Page 71 of Through Battle and Blades (The Wolf Queen 2)

“Now, you seek to please me?” I nodded again. “Then start here. Present your mouth for me to do with what I wish.”

I blinked, then frowned slightly, not entirely sure what that meant, and Dane just smiled. Watching me trying to work out what I was supposed to do seemed half the pleasure for him. I flushed at that, feeling a hot rush of frustration, irritation, then fear. I leant forward then, stabbing my face into his space and that’s when his focus shifted. He lifted his hand, stroking my cheek first, then sliding those fingertips down to my lips. He traced the shape of my mouth, the sensitive skin making my lips thin, before his thumb swiped across the seam of them. He nodded slightly as they parted, his thumb retreating and several fingers pushing in.

“I watch this mouth near constantly,” he told me, slowly moving his fingers in and out of my lips in a way that was unavoidably suggestive. “These lips pursing, smiling, stretching into a grin, or going to a line. Your teeth sink into this bottom lip at times.”

His saliva slick fingers slid across it to underline his point.

“It drives me mad each time you do.” His own lips parted then, letting him suck in a deeper breath, flash his fangs at me. “I want to stop you instantly, bark and order at you to leave your poor lips alone, no matter what the topic of conversation is.” His eyes flicked back to meet mine. “Because if anyone is going to sink their fangs into this plush softness, I want it to be me.”

His hand went to the back of my neck, drawing me closer, something I sought to help him with, but he gripped me tight, preventing me from moving. He was controlling this, not me, and I wasn’t going to be allowed to help.

“I spend so much time thinking about the way your mouth feels against mine and needing the taste, I wake up in fright some nights, sure I’ve missed something. Our downfall will be signed not by my father or mother, but by a pair of ruby red lips. I want to hold off, to deny myself this pleasure. You get enough from my brothers, all of my brothers, now we’ve had a little breakthrough tonight. They’ll be on your heels constantly now, wanting to suck on those pert little nipples, slide their hands over your skin, lap at your hot little cunt, so you won’t miss me. But I? I’ll be lurking in my office, thinking about your mouth.”

His eyes burned into mine now with a deadly intensity.

“Your lips part when you’re excited, aroused or upset. You take these rapid little breaths, shallow ones that make me want to bark at you to deepen them. They make you sound like prey, something that has my wolf on edge. He doesn’t know whether to hunt you or fuck you. Neither, I tell him, not me, not us. The others can see to your needs, but I’ll ensure your future. But then your tongue slides across your bottom lip.” Mine did just that, my mouth suddenly bone dry. “And all is fucking lost.”

I was yanked closer, his mouth crushing down on mine with a brutality that sent strange thrills through my body. He didn’t move for a second, just feeling me against him before he shifted. His lips tested mine, forcing them to part, to admit him.

“I tell myself that just one kiss, that will be enough. Just the one. What bad could come from a kiss?”

His hands began to move restively then, digging into the base of my scalp, threatening to unseat the knot he’d wound there.

“But there can’t be just one, can there? Not for me. Because taking one.” He sucked my bottom lip, then abandoned it to pay homage to the top. “Leads to another.” His tongue slipped into my now panting mouth, teasing mine before pulling away. “And that leads to another. All that hunger I keep locked away, it comes rushing out. Take her, my body screams. Claim her, bite her, make her yours.”

He nipped my lip hard enough to sting and then kissed it away, my hands moving now to wrap around his neck and that’s what forced him to freeze.

“Hands behind your back. Do it, Darcy.”

I was somewhat shocked to feel myself obeying him without question, the pose now creating a tension in my body. He was the only thing holding me up. Well, that and my abdominal muscles, but they were unused to supporting my body in such a way. He smiled then, as if he saw all of my uncertainty and discomfort and found some pleasure in that.

“You offered to let me use you for my pleasure. That is a heady, heady thing, something that makes my mind race with the possibilities, but not here, not now. You need just a taste of how things could be, to see if this is something you can bear.”

As I hovered there, under Dane’s control, but in ways I hadn’t anticipated, I started to think. What exactly would he want me to do? How would this—? He stopped any thoughts in their tracks as he drew my head down to the hollow of his collarbone. Dane loosened his hold on me then, setting his hands very deliberately on the arms of his chair.

“Use that beautiful mouth of yours on me. Track your way down, slowly.”

36

In some ways, being given more control over what I was doing was disorientating. When he held me where he wanted me, forced me to do his bidding, I could stop thinking and just feel. But now I had to consider just what he meant and that forced me to strive in ways I hadn’t before. He’d delivered harsh worded odes to my mouth and suddenly I wanted to live up to each bit of praise.

So I traced the shape of that elegant bone structure all the way out to his bare shoulder, then mapped the terrain of the muscles there, the tension under his skin letting me know I was doing things right. I burrowed my face into the slight hollow where his arm met his chest, then over the hard swell of his pectoral muscle until I found it. His nipple felt harsh under my lips, the outer ring crinkling as the tip formed a tight bead, one I tested with my teeth. I heard the rapid intake of his breath as I grazed my fangs across it, nudging the point with the sharp edges.

“Darcy…”

He was about to growl an instruction, bark at me to do his will, but somehow I knew what he wanted. What he’d created here, this strange crystalline mood punctuated by the slow, near silent snores of his brothers, my pack, it helped me read him in just the same way as he did me. I bit down, feeling his flesh dimple under my fangs but not break, my tongue sliding up to soften the caress.

“Fuck, lass, I…”

I struggled to hold the position with my hands behind my back, but I sucked in a great mouthful of Dane, tasting the salt of his skin, feeling his tight flesh resist the pull. But suck I did, harder and harder until I caught the faint taste of copper. Then I let him go, watching his chest heave, his own lips parting to drag breaths in. My eyes met his and even as I held myself contorted into the position he ordered, I felt it.

Power.

I provoked his reactions. I made his heart race, his chest heave. I caught his gaze and held it, not letting go for a second as I dropped my mouth lower. His abdominal muscles tensed and flexed as I kissed my way across each one, as if shying away from the attention and then seeking more. I followed the crinkly trail of hair that led down from his navel, but it was when I hit the waist band of his trews that his hand shot out.

“Be sure this is what you want,” he said, his hand gripping my hair, preventing me from going much further.

But he didn’t want to, I could see, feel that. He wanted to use his hold on me to force my head down and… I moved then, as far as his grip would allow and nuzzled into his groin, forcing a sharp intake of breath from him.

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