Page 183 of Of Nine So Bold

His magic…

I gasped as he broke from my lips, his mouth exploring down the side of my neck. I could feel his power like a cool breeze pulsing around his skin. My own rose instinctively to meet it, tangling with his until I couldn’t tell where one of us ended and the other began.

Frost shimmered in the air around us like diamond dust beneath moonlight.

My eyes widened. “Byron.”

He paused, catching sight of the display. A smile lifted the corners of his lips. “We were made for one another, even in our magic.” He looked back down at me. “My treluria.”

“You… you felt that about us?”

He nodded.

“Is it why you called me Snow when Ignatius asked for my name?”

A hint of embarrassment crossed his face. “You’ve always felt like snow and starlight to me. And in old Aneiran,white snowis the etymology of your name, so it… fit.” He hesitated. “Did I offend you?”

I shook my head. “I like it.”

Relief took the place of his chagrin. He drew me to him once more. “Then I’ll call you that, even if just between the two of us. My beautiful Snow.”

He bent lower, gently exploring my lips, my neck, and the gap where my blouse was unbuttoned at the base of my throat. “I confess,” he murmured between kisses. “I do have a question, though.”

Making a noise of encouragement for him to ask, I fumbled to unfasten my blouse, my pulse racing.

His lips ghosted across my collarbone. “You’ve read so many love stories. But I have not. All I know of how to please you is what little I saw in your memory. So tell me, princess. What would the heroes in those books say to you now?”

Confused, I paused with my fingers on a button. “What?”

He drew back, his eyes like molten emeralds. “Let the books you love be my teachers. Tell me what they say. What dark and delicious things you read that make your beautiful body tighten with need.” A decidedly wicked smile pulled at his lips. “I want to know what fantasies those books gave you. What secret desires live in your incredible mind.”

Holy gods above…

My body lit on fire and my mind went blank as the snow for which Byron had named me. I didn’t know what to say, strange embarrassment turning my cheeks red.

Was this really happening? My younger self never would have dreamed I’d have the love of men like Byron and his friends, let alone that I could give voice to the fantasies from my books.

His smile softened. “Think on it. I want to make all of them come true with you. But for now, just tell me something they would say.”

“Perhaps…” I wetted my lips. “Perhaps that they liked to kiss me… down there?”

I twitched my chin toward the apex of my legs.

“Mm.” Nodding thoughtfully, he kneeled. His fingers found the ties of my breeches. “And would they say that your beautiful cunt is the altar at which they’d worship until the day they died?”

My jaw went slack with surprise. “I?—”

I gasped as cool air brushed my wet center when he pulled my pants away.

A hungry, needful sound escaped him. Gently, he traced his fingertips down the crease of my hips, making my skin pebble and my core throb. “Rose petals,” he murmured.

I started to ask what he meant, but then his fingers brushed across my clit, making me buck against the bookcase at my back. My hands gripped a shelf, holding me in place while his thumb circled my sensitive flesh again.

Gods, I was going to come from this alone.

Carefully, he slid a finger into me, rocking it in and out as if testing the feel of my channel and then crooking it gently. Pleasure thrummed through me in time to his motions, and my legs trembled. “Byron…”

He didn’t take his eyes from my sensitive core. “And what else would they say?”

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