Page 494 of Kingdoms of Night

Inhibitions unfound, I followed his lead and pet her large head til her third lid emerged. A sign of relaxation I recognized from cats and dogs, showing when they were on the verge of or already in deep sleep.

I scratched at the hard skin beneath her chin. “Am I clear to fly on her now?”

“You could, if we waited until nightfall for me to accompany you.”

That was still days from now. “We wouldn’t have to wait any longer if we followed this dinner by making up for our wedding night.”

“Are you certain?”

“If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were trying to let me down easy.”

As if in response, Tamuz rose with me in his arms. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, heart pounding as he carried me up to the top floor.

CHAPTERELEVEN

At his command, Iltani slipped out a window, leaving us to fall back into one another.

He set me on the edge of his bed, standing back to swallow the rays from the shuttered windows bordering the alcove. “Don’t think for a second that I don’t want you, when I have been holding myself back since I first glimpsed you.”

To calm myself, I measured my breaths, but still came out winded. “Why didn’t you say so then?”

“Would you have welcomed such a statement when we first met, before you had even unveiled?”

“All of this because you liked my shine?” I teased in an attempt to mimic the flirts back home, with their coy attitude and fluttering lashes.

Tamuz danced his nail tips along the frame of my face, tucking a stray lock behind my ear. “‘Like’ doesn’t begin to explain how I feel.”

“Then show me, as much as you can,” I dared, heartbeat migrating down my chest to my mound.

Trembling with anticipation, I watched him undress, the motions of disrobing the clearest any movement of his had ever been. The clothes hit the floor, unobscured by his shadows, becoming a pile of gold-lined burgundy cloth, and I could almost see what had been bared to the charged air of the room.

Outlines of his body caught the pale light, framing his shape like he were carved from obsidian. The tenebrous surroundings had been contained, leaving him a precise figure I ached to touch.

Within reach, he knelt before me to unwrap the straps of my sandals, removing each with a kiss to its respective knee. “What do you like?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve never been with a man?”

“I’d have followed my mother to the grave if I had, because no man would have stayed silent had he bed the high priest’s daughter,” I admitted bitterly. “Before I came to you, there was hope of climbing back to his earlier rank through myself or my sister.”

Tamuz played with the straps of my gown, I could see the whitish outlines of his hair and jaw. “Will you tell me about the life you left behind?”

“Later.” By a grip in his hair, I brought him closer. “Now, you help me find out what I like.”

He kissed me, slower and gentler this time, undressing me further with each kiss that migrated down my body. I raised my hips to meet his lips and ease the slip of the dress as it flew over my legs, leaving me bare and clawing at the bed for balance.

A hand wrapped around each thigh, hiking my legs over his shoulders as he dove headfirst between them.

The touch of his tongue had me jerking up, a surprised gasp ripped from my constricting throat. He pursued that effect, licking with determination, the flexible muscle I’d tasted making the most of its mobility by driving me mad.

Consumed by throbbing waves of pleasure, I thrashed to channel the inexplicable energy overcoming me. The sheets weren’t steady enough for my desperate grasp, I grappled blindingly until I found his hair, anchoring myself to the source of the growing wetness between my hips.

Each swipe along the electrified tip between my folds had me tightening my grip and huffing out hitched gasps as my legs kicked aimlessly along his wings.

A mounting pressure I’d never felt before rose from beneath his lips, shooting up to my clenching abdominals. He chose then to lift his head, breathing harshly as he climbed onto the bed.

I crawled back to rest on the pillows, spread legs twitching, head swimming with intoxication at the advancing sight.

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