Page 148 of Bane of the Wild Hunt

“Is this something you have done with other females? Leaving your marks all over them,” I asked. I wasn’t even sure why I wanted to know such a thing, but that familiar hot anger was back from the night before and simmering away under my skin. “Orlaith?”

Sage looked confused and rather hesitant about how to respond which was enough of an answer to make me start to seethe without really understanding why.

“Why would you want to know something like—”

“We are beyond your modesty,” I maintained sternly, narrowing my eyes at him. “I want to know, Sage.”

He sighed, but his hand tightened on my neck a little.

“Yes, Summer. But she did not like for others to see,” he admitted. I cocked my head in confusion.

“But didn’t she want you to mark her? Is it not almost the same thing?” I demanded, my voice sharpening.

I saw him realize the source of my jealousy at exactly the same time I did. Marking one’s lover was a primal act between fey, one that carried a great deal of significance. My teeth in his skin were permanent while the bruises he left on my arm and on other females would fade, and yet, somehow my heart refused to accept the logic.

“She never displayed the bruises,” he told me gently as if in reassurance. “She thought they looked… aggressive. Violent,” he explained in reluctance.

“Violent,” I repeated, my eyes returning to the bruise. “And you are sure it is not about hurting me?”

“Absolutely,” he insisted firmly, and I raised my brows at him with mock seriousness.

“You think I do not remember the expert way that you were able to choke me when I was biting you?”

His eyes widened and dipped to my throat beneath his hand before he stroked his thumb down the side of my neck again.

“But I didn’t hurt you,” he pointed out.

No. No, he had not hurt me. Some masochistic part of me wanted to ask if he’d also done that to Orlaith, but I was able to control the impulse. I was not sure I actually wanted to know that answer because there was a good possibility it would only make these possessive feelings so much worse.

“Then mark me up,” I invited him, tilting my head back to offer my neck for his use. “Not with your hands. I’m not ready for that yet, but you can use your mouth.”

Chapter forty

MARK ME UP

Ornella

Sage hesitated in surprise at my offer to mark up my neck before he uttered a groan and leaned forward. He lowered his hand so he could kiss my neck, using his lips, tongue, and teeth on my skin until my breaths became short. Soon enough, I was fighting the urge to grind against him again, but then his bites grew a little harder. Alternating between soft and rough until every sudden pinch of his teeth was shooting through my body with heightened anticipation. He also used his hands to pinch and tweak my nipples until I couldn’t help it anymore. I arched up against him to purposefully rub my belly against his cock. He bit down on my neck with a growl and flicked my nipple harder as if in discipline.

I hissed in surprise, and then sighed in sudden ecstasy when he released the pressure on my neck, and it caused a rushing sensation to fill my veins.

“Sage,” I gasped, “I can’t see them on my neck.”

He hesitated, his mouth lingering on my skin, but then he raised his head again, and I saw pure, feral intensity in his eyes. I realized I’d been right; he wanted me to be as proud of what hewas doing as he was. The confirmation that I wanted to be able to see them too seemed to send him to all new heights.

He picked me up abruptly, a gasp of surprise tearing out of me before he had placed me on a rock under the water which put him on level with my chest.

“Sweet Elements, Summer, you are beautiful,” he said, his eyes on my exposed torso before his mouth descended on my breasts. My back arched, and I choked out a cry, clenching my fingers in his hair as he lavished my breasts with attention. They already felt fuller, heavier from the arousal pumping through my body, so the sensation of his mouth on them resounded through my whole body.

I watched, rubbing my thighs together to try and create the friction that I was craving as he used his teeth and his mouth on me. He began to create a myriad of love bites and bruises across my chest, and I really did find them rather beautiful. Orlaith evidently thought they appeared too violent, but I didn’t know how she could think that with the tender way he made them. The careful attention he unleashed upon me, the satisfaction he took from every new mark. He added a couple more on my neck and jaw where others would be able to see them before he seemed pleased with how it looked.

Sage drifted back to look at me, and I glanced down to take in his work. I knew every time I looked at them for the next couple days that I would think of how he looked giving them to me. I would think of how much he wanted everyone to know that I belonged to him. I had never had that reaction to love bites before, usually the remnants of my trysts could not heal fast enough, but I found myself hoping these ones lasted a while.

“They look so good,” I murmured in astonishment.

Sage pulled my face down toward him and kissed my mouth unexpectedly rough but brief, his teeth catching on my lower lip as if to keep me near.

“Mine,” he stated, our mouths still brushing together, and a groan of consensus erupted from me before I kissed him again even harder.

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