized cells springing to life in the wake of his touch.
With an exaggerated slowness, his gaze connects with mine, and a naughty smile brushes against my stomach. He slides lower. And lower.
My heart thumps, one agonizing beat after the other, waiting—anticipating—where that sinful mouth goes next.
He does not disappoint.
Gauron spreads my legs apart. My lungs seize, my breath catching somewhere between my stomach and my throat until the first hot swipe of his tongue.
Moons above, I see stars.
“Fates,” I gasp.
Gauron’s low masculine purr rumbles over my sensitive flesh.
He clasps my rear and tilts my pelvis. The seductive heat of his mouth drags a low moan from my throat.
My legs fall wide, and the sight of this massive orc, the muscles of his shoulders bunching against the gorgeous mane of red hair as he devours a part of my body no other has tread, does something wicked to my heart.
Something powerful.
Something that fists my chest with the same ferocity as the pressure building in my body. I fall into a vacuum, all rational thought and consciousness sucked into this immense void of pleasure, the surf rising and cresting, likely to wreck me when it breaks.
And it does.
The orgasm rips through me, and I come apart crying his name.
At some point, I open my eyes. I am a puddle of bliss and wonder, lying boneless beneath the backdrop of a midnight sky, and the hungry, positively feral expression of the orc poised over my body. My gaze drops to the bulge straining against his pants, and excitement builds all over again.
I bite my lip and catch his gaze. “I am not sure I can top that, but I am most eager to try.”
He reaches for the blanket I retrieved earlier and spreads it on the floor beside me.
I roll with every intention of shoving onto my knees when he scoops me into his arms and gently lays me atop one side of the wool.
He drops in behind me, curling his massive body around mine, and then pulls the rest of the blanket over me, tucking the edges between our hips.
One arm cradles my head and the other falls over my waist, sliding between my breasts to hold me securely in place.
“Sleep now.”
Sleep? “Gauron—”
“Shh.” He kisses my cheek, his erection pressed against my backside. “Tonight is yours, female. Do me this honor.” His mouth nuzzles my ear. “Sleep. I will stand guard.”
“But—”
“No buts.” His chin rests against the top of my head, the warmth of his chest radiating across my back.
Nestled within his arms, I feel cherished and protected.
Safe.
Emotion balls in my throat. Too cowardly to acknowledge the strange feeling seeping into the hollow of my chest, I close my eyes. Haukur’s mighty rebel may have just staked a foothold into the center of my heart, and I am not sure what I intend to do about it.