Page 79 of Artemysia
“Yes, Riev. Of course.”
A nod, and his eyes shine like two silver coins. He looks at me as if there’s nothing else in the world around us. The intensity in this man is a force that devastates me to the core, and I find it hard to breathefor a brief moment.
He lifts me up over the edge of the water and arranges my shins and feet so they are out of the pool. I’m seated on the warm stones. He begins to lower me onto my back, but then considers my injury. Even though I’m still on painkillers, he folds a pillow out of his pile of clothes to place under my shoulders.
He crawls over me again. My thighs clench together, trying to relieve the ache, the tormenting need that only he can fulfill. Everything we’ve done before has only ever left me feeling like all the bones in my body liquefied, so the thought of his cock in me has my pulse racing.
He stretches an arm out to the side of the pool, reaching for something, and plunks down a leather sheath next to my head. “Here’s my dagger. Stab me in the heart if anything goes wrong.”
“Way to ruin our nice moment,” I say. He replies with a grin. My gaze dips down his powerful chest, lower still to the lines of his hips and below the smattering of dark hair there.
I’ve been with others before, and Throg is always obscenely pointing out fruits and vegetables that he claims correctly depict his size, but Riev, with those bulging ridges expanding before me—
Good gods. When he was in my mouth, I could barely take him then.
I crave his taste. Salty, woodsy, earthy. Warm and sultry.
And now…feeling a mingling of desire and nervous anticipation, I stare at his impressive, beautiful erection jutting out at me. He doesn’t seem to mind me staring one bit.
“Touch me,” he commands, “anywhere you want. I’m yours.”
I’m suddenly aware that my fingers are balled into tense fists, so I unclench my hands and run my fingers along his abdominals to the V-shaped indents at his hips, tracing them down to his cock. His erection twitches at my touch as I grip the ridges, which pulse wider. He shuts his eyes with a jagged groan before flicking them open again with an intensity that stuns me. There’s a softness in his gray irises that I’ve never seen in him. I reach up and brush his cheek, and he turns his mouth to kiss my fingers.
“I know you won’t allow yourself to get attached to a lover,” he whispers, the purr of his seductive voice dipping into the pit of my stomach. “Elphie, my promises to you stand. I’ll never lie to you, and Iwon’t get myself killed by Syf. But we can stop right now. I’d die happy just kissing you.”
My heart stumbles. In his own way, he’s promising that he won’t break my heart. I relax, because he always seems to know when I’m nervous…even now, the way he’s focused on reading me and reacting to my every breath, every sound I make, to make sure I am with him.
His pupils expand as his mouth spreads into a gorgeous smile.
He looks at me as if he’s just awoken from a feverish dream.
Strands of his dark hair fall across his flushed face, and his lashes drop as he gazes down at me through heavy lids. He kneels between my thighs, the corded muscles of his bare shoulders trembling under his skin as his knuckles graze my hip.
“Riev,” I gasp out when his fingers slide between my folds, drawing wetness back up as he circles my clit before gliding down and repeating the movement with his slippery finger, sinking deeper each time he dips back into me.
He already has me trembling. “I need to hear you say it.”
“I don’t want to stop.” I brush the loose strands away from his brow.
“Then open for me.” His rough voice burns through me. He uses his knees to press my thighs apart until I’m spread before him. His expression grows wilder, fiercer as he pins me with his body.
With one hand, he coats the stiff head of his erection with the warm dampness growing between my legs, where an emptiness throbs for him.
“Lift your knees,” he orders.
My knees splay farther apart, and I kick my feet into the air, ignoring the uncontrolled pulse coursing through my chest.
I pinch and tug at my nipples without thinking, loving that he can’t stop staring. He inhales sharply, watching me with shining eyes.
“That’s it. Let go with me.” His voice rumbles out almost like a purr.
I want to, but I haven’t let go completely. I’m wondering about him, wondering if he’s okay, how he feels about waiting all this time to dothis. To have sex, what sex means to him, and what’s going through his mind. And most of all, if it’s even possible for me to stay unattached after this…
“Elphie, you’re thinking about problems that aren’t there,” he rasps, as if he knows his voice will pull me out of my drowning thoughts.
And it does.
He begins to thrust in an inch, out an inch, tentative but gradually moving deeper. Gods, the friction, the rippling texture of the cresting ridges partway down his cock dragging over the perfect spot inside me…
