Page 59 of A Shattered Kingdom of Steel

This male will be my undoing.

Gently, he extends his fingers and touches his palm to my neck, just under my jawline. The pads of his fingers press softly on either side of my throat. It sends a shudder through me, drawing a soft moan from my lips.

“Mmm, you like that, don’t you,” he murmurs, his voice seductively low. I can hear the pleasure underlying his tone, as if he’s enjoying this as much as I do. As though he’s enjoying my pleasure. His other hand finds its way up to my breast, painstakingly slow, his fingers trailing up my abdomen. “I wonder what else you like.”

He palms my breast through my damp shirt and flicks his thumb over my hardened nipple, letting out a groan. “So desperate for me.”

He does it again, and this time, I whimper.

Pulling his hand down, he toys with the hem of my shirt. “Do you want me to touch you without anything between us, Bladesinger?” he asks, voice just shy of a rasp.

“Yes,” I murmur. Exhilaration trickles through my body, softening the bite of the cold.

Asheros dips his hand beneath my shirt, trailing his hand back up to my breast. He squeezes gently at first and then applies more pressure. My breast fills his hand, fingers wholly clutched around it. Still palming my breast, he takes my pebbled nipple between his thumb and forefinger, pinching and twisting.

I moan softly, circling my hips to rub his growing hardness.

“Fuck, Lymseia,” he grunts, tilting his face down to my neck. His warm mouth meets my skin, placing kisses up and down from my jawline to my shoulder. His movements slow, and he parts his lips slightly, sucking my skin between his teeth while he continues to play with my nipple.

The fires of a thousand suns spread through me from the inside out, banishing any lick of cold left on my body. I writhe against him, unable to contain the pleasure and desire and need working their way through me.

Reaching behind me, I entwine my fingers into his hair, holding his head to my neck while his lips stoke the flames burning in my lower abdomen. My breaths come quicker now, and my exhales turn into moans.

“Gods,” Asheros groans into my skin. “Those moans.”

“What?” I pant.

“Those sounds you make,” he whispers, dragging his mouth up to my ear, “are heavenly.”

His words make me shudder, and my eyelids flutter. As if to emphasize his point, he tightens his hand around my breast, thumb rubbing circles over my nipple at a relentless pace.

No longer under my control, my hips buck, body rolling against his. His own breaths quicken, his grip on me roughening. A moan escapes his lips. Bare and exposed and full of desire.

Of pleasure.

The sound is my undoing.

My hand falls from his hair. I turn around and crash my mouth against his. If my kisses are a battle, and my lips swords, then Asheros meets each of my strikes with one of his own. A perfect match. He snakes his tongue past my parted lips, and whatever defenses I had left, crumble around him. He grasps my hips, pulling me to his. The force of his kiss has me nearly leaning backward, but his hand slides up my back to support me.

There isn’t a single part of my mouth he doesn’t explore, his hands running up and down my body, and there isn’t a part of him that I leave untouched, either. My hands sweep the length of his chest, up to the base of his neck, and then down past the waistband of his pants. Without lessening the intensity of our kiss, the hunger we both share ravaging the other, I move my hand to his hard length. Flattening my palm against him, I stroke his hardness in time with our mouths.

Asheros’s hand glides up into my hair, curling his fingers around the strands. He tugs my head backward, breaking our kiss. My lips feel puffy and empty when he does, and I’m forced to look him in the eyes.

Neither of us says a word.

I continue to stroke him through his pants, wanting nothing more than to take him in my hand. His eyes burn into mine, crystalline embers that pierce like ice. Our intermingled stares say so much more than words ever could.

We want each other.

Desperately.

The truth of it settles into me, my heart pounding with exhilaration. He wants me.

And I want him, too.

Body and soul.

Asheros breathes heavily, each breath shorter than the last. A low, gravelly moan tumbles from his lips. He grabs my wrist with his free hand, pushing my hand away from him. His gaze stays fixed on mine, even as we both catch our breath.

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