Page 102 of An Empress of Earth & Darkness

“But here I am, still so lost in trying to understand you, like a man who has never understood a woman before.” His tongue rolled over his lips slowly.

Why did his words always send her frantic? She couldn’t let them. She had to shut this down, right?

The Wolf Moon’s energy was pounding through her heart. As much as she should fight it, she knew it was a lost cause tonight.

“If the tunic is ruining your better judgement, I am sure I can take it off,” she replied. The invitation to start this forbidden dance between them had just been delivered, and she wondered if Artem would choose to feed the same longing that she felt right now.

It was definitely the moon. Once she had passed, her mind would be clear again, free of him. Free of her head telling her heart that she was stronger than this and not to give in.

Artem finally grinned, and it almost stopped her Gods-damned heart altogether.

Why could Emara’s guard not be a fucking troll instead of a colossal tattooed warrior?

His smirk was full of cheek. “If you took it off, my judgement wouldn’t even be rational, Princess.” His eyes glittered with feral promise, and her core tightened.

Princess.

She knew he only called her that to mock her position in the pack, but why did her body react to him even when he did? Why did she want to see that feral side of him again? Fuck it. She was playing with fire now, and the only way to stop the burning in her heart was to feel something else entirely, to share that burning with him.

She swallowed, keeping her eyes on his, and drew a clawed nail down the front of her tunic. It parted like water to reveal half of her nakedness. “What does your judgement think now?”

His large hand that still lay at the back of her neck slid up and fisted in her hair, his hips rocking towards hers. He hovered just over them. “I think my rational judgement is completely irrelevant when all I can think about is fucking you hard against that tree behind you.”

She dug her nails into his torso, dragging all the way down to his waistband like she knew he liked. A groan left his lips like a growl, and that encouraged her into pushing past the band of his leathers to find his want for her, solid and ready. She stroked his length once, and he shuddered under her touch, his head tipping back. This time, she didn’t fight the smile, she let it spread across her face. Breighly looked up to find his glare penetrating through her, and it called to all the darkest parts of herself. It silenced all the voices that told her she shouldn’t be doing this.

She stroked him again, and she could feel his impressive length grow harder for her. His grip tightened on her hair, and she hissed in delight as he yanked her head back and leaned into her arched body.

She smiled at him as she said, “You know this needs to be the last time, right?”

“I know it won’t be the last and so do you,” he vowed, his eyes hungry and wild for her. “So stop fucking pretending.”

Seeing him in a dominant light only encouraged her wickedness to tease him.

“This is just the moon and her energy.” She nodded, trying to convince herself. “This is nothing more.”

“Nothing more than me giving you what you need,” Artem agreed on a rumble of need. “What you deserve.”

“And what do I deserve?” she asked smartly.

“Absolute fucking feralness.”

“Is feralness even a word?”

“It is now.”

His lips came down like a comet and smashed against hers as if he had been waiting a millennium to crash into earth. Before she knew she had moved, her back hit a tree, and it knocked the air from her lungs. The bark spiked into her skin beneath the tunic, but Artem gave her no time to recover as his tongue claimed the inside of her mouth. His hand was still yanking her hair back, tilting her head the way he wanted, and she leaned back and exposed her neck to him. He took it with his teeth, his lips, and his tongue, feasting on her. She moaned in ecstasy, and he wasted no time as his hand found her peaked nipple underneath the tunic.

She writhed against him. She needed his fingers, his cock, his anything.

Still gripping her hair, Artem slid his mouth up to her jaw. “You have been the one in control many times.” He coaxed her nipple between two fingers, and already she wanted to scream. “But this time it’s my turn.”

A thrill ran through her, and the magic in her blood pounded at his dominance. She could see that he had been willingly letting her do whatever the fuck she wanted before, but the tables had turned. Breighly was out of control under his touch, her hips driving into him, desperate for that sweet friction, the climax already beginning to build.

The hand that had teased her flesh dove down and parted her legs. He growled again as his fingers found how ready she was for him. “I fucking love how wet you get for me, how you moan for me, how you feel when I am inside of you. You can’t pretend this is going to be the last time when you want this just as badly as I do. Do you want me to stop?”

He teased two fingers across the bundle of nerves and she saw stars. How was he leading this? She had always been in control of what they did together.

“No,” she breathed, pulling him closer to her. She was a slave to his touch. When he only continued to tease her, she dragged her nails down his arms. “I want it. I want it now. Give me what I want.”

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