Page 137 of An Empress of Fire & Steel

She couldn’t help a gasp escape her lips, and Torin stilled.

“I’m sorry.” He kissed her mouth as he rolled his hips again softly, edging into her. The sting of how big he was made her eyes open wide. Another gasp hitched in her throat at the friction, but she tried to choke it down.

Emara focused on the magic thrumming through her body, fighting the uncomfortable feeling. She knew it wouldn’t last long, Breighly had told her that. And Cally had too. So she clutched his back, digging her nails into his skin, taking a deep breath as he rolled again. This time, as he went a little deeper, the tension began easing off, and she could feel her muscles relax. She was still so slick from what he had done before, preparing her to take him fully inside of her, that she hoped the sting wouldn’t last much longer.

He sent his hips forward again and she relaxed against the bed, each vertebra of her spine also loosening as his muscled body moved against hers.

“You are incredible,” he whispered into her cheek as he rolled forward, now offering every inch of himself. He kissed her over and over as he moved inside her slowly. “Fuck, Emara.” He groaned hoarsely, like he was holding on to a tiny thread of restraint that frayed more with every thrust.

Where the sharp friction had been before was now replaced with a delightful stretching, and it was a sensation. Both pain and pleasure combined. She gave a small roll of her hips underneath him, bringing them to meet his. His eyes greeted hers and the dark strands from his untamed hair tickled against her nose. She had never seen his hair so unruly. It was beautifully wild, evidence of her hands having been there. She knew how much he had to be holding back with what he was giving her now, and she didn’t want him to.

Not with her. She wanted to see every side of him. Everything.

She could handle his darkness.

Emara grabbed on to his strong neck and her lips smashed against his. “Don’t hold back,” she breathed as her fingers trailed through his hair. “I trust you.”

He moved quicker against her, listening to her command. The movements of his hips were stronger and harder, and she rolled her body to meet his thrusts. Her breathing started to labour again as that tingling sensation worked its way back up her spine, scattering goosebumps all over her skin. Unable to form words, she kissed him frantically, his tongue cutting through her mouth as his pace got quicker and deeper, the rolling of the colossal frame on top of her, the sounds of their skin against each other. Her hands ran all over his back, clutching and clawing as the pleasure of their joining intensified.

“I am not worthy of you.” His head bowed down towards her, and his breathing started to labour too.

Oh, but he was. He was so worthy of her. “You are more than worthy of me,” she said, staggered between broken breaths. “I promise to show you that…you…are…worthy.”

The maddeningly wonderful tension crept back into the muscles of her core as he began pounding inside of her, chasing that sweet release for both of them. The strokes of him being inside her now were so fervorous, a moan escaped her lips as she drove her hips into him, hard, and a spike of rapture coursed through her as she rolled again.

A sensual hiss escaped his lips at her action, deepening his plunge into her, and a wicked smile pulled his mouth up. “You are going to send me over the edge if you keep doing that,” he breathed, and he propped himself up, slightly slowing his pace again, watching himself move inside her. “I don’t want it to be over just yet.” He thrust inside her again, and it took Emara everything she had not to turn her head into the sheets and scream. “I want to explore every limit your body has. In time, I want to explore all of it.”

He rolled his hips so hard against hers, she could hear the smacking of their skin meeting again.

“I will always want this, to explore all of it. Only for you,” Emara managed to get out before another moan developed in her throat. A guttural sound left Torin’s throat at her words, and she could feel how much he was tensing. “Don’t hold back.” She panted. “I want all of you. All of it.”

With one delicious thrust of his hardness inside her, he broke through that tension-filled wall as he found the flesh of her nipple with his mouth and sucked. The world around her shattered again, glittering like broken pieces of a puzzle, bringing with it her second climax.

“Wrap your legs around me,” he demanded, and she obeyed, unable to see straight for all of the sparkling stars.

As she did, he moved inside her hard and rapidly. Much more rapid than before, and his hands were over her, running over every part of quivering skin.

Torin ravished every part of Emara that she offered.

A thunder began building in his chest and she could feel it as he kissed her. It was thunder and it was lightning, it was oceans swelling and it was heavy rain that soaked her to the core. It was a storm that broke and unleashed itself around her.

Air raged at them and fire burned in her fingertips, waves of desire crashing against the shore.

He came, a raucous sound breaking from his lips, and every muscle in his body strained. Torin stilled, and after a few seconds, he finally worked into a gentle roll, his breathing more uneven than she had ever heard it before even after a battle or fight. He sagged a little, his golden skin flushed, before cradling her underneath him, moving her to a position that meant no one else in the world could see her. Not even the flames of the fire could catch a glimpse of her as he kissed her shoulder, burying his nose in her neck. Not even the snow on the mountain peaks could glimpse her as his body protected her from their view.

For a moment, there was nothing else in this world. Not darkness, no light—just them.

Fire and steel.

A fake laugh left Breighly’s throat as she took a side glance at the hunter who had been catching her eye all night. He was still staring from across the grand ballroom, sipping on a drink of his own.

Artem fucking Stryker.

The chief commander’s son.

That’s who she had let into her bed. She should have checked his crest, because then her heart wouldn’t have thundered the way it did now. She would have been prepared.

He winked, catching her glance that had lasted a little too long, and she turned her attention back to the conversation she had been ignoring with the boring twat standing before her.

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