I’ve never wanted to win something so badly in my life.
A small eternity sifts by before his fingers trail down, pebbling my skin, pausing briefly where the plump flesh cradles my vulnerable, eager heart.
My breath hitches, back arching.
His hand is calloused and worn, cold like the bolts of rain hitting my skin and those shards of ice that danced across it in the bath. For a moment, I wonder if he, too, will fall victim to the fire in my veins. If he’ll dissolve like the milky breath puffing out of me with every fevered exhale.
His hand continues to rove at a glacial pace, perhaps waiting for me to make a sound; scream at him to stop.
I’m frightened to move lest he do just that.
He chases raindrops down the slope of my breast, the ladder of my ribs, bypassing the sodden ribbon knotted around my waist and pausing just below my belly button.
Don’t stop.
Pleasedon’t stop.
I hear him swallow over the pound of rain, feel his chin rest on the top of my head as if he lacks the energy to hold it up.
My muscles spasm beneath his hand, and my insides do the same, clamping around nothing.
Anticipating.
I roll my hips, an unbridled answer to my body’s plea, desperate for his touch to explore the hot wetness between my legs.
He’s so close ...inchesfrom crumbling that barrier between us.
“You’re going to promise me you won’t try to hurt yourself again.”
“Yes, whatever you say ...”
Right now, I’d give anything he asked.
I’d give him my soul. The breath in my lungs. I’d lump my heart on a silver platter and let him drink straight from the source.
“Say it, Orlaith. Or I go no further.”
“I promise!”
A soft, rolling growl makes his entire chest vibrate.
His hand descends those final few inches, fingers cupping that most intimate part of me, providing a cool perch for me to grind against.
My entire body shudders—threatens to turn inside out, all my blood seeming to rush to that one point of contact. I unfold for his drugging touch that’s loosening my joints, making my hips tide like the ocean.
Smooth. Confident.
Drawing my own strokes of pleasure from his resting hand, I feel myself start to pulse from the inside, my legs drifting wider as I stoke that heat into something that roars with its own fiery heartbeat ...but it’s not enough.
I need him filling me, stretching me, chilling me from the inside. I need him to make those flames wink out.
“More...”
His chest quakes, and something hard presses against my spine.
“You’re going to regret this,” he grits out, his deft touch sliding up my slit. Spreading me apart.
Threatening to stake a claim.
