Page 66 of Prince of Never

‘Turn,’ he said, the low rumble of his voice causing heat to throb in my core as I sucked in a shaky breath.I did as I was told, turning my back to him and brushing my hair over my shoulder.He was silent as he pulled at the laces on my dress slowly.I could feel the fabric beginning to loosen around me.He pushed it open, revealing my skin to the cool evening air.A finger traced down my spine, sending a shiver following quickly after.Lips grazed my neck as he moved in close behind me, the warmth of his body against mine, the touch of skin against skin.

He pushed the sleeves down my arms, his lips gliding from my neck across to my shoulder and I leaned back against him, needing to be closer, his heady scent intoxicating my senses.The dress hung off my hips and he pushed it down.It slithered over my legs, pooling at my feet.His hands brushing against my skin had my teeth sinking into my lip.My slip was pulled over my head, tossed to the ground, leaving me bared to the air, my nipples peaked and my skin chilled by the sharp contrast of the cold night with the heat thudding through my veins.Tarian slowly turned me around, hungry eyes raking over my body, and the way he looked at me made me shiver.

‘I don’t deserve you,’ he said, his voice hoarse as his hands slid up my waist.‘But I’m going to take you anyway.’

I reached for his pants as his lips claimed mine again, fingers working nimbly, but in our haste to remove all barriers between us, I couldn’t tell if it was me or him who pulled that last one away.He lifted me, parted my legs, curling them around him, and the shock of his erection brushing against my sensitive centre caught my breath and held it.Our lips never parted, tongues entwined, my fingers curled in his hair.I shifted to get closer, chasing what I wanted, and he groaned against my mouth at the movement.

We fell to the bench, and I hardly noticed the cold stone beneath my knees, only noticed how that purchase changed my position, let me shift my hips into place.

He pulled away, just far enough that he could look at me.‘Last chance,’ he said, as if each word was being dragged out of him against his will.

I lowered myself onto him in answer, moving slowly, wanting to feel everything, wanting to savour this moment, to commit it to memory.There was no stopping this thing between us.I didn’t even want to try.He hissed out a breath, his hands gripping my hips hard, fingers digging into flesh, and I relished in that moment of power I held over him.For a moment, pain flared at a point on my wrist, bright and sharp as being stuck with a needle, but I only paid it a moment of attention as my head fell back, overcome by the way he filled me.How could I have ever lived without this now that I knew what it felt like?Whathefelt like?

His lips were at my breast, pulling a taut nipple into his mouth, sucking it sharply until I cried out.My fingers curled in his hair, pulling him against me as I rode him.‘Harder,’ I begged.

His hands gripped me tighter, and I felt the graze of teeth and my muscles clenched around him as pleasure shot through me.

As if spurred on by my reaction, he thrust against me, his hands on my hips holding me in palace.I moaned, an exqusite tension curling in me, building tighter and tighter until it snapped, rippled through me like shockwaves as I clung to him, muscles clenching around his cock.He leaned back, watching me, winding his hands in my hair until he pulled me back to his mouth, chasing the flickers of aftershock with his hips until his whole body tightened, then unravelled with a groan against my mouth and went still.

For a long moment we stayed that way, breathing heavy, bodies connected, clinging to each other.His fingers began to trace my skin, sliding down my arm, lifting my wrist to his lip.He pressed a kiss above the pulse, sending a shiver of pleasure through me.I looked down to catch sight of a mark there, sitting like a pale scar on my skin.The sight of it it filled me with a warmth, like sunlight in my chest.

‘Catch your breath,’ he said.‘I’m not nearly done with you tonight.’

Chapter 29

Imogen

Sunlighttrickledinthroughthe window, waking me with its gentle glow.A warm body was pressed against my back, an arm wrapped tightly around my waist.It felt like my smile reached all the way to my toes, softening me, making me feel as if I was glowing like the early morning.It seemed almost surreal that we were there, in his bed, after everything.In one night he’d managed to wash away all the hurt he’d caused me.

Because last night, he’d proven to me beyond a doubt that he cared for me.Despite the prophesy he feared so much, he’d chosen to keep me.

Fingers brushed lightly against my stomach and I knew he was awake.I felt suddenly self-conscious, suddenly nervous.Every time he’d shown this side of himself to me, he’d pulled away again.Would he do the same now?

‘Are you pretending to sleep, little librarian?’

‘No,’ I said.But I had hoped he wouldn’t know I was awake yet.I was afraid that the sun would chase the moment away like a dream, that Tarian would restore his defences and tell me the previous night had been a mistake.

He kissed my shoulder, brushing his lips back and forth across my skin in a way that brightened that glow, fanning it, turning it hotter as he buried his face in my neck, breathing in deeply like he was committing me to memory.His fingers found mine.I drew our twined hands out from beneath the covers, turned his wrist until I could see the small white mark there.It was a twist of interlocking lines, a knot whirling in on itself with no beginning or end.It was strange to think this somehow bound us together now.I hadn’t really thought through the repercussions of the decision I’d made the night before.I hadn’t thought of much at all.

‘So much trouble for such a little thing,’ I murmured.

He drew our hands to him, pressed a kiss to my wrist where my own mark was.‘Not such a little thing.It tells the world you’re mine.’

‘And you’re mine?’

‘Do you intend to claim me?’

I turned to him, met his dark eyes.‘Yes.’

The crooked smile on his lips was soft, something I’d never really seen on him before.He brushed the backs of his fingers up my jaw, that smile settling in around his eyes as he kissed me slowly, like he had all the time in the world and there was nothing he would rather be doing.My hand slid up his chest to his neck as I pulled myself closer to him.

A knock at the door shattered the moment.Tarian pulled back, breaking the kiss, but he didn’t release me.‘What?’he growled.

‘You’re going to have to get up.I need you to sign off on something,’ Arun said through the door.

Tarian let out a sigh, releasing me from his grip.I felt his absence like a strange loneliness creeping into my body.Was that something to do with the bond or something else entirely?I sat up, wrapping my arms around my knees as I watched him dress, ran my gaze hungrily over the smooth, rolling muscles of his back, his shoulders, the hard ridges of his abdomen.I wanted to get closer, to trace every dip and curve of him with my fingers, to explore him with this new sense of ownership I felt, like I wasallowedto touch him wherever I wanted.But if I did that, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to let him leave.

He shrugged on a shirt, and he was halfway through buttoning it up when he caught my eye.His fingers stilled.‘Don’t look at me like that if you ever want to leave that bed.’

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