Page 193 of Warlord's Plaything

A woman who meets my hunger with her own.

She takes a step forward. Then another. Slow, deliberate. The flickering light carves shadows across her collarbone, down the curves of her hips, the swell of her breasts.

"You’re staring," she murmurs.

Her voice is husky, teasing, but beneath it—beneath it, there is something softer.

Something raw.

I push up from the edge of the bed, my body aching in all the ways that do not hurt. She stops just within reach, her breath warm, her fingers brushing my chest, grazing over the scars that mark me.

Scars I once wore like armor.

Scars she has kissed, traced, memorized.

"I’m not staring," I tell her, catching her wrist, turning her palm up. I press a kiss to the inside, just below the joint. "I’mworshipping."

Her breath hitches.

Her pulse flutters against my lips.

A slow smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth. "Then maybe," she whispers, stepping closer, pressing herself against me, "you should kneel."

A growl rumbles in my chest, low and dark. My fingers tighten around her wrist as I tug her flush against me, her body molding to mine, heat sparking where we touch. Her head tilts back, eyes heavy-lidded, lips parting just enough to make me think about all the ways I want to ruin her.

I run a hand up the curve of her spine, fisting the fabric of her slip, pulling it tight over her thighs, her waist. "Be careful what you ask for, little warrior."

She tilts her head, challenging, unafraid. "Who said I was asking?"

A wicked little thing, my Hira.

I smile—slow, deliberate. And then, just as she dares to breathe, I drop to my knees.

A sharp inhale.

Her fingers thread into my hair, tightening as I drag my hands up her legs, slipping beneath the silk that shields her from me. My lips follow, pressing slow, lingering kisses along her thighs, feeling the shudder beneath my touch.

"You think you know how this ends," I murmur against her skin. "But you forget—" I slide the fabric higher, inch by inch, letting my teeth graze the sensitive flesh above her knee, "I never do what I’m told."

A shiver.

A sharp inhale.

And then?—

Shebreaks.

Her knees buckle, but I catch her, guiding her down until she is straddling my lap, her hands clutching my shoulders, her breath ragged against my ear. I slide my fingers into her hair, tilting her head back, claiming her mouth with a hunger that has lived inside me since the moment I first saw her.

Hira doesn’t just kiss me—shedevoursme.

She bites, she pulls, she meets every dark, desperate part of me with something just as wild.

I don’t know where we begin or where we end.

I only know that I need more.

I lift her, carry her to the bed, pressing her down against the sheets, caging her beneath me. My weight settles between her thighs, the warmth of her searing through every layer between us.

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