Page 85 of Claimed By the Fae Lord

Lamentably, dawn hadn't even kissed the sky when I began stirring, forcing me out of the fantasies my mind had created in my sleep. My senses registered an unfamiliar warmth up and down the front of my body.

My limbs had found their way to Liam in the night, wrapping around him. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm against my cheek, his breath a soft cadence in the quiet room.

My leg was draped over his hips and I could feel him, hard and insistent, pressing against my inner thigh. In the groggyhaze of waking, I forgot the reasons we should keep distance between us.

Later, I could blame it on the wicked dreams where I’d been taken with wild abandon. But for now, I simply wanted to soothe the throbbing ache in my core.

Instinctively, my hips shifted, sliding until heat met heat. I nipped at the skin of his neck, a primal, sleepy action that sent ripples of desire through my veins.

"Damn it, Raina," Liam grumbled, the curse muffled by sleep and surprise. His hands found my hips, grip firm, trying to still the rocking motion I hadn't realized I'd started.

"Flower, I'm not sure you're awake enough to consent to the fucking your body is begging for."

But with the remains of dreams still clinging to my mind, I felt daring. The need coursing through me drowned out the cautionary whispers that usually guided my actions.

Grinding down against him once more, I allowed myself to savor the friction, the pulse of want that followed. My panties were already soaked.

Liam issued another warning, his voice rougher now, threaded with restraint that seemed as frayed as my own. When I responded with a bite to his pectoral, just hard enough to tease, to test, he swore again. This time a low growl vibrated from deep within his chest.

"Raina," he hissed, and though his words were a reprimand, they came out as a husky plea that spoke straight to my core.

Before I knew it, the world had flipped, and I was staring up at the male. My nightgown was a mere whisper of silk against my skin, rucked up to expose the pale expanse of my belly. The heat from his body seared through the thin fabric separating us.

"You're playing with fire, frost nymph," he murmured, his voice low and rough with warning.

"Then burn me," I goaded, breathless, the words slipping out like a dare.

Liam's eyes searched mine, a tempest of red-brown churning with desire and something else. Hesitation? Regret?

It was a look that pierced through the haze of our physical need, reminding me of the fragile bridge we were attempting to cross back to each other.

"Please don't tease me, flower," he implored, his voice strained as if each word was a weight he could barely lift. "I'm not going to fuck you. Not unless you're ready to give me everything."

The molten heat between my legs flared at his refusal, my body crying out for him in ways that words couldn't capture. My breasts ached, the nipples tightening into hard points, longing for a touch, a caress, anything.

I was always so careful, so controlled, but now? Now I wanted to reach out and snatch what my body screamed for.

Yet, even amidst the flames licking at my reason, part of me clung to the last shreds of restraint. I wasn't ready to give Liam the words he wanted.

Our breaths mingled as we hovered on the edge of something irreversible.

With a boldness that the old Raina would never have recognized, I slid my hand down the flat plane of Liam's abdomen. The heat from his skin seared, compelling me forward until my fingers dipped beneath the waistband of his underwear.

My touch found him hard and pulsing. My thumb ran over the tip and I watched the muscles in his jaw flex.

"Are you willing to consider … other things?" I asked, my voice low and husky. "Friendly things.Veryfriendly things."

I tightened my grip on his shaft, drawing a pained groan from deep within his chest.

"Gods," he gasped out, the sound half-moan, half-plea, "you're going to kill me."

For a moment, fear flickered inside me, the worry that he might push me away. But then his arms encircled me with a ferocity that banished any thoughts of rejection.

His hands roamed over my body with a possessive urgency, stripping away the flimsy barrier of my clothes until I lay bare before him. His mouth descended upon mine, a kiss that was both punishment and absolution, every brush of his lips igniting a blaze that threatened to consume us both.

Liam’s mouth trailed a path of fiery kisses down my neck, across my collarbone. I had to abandon his cock as his hips moved down the bed.

When he reached the peaks of my breasts, his tongue circled around the hardened tips, eliciting a sharp intake of breath as pleasure convulsed through me. His hot breath against my skin was both torture and delight.

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