8. Surrender #2
He looked exactly like what he was. A man who had been doing serious physical work in dangerous conditions for most of his adult life and wore the evidence plainly.
There were scars. A white line beneath his left collarbone. A longer one curving along his right ribs.
He stood there, half-lit by the roaring fire, letting me look. No self-consciousness. No false modesty. Quiet certainty.
My pulse was racing.
Skip was looking at me like I was the only thing in the room worth his attention.
He stepped toward me. The firelight slid over every ridge and valley of muscle as he moved, and I stopped thinking about siege tactics, the world I was in, or anything else at all.
He crossed the short distance between us in three strides.
When he reached me, he didn’t hesitate. One large hand slid to the small of my back, the other cupped the side of my face with that same calm, absolute authority I’d felt when he lifted me from the horse.
His palm was warm, rough from years of sword work, and it spanned half my jaw as he tilted my head exactly where he wanted it.
Then he kissed me.
This wasn’t the quick, battle-charged press of the courtyard or the slow, fireside exploration in the hall. This was deeper. Hungrier.
His mouth claimed mine. The moment our lips met, his tongue swept in, slow and thorough, tasting me like he had all night to learn every secret I’d been keeping. There was nothing tentative in it.
I gasped into his mouth, and he swallowed the sound, deepening the kiss until my knees actually weakened. My hands came up instinctively, palms flattening against the bare heat of his chest.
He felt enormous against me. Overwhelming.
He crowded my smaller frame, forcing me to arch slightly into him just to keep balance.
One of his arms banded around my waist like a steel cable, holding me exactly where he wanted me with effortless strength.
His free hand slid down my back, palm spreading wide over the curve of my ass, pulling my hips flush against his.
And then I felt it.
The unmistakable, heavy length of him straining against his pants. Thick, insistent.
Heat flooded between my legs so fast it left me dizzy. My clit pulsed in answer, slickness already soaking through the thin linen of my nightgown.
For the first time since I had arrived in Mytharo, my analytical mind short-circuited. All I could think was: He is going to ruin me with this. The thought didn’t scare me. It made me wetter.
Skip must have felt the way my body trembled against him, because the hand on my ass tightened, fingers digging in with possessive strength as he rocked his hips forward once—slow, deliberate—letting me feel the full, intimidating length and girth of him grind against my stomach.
He groaned low in his throat—a deep, rough sound that vibrated through his chest into mine—and the kiss turned fiercer.
His tongue stroked mine. His stubble rasped against my chin and cheeks, a delicious burn that grounded every sensation.
My nipples tightened against the linen, sensitive enough that the slight friction of his chest against them made me whimper into his mouth.
He angled his hips forward so I could feel every rigid inch of him more clearly.
Skip broke the kiss just enough to rest his forehead against mine, both of us breathing hard.
His dark eyes raked over my face, my swollen lips, the rapid rise and fall of my chest beneath the pale linen. Without a word, he reached for the nightgown.
His fingers were steady and sure—large hands making quick work of the simple ties with the same decisiveness he used on everything else. The fabric parted slowly under his touch.
He didn’t rush. He savored it, sliding the material down my shoulders with care, letting it pool at my waist before tugging it lower still until it slipped off my hips and pooled at my feet.
I stood before him in nothing but the firelight.
Skip’s gaze devoured me.
He didn’t speak at first. His gaze moved over me—slow, thorough, unapologetic—as though he had been starving for the sight of me and had finally been given permission to feast.
His chest rose and fell with deeper breaths, the heavy muscle there tightening as his hands flexed at his sides.
“Meghan,” he said, his voice low and rough, almost reverent.
He crossed to me in two strides, and his hands found my hips first—large and warm—before sliding around and down, palms spreading wide over the full curve of my ass with a firm grip.
His fingers pressed in, testing the weight and softness of it with a low sound in his throat that he did not appear to make any effort to suppress.
Then he looked up slowly, found my eyes, and held them.
The expression on his face was the look of a man who had gotten exactly what he wanted and was discovering that reality exceeded his estimate.
“You are exquisite.”
Nobody had ever said anything like that to me.
I felt, standing in the firelight with his eyes on me, genuinely, comprehensively, startlingly beautiful.
I had not known I was waiting to feel that until the moment I did.
He lifted me onto the bed and dropped to his knees between my thighs, broad shoulders forcing my legs wider. His hands slid up the soft skin of my inner thighs. Then he leaned in and dragged his tongue along my clit.
I gasped, hips jerking. The heat of his mouth was shocking. Hot, wet, and devastatingly thorough. He groaned against me, the low vibration shooting straight through my core.
“You taste even better than I imagined,” he muttered, voice rough. “Soaked for me already.”
He didn’t tease for long. He ate me like a man who had been starving for exactly this moment.
His tongue circled my clit with firm strokes, then flattened and licked broad and slow before sucking the swollen bud into his mouth.
Two fingers slid inside me without hesitation, curling upward to stroke that perfect spot while his mouth worked me relentlessly.
The wet, obscene sounds of his tongue and fingers filled the room, mixing with my broken moans and the crackle of the fire.
My hands flew to his dark hair, gripping tight as my hips rolled against his face. He growled in approval and doubled down, sucking harder, fucking me deeper with his fingers. The coil of pleasure tightened fast—too fast—until I was trembling on the edge.
He watched me writhe beneath him, dark eyes drinking in every desperate roll of my hips while his fingers continued their relentless rhythm inside me. A slow, wicked grin spread across his face.
“Look at you,” he murmured.
“Skip… fuck… I’m…”
“Cum,” he ordered, voice vibrating through me. “Cum on my tongue, Meghan. Let me taste it.”
Then he leaned in and drove his tongue straight inside me.
I cried out. The hot slide of his tongue was obscene. Deep and relentless. He thrust his tongue in and out with slow, powerful strokes, and every time he pushed deep, his nose ground against my clit, sending sharp sparks of pleasure shooting through my body.
The orgasm arrived without warning and without mercy. I forgot my own name. I forgot every name. I forgot that names were a thing that existed.
He didn’t stop. He lapped and sucked through every shudder until I was boneless and gasping, my body twitching with aftershocks.
When I finally went limp, Skip rose to his feet, lips shiny with my release, eyes dark with raw need. He shoved his pants down and his cock sprang free. Thick, heavy, and even bigger than it had felt through the fabric.
It was intimidating. It was exactly what my forensic personal inventory had been pointing at.
I pushed myself up onto my elbows, still breathing hard.
Skip’s hand came to my jaw, thumb brushing my lower lip.
I followed the touch forward, slid off the bed, and sank to my knees on the fur pelt spread before the hearth.
Up close, Skip was overwhelming.
I leaned in.
The first touch of my lips against him drew a sharp intake of breath from somewhere above me.
I swirled my tongue around the sensitive head, learning what produced results before committing to a methodology. He made an incoherent sound.
I committed to the methodology.
He was too long to take all the way, but I used my hands on the rest of his shaft, stroking in time with my mouth. The salty taste of him, the heavy weight on my tongue. It was intoxicating.
I took him deeper, hollowing my cheeks and sucking with a steady rhythm, using my hands on what I couldn’t take.
Skip’s groan was deep and guttural. His hand slid into my hair, not pushing, just holding as I worked him.
I pulled my mouth off his cock with a wet pop, lips shiny and swollen, a thin string of saliva still connecting me to the glistening head.
My hands kept working him—slow, firm strokes along the thick, veined length—while I looked up at him.
I had never been much for dirty talk before.
In my old life, I had stayed quiet and composed even in bed, letting my mind run wild while my mouth stayed politely silent.
But that was the old Meghan. The old Meghan who stayed in a dead-end relationship for years past its expiration date because leaving required a decision.
I was done with her. I had been done with her since the field.
The new Meghan was going to talk dirty.
My library had an entire subcategory for this. Several, in fact. I had watched enough videos to know exactly what women said in these moments. The specific words, the specific register, the way they looked when they said it.
It turned out the vocabulary was not complicated.
It was just a matter of saying it.
“I want to suck on every veiny inch of your fucking cock,” I said, my voice low.
My eyes never left his—burning, unblinking—as I pumped his massive shaft with both hands, slow and torturously tight. I twisted my wrists on every upstroke, feeling those heavy veins pulse and throb against my palms like they were alive.
“I want to taste how fucking bad you need me,” I whispered.