Page 70 of Beneath the Desert Bloom
And she wanted to feel every second of it.
CHAPTER 16
SHE SAT ON top of him like she belonged there. Like she'd never belonged anywhere else.
Her skin gleamed in the low desert light. Her thighs straddled his hips, her palms pressed to the broad plane of his chest, and her pulse thrummed so loudly she swore he could hear it echoing in her ribs. She could feel every ridge of his monstrous body beneath her—the bark-like texture, the ancient scars that mapped the impossible shape of him. Every shift of him trying not to move too fast, too soon.
Nora wasn’t used to this.
This much focus. This much stillness. This kind of silence that felt like worship.
She leaned forward, her hands mapping his chest, fingers tracing the deep grooves that felt more like living wood than skin. The desert had carved this man—or whatever he was—out of storm and stone and solitude. And somehow, he was here, under her hands, barely breathing.
His erection pressed hard beneath her, hot and unyielding even through the thin fabric of his loincloth, if that’s what it was. She didn’t know. She didn’t care. All she knew was that he was huge, and he hadn’t moved an inch.
“Of course you’re ridiculous,” she thought, her mouth twitching despite the slow, molten pull in her belly. “Of course you’re built like a tree trunk.”
She shifted her hips forward, just slightly, dragging the slick ache of her center across the thick, inhuman ridge of him. Thesize of it made her gasp. Too big, too solid, and exactly what her body had started to crave in her sleep.
His hands clutched her hips, tight, trembling.
She smiled. Sharp. Breathless. A little cruel.
But then his fingers tightened just a little more, and he looked up at her with something in his eyes she hadn’t expected.
Restraint, yes.
But also awe, like she was the unexplainable thing.
“You don’t want me to move?” she teased, voice low, husky, pushing her hips again, slower this time. “Because I want to.”
His jaw flexed. His breath came hard.
And then he exhaled like a man falling apart.
“No,” he said, voice rough, deep, vibrating through her bones. “Not yet.”
Before she could answer, before she could even smirk—he moved.
Fast, but gentle, he reversed their positions in one smooth motion that didn’t feel possible. One second she was teasing him, and the next she was flat on her back on the warm floor, his body towering over hers, a wall of heat and muscle and ancient, monstrous weight.
“You burn in me,” he said, eyes wild. “I came to give it back.”
She didn’t have time to answer before he began to kiss his way down her body, maddeningly slow. He started at her neck, dragging his mouth along the sensitive curve beneath her jaw, then across her collarbone, leaving a trail of heat that made her thighs clench.
Her breath hitched. Her hands buried themselves in his wild, thick hair, and she tugged gently, wordlessly giving him yes.
His tongue grazed the swell of her breast. Then again, lower, licking a slow circle around her nipple until it peaked. He sucked her into his mouth and groaned low in his throat like she was the one unmaking him.
Nora moaned. Loud. Unguarded.
She was already wet, already throbbing, already so close she wanted to scream. But he kept going. Kept tasting. Worshipping.
When he reached her stomach, she was panting.
When he reached her hips, she was shaking.
And when he settled between her thighs and looked up at her—eyes burning, mouth damp, hair wild—she forgot how to breathe.
