Page 46 of The Brute and the Blade

We shed the rest of our clothes clumsily, impatiently, too desperate for the slide of skin against skin to bother with finesse. And then I'm straddling his lap, sinking down onto the thick, throbbing heat of him with a shuddering gasp. He fills me, stretches me, the slight edge of pain only sharpening my pleasure as I take him into my body as deeply as he's invaded my heart.

"Grok," I moan, head falling back on a ragged exhale as he hilts inside me, so hard and huge, the most delicious ache. "Oh gods, Grok, yes..."

He snarls, a guttural sound of possession and savage pleasure, fingers biting into my hips as he rocks me on his length. The drag and glide of him, slick and searingly intimate, sends starbursts exploding behind my eyes, my inner muscles clenching greedily, hungry for more of the sweet, exquisite friction.

The pace he sets is slow but intense, rolling thrusts that spear me open, wind me tighter with every deliberate stroke. I meet his rhythm instinctively, rising and falling over him, nails scoring his shoulders as his teeth graze the column of my throat. Each brush of his tusks, blunt and dangerous, against my vulnerable skin sends a dart of heat arrowing to my core, a visceral reminder of the wildness, the otherness of my mate, my love.

My ogre, my everything.

The pressure builds, a sweet agony coiling tighter and tighter in my belly, my blood. Grok feels it, knows how close I am by the desperate pitch of my cries, the convulsive flutter of my sheath around him. His massive hand slides between our sweat-slick bodies, two thick fingers finding my aching clit and rubbing in slow, deliberate circles.

I keen high and sharp, icy, synapses firing, back bowing as the tension reaches a razor, excruciating pitch inside me. "Come for me, little blade," Grok rasps, his deep voice a lash of heat across my senses. "Let me feel you, let me see you. My Lily, my love, my forever."

As if his words are a key in a lock, my climax crashes over me, shattering me into a million molten pieces. I cry out his name as I come undone, spasming around his pistoning length, wave after wave of ecstasy whiting out my vision, my thoughts, my very self.

Dimly, distantly, I feel Grok stiffen, a rumbling growl tearing from his chest as his own end finds him, swift and inexorable in the rippling clasp of my body. Wet heat floods me, his thick ogre seed a pulsing claim, marking me as his inside and out.

We cling to each other as we come down, trembling, gasping. Grok presses his face into the crook of my neck, his breath scalding and ragged against my skin. I card my fingers through his hair, croon nonsense endearments as the aftershocks shiver through us both.

At last, when the sweat has begun to cool and our desperate grip on each other has gentled, he pulls back far enough to rest his forehead against mine. Amber eyes glowing in the dark cave meet my own, softened with wonder and the staggering weight of feelings too vast to be contained.

"I love you," he says again, a solemn and sacred vow. "Always and only, Lily, from this breath to my last. My woman, my mate, my miracle." He tightens his arms around me like he's afraid I'll disappear if he lets go. "When you were taken, it was like the world went gray. Like my soul got snuffed out with you gone."

I shudder at the raw anguish in his voice, the remembered terror and helplessness. Catching his face in my hands, I lean in until our lips brush in the barest caress. "I'm here," I tell him fiercely. "I will always fight my way back to you, Grok, always. You're my heart, my home—there's not a force in this world or any other that can keep me from you."

Tears glimmer in his eyes and he crushes me closer, sealing that vow with a searing, sweetly desperate kiss that stakes his claim, his need, even as it pours out his devotion.

There in the dark, in the shelter of my beloved's body, his heart, I know a peace, a rightness I've never felt before. Human and ogre, fragile flesh and steely strength, two halves of a whole, a mate bond that transcends the barriers of race and reason.

Bound by love.

19

Grok

Dawn breaks pale and chill, filtering through the mouth of the cave in thin, sickly streamers. Lily stirs against me, her warm breath puffing soft and steady over my collarbone. I tighten my arms around her, relishing the silk of her skin, the sweet, solid weight of her in my embrace.

For a long moment, I simply hold her, breathing her in, marveling at the miracle of her presence, her pulse. The fact that despite the odds, the obstacles, this fierce, radiant female is here, with me. That she loves me, wants me, as fiercely and fully as I do her.

It feels like a dream, a fantasy too sweet to be real. As if at any second I'll jerk awake to cold, grim reality, to the aching absence of her...

But this is real, I remind myself, burying my face in her tousled hair. Her scent, her warmth, the little snuffling sounds she makes as she surfaces from sleep...it's all real, all miraculously, preciously mine.

"Grok?" Her voice is husky, thick with drowsy confusion as she blinks up at me. "What's wrong, my love?"

I shake my head, pressing a kiss to her brow. "Nothing," I rumble softly. "Just...marveling. Thanking the gods and ancestors that you're here, whole and hearty in my arms."

A shadow flickers in her eyes, her arms tightening around me as if to anchor us together by sheer stubborn will. "I'm here," she whispers fiercely. "I'll always be here, Grok. Death itself couldn't keep me from you."

My heart clenches at the aching certainty in her voice, the devotion shining naked and unashamed in her gaze. How did I come to deserve this woman, this love? What twist of fate, what boon of the ancestors, granted me such a priceless gift?

But even as I lean in to capture her lips, to pour out my own ardent adoration, a shrill, piercing whistle shatters the morning hush. I jerk upright, instinct and experience dousing me in icy dread.

"The warband," I rasp, already reaching for my armor, my axe. "That's Sharak's signal. They've spotted trouble."

Lily is up and armed in a heartbeat, moving in perfect sync to guard the mouth of the cave as I finish buckling my gear. Not for the first time, I marvel at her swift, deadly grace, the economy and efficiency of motion that speaks to a lifetime of training, of battle.

Gods, I love her, admire her...and fear for her, with a terror that chokes my breath and chills my blood. She is so fierce, so fearless. But she's also fragile, human. A single blow, a stray arrow...

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