Page 17 of Blood On His Lips

Renaud pressed his thumb against my clit. I shattered, my cry hoarse and jagged, my knees collapsing.

He lifted me into his arms, stalked forward, and then the bed was beneath my back, this sorcerer crouching above me, lowering his head to claim the breast his fingers had left bereft.

“Food offers no energy, wine no intoxication, when the only taste I crave is on your skin. . .”

His mouth closed over my nipple, and I arched my back, my legs falling open as his tongue and teeth ravaged the hardened buds.

“. . .between your thighs.”

He moved down my body. Some shred of sanity prompted me to close my legs again, but he shoved them apart, swatting my resistance away with no more thought than one might give a gnat.

My body seized at the first lap of his tongue, my temples splitting, my teeth grinding as fear hit me, my pleasure breaking open the box I’d shoved my darker emotions into.

“I almost died.”

Renaud stilled.

Stilled as if fighting the truth of my words. He crawled back up my body, bracing on his arms. My open legs nestled him, his weight providing more comfort than I should have allowed. Again came the fleeting thought that this male felt familiar, right.

“But why do you care?” I asked. “I don’t understand what this is between us. It came out of nowhere.”

He turned his head away, avoiding my seeking gaze for a moment, lowering his forehead to mine with a sigh. “It did not come out of nowhere. And every time I try to tell you—”

“You haven’t tried to tell me anything.”

His hands had been on my arms, rubbing up and down my skin in a soothing motion, but now they stopped, dug in. I should be annoyed he didn’t seem to care about marking my skin with bruises and scratches. I might be a warrior, but he could show more delicacy.

“I have. You’re not ready to hear it. I don’t want to break what is left of you.” He spoke, a string of lyrical words in an unfamiliar dialect of the old tongue that sounded close to the Ninephene my mother had spoken to me once. I understood one in five. I think. . .he was ranting at my mother? I recognized the word Maryonne, though he used the correct inflection, Muriel. “I must make you stronger. Neither of us has a choice.”

If I stepped back and looked at his words as a whole, they made a chilling kind of sense if one was insane, but the entirety of it eluded my grasp.

“What do you want, Prince? Answer the question without any of the male snarling and possessiveness.”

His lips drifted to my jaw, pressed gently as he chuckled and rolled to his side. He propped himself on an elbow as he eyed me with interest.

“Females always bleat and squeal about the roughness of a male spiraling in heat until it’s time to use his sword in defense.” His fingers slipped inside my core again, and I gasped. “Or time to bring her pleasure.”

My womb clenched, clearly interested in only one thing. “I won’t be distracted this easily.”

“No? Let us test this.”

The Prince hooked his fingers inside me and began a steady rhythm, learning my body as I squirmed and cried out. Gentle lips drifted down my neck, then teeth sank into my skin.

I yowled.

“Son of a bitch,” I swore in English; cursing in that language was always more satisfying. “That hurt.” As if I needed another bruise.

“I know,” he purred. “I like hurting you thus. I like your screams in my ears while your slick coats my fingers.”

Yeah, I kinda got that.

He rolled back on top of me, gently nudging my legs apart so he could rest between them, pressing just enough of his weight into me for comfort, a restrained sensual threat, but not enough to actually suffocate me—which in the back of my mind I always worried was a distinct possibility.

Tension coiled throughout his body as he lowered his head to nuzzle my neck with more affection than heat, and I understood that despite his obvious desire pressed against me, he had no intention of pushing us to that final consummation.

At least not tonight.

Hesitantly, I twined my arms around his neck, both resigned to and loathing the flood of gratitude that filled me. Because if he did insist on seducing me, my willpower was spent at this point.

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