Page 81 of Heart of the Summer Queen

He brushes over my nipple, which peaks at his touch. As he rolls it between his fingers, a gasp shudders through me. Pleasure rises, smoldering like fire beneath my skin.

“Tell me, Adara,” he says, his voice ragged against my mouth. “Tell me you refuse the annulment because you want this.”

I mutter something incomprehensible, even to my own ears. Rational thought becomes even more impossible as his lips traildown my neck, as he tugs down the fabric of my tunic and continues across my collarbone.

Need washes through my lower belly, thighs slickening with anticipation.

“Tell me,” he demands.

“Yes,” I whisper.

He tilts his head, a brow arching as he regards me. “Yes, what?”

“I want this. I want you.”

“Then perhaps I ought to grant my queen her wish,” he says, eyes glinting with a devious light, “and banish all thought of annulment.”

In the next instant, he’s yanking my tunic up, over my head. It’s a wonder the threads don’t rip from his impatience.

Tunic now gone, my chest is left bare to his hungry gaze. Unbearable tension coils within me as he rakes over my naked skin.

“Touch me,” I plead, when he makes no sign of moving. “Elaric, please.”

His perusal only continues, so I reach up and wrap my hands around his neck, dragging him toward me. As our lips crash together, I feel the corners of his mouth turning up into a silent laugh.

Our tongues writhe together in a tantalizing dance, but my rhythm falters as Elaric’s hand drifts to the waistband of my breeches. His fingers skim across my hip bone. I jerk up toward him.

But I’ve no need to beg now. So swift are his movements that by the time I realize he’s sliding down my breeches, they’re already off.

Then I’m wholly naked beneath him.

Instinctively, my legs wrap around him, closing that last bit of distance between us. The hardness of his arousal presses againstmy throbbing center, the fabric of his breeches offering blissful friction as I roll against him.

With a groan, he grabs my wrists and pulls them over my head, pinning me to the mattress. “I have half a mind to take a dose of the Ruposley potion,” he says, “so I can use my magic to shackle you to the bed and do with you as I please.”

A fresh wave of need pulses through me as I imagine such a scene, icy chains glinting in the dim light as Elaric renders me a slave to my desire.

I swallow thickly, steadying myself. “A pity it would mean freezing the entire village.”

“A pity indeed,” he says with a chuckle. “Though it would be certainly worth it.”

At first, I think he intends to release my wrists and make good on his suggestion. But then his hand roams up my thigh, stopping mere inches short of my aching core. “Alas,” he says, tracing back down my thigh—much to my dismay, “I doubt I could peel myself from you long enough to retrieve the potion.”

“Elaric,” I gasp.

“Yes, Adara?” he asks, as casually as if I were inquiring about the weather.

“Stop teasing me and get on with it,” I hiss.

His eyes narrow as he holds my stare, refusing to yield. “Have you forgotten that I am your king, and it is within my right to do with you as I please?”

“Elaric—”

My protest dies in my mouth. Without warning, his finger slips inside me.

He holds it there still, neither delving deeper nor withdrawing. I arch up, yearning for more, but he keeps me firmly pinned under him. Beneath his weight, I can’t shift even an inch.

“You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met,” he says, though I hardly hear over the desire pounding through me like adrum, “and you have no idea how much satisfaction it brings me to know I can reduce you to a desperate mess.”

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