Page 72 of Wench

She takes him into her mouth as deep as she can, using her hand to stroke what she can’t. Her tongue flicks over the sensitive tip. It doesn’t take long before his legs tremble with the effort it takes not to thrust.

He gasps and pulls her back with a gentleness that belies his shaking. ‘Stop. I want to be inside you when I lose control.’

She leans back and settles onto the mattress as though it were a throne. Her thighs fall wide, slick with her own anticipation, and when he looks down at her, he sighs like a man on the edge of unravelling.

His body hovers over hers, all heat and muscle, and when he lowers himself to kiss her again, it’s with a kind of urgency that makes her ache. Their skin slides together, slick and feverish, and Marian can feel the way he quivers as he lines himself up against her.

Lox doesn’t move at first. He stares at her like she’s made of something more dangerous than any blade he’s ever held.

‘Truth for a truth,’ he whispers, recalling the game they played when he took her to the ridge. ‘You terrify me.’

Marian doesn’t flinch from that gaze. She smiles and settles onto the pillows, auburn hair spread across the sheets. Her fingers trail languidly over her breasts, down her stomach, and beneath his rigid length. She gives him a gentle squeeze and tugs. ‘Then come worship what you fear.’

He slides against her folds, slick with her arousal, and Marian cries out at the friction.

‘Robin,’ she breathes.

He pushes in inch by inch, the stretch of him making her gasp, her fingers clutching at his back as he sinks deeper. Her eyes flutter close as he fills her so fully, she forgets how to breathe. He groans and the sound vibrates against her throat. It’s too much and not enough all at once. He stills, letting her adjust, and presses his forehead to hers, before he buries himself inside her entirely.

‘Fuck,’ he grunts, burying his face in her neck as he draws back and rolls his hips forward again, making Marian’s breath stutter into a moan. He’s deep, the friction unbearable, the drag of him inside her maddening in its rhythm.

Her legs wrap around his waist, heels pressing into the small of his back, urging him to go faster, harder, but Lox resists, keeping the pace torturous.

Marian whimpers, hands gripping his shoulders. She runs her fingers through his hair until she finds the base of his antlers.

A guttural sound tears from his chest, somewhere between a growl and a moan. His golden eyes flash wide, then dark, as though she’s touched something both sacred and forbidden. ‘Careful,’ he rasps, his voice ragged. ‘They’re?—’

‘Sensitive,’ she finishes for him, a wicked lilt to her tone. Her nails trace up one curve, the other hand gripping where horn meets skull for leverage as she lifts herself up on him.

The reaction is immediate.

His breath shudders, hips surging up into her with helpless urgency.

‘Marian,’ he warns, her name both a curse and a prayer. She pulls him closer by the antlers, half-playful, half-cruel, kissing him deeply until they’re both shaking. Every sound from him vibrates straight through her – each moan and growl as raw as the forest in a storm. His hands clamp at her hips, guiding, demanding, but she holds the antlers tighter, controlling the angle, the depth of his kiss, the surrender of his body.

‘Gods,’ Lox rasps, voice fraying. His hands fumble for purchase on her hips, tight enough she knows she’ll wear his fingers as bruises tomorrow.

Her nails find the soft skin where horn blends into scalp and she traces it like someone mapping the land. The sensitivity there is astonishing: a featherlight touch sends a tremor through him that she can feel in the set of his shoulders and the clench of his jaw. She presses harder, thumbs kneading the muscle at the base of the horn while palms cradle the curve, and his whole body answers with a wave of need that starts at his throat and breaks against the place where they are joined.

Marian uses the antlers as leverage to pull him into her until it elicits a gruff moan.

Lox drives inside her with a shuddering grunt. His hips roll with a precision that leaves her nails biting into skin as he finds a rhythm that makes her yelp. Every thrust drags a sound from her throat she doesn’t recognize – raw and needy and free. His hands grip tighter as he rocks into her, each stroke hitting deep and just right.

The bed creaks loudly beneath them, but neither of them notices, too consumed by the way their bodies move together.

He shifts, bracing one foot on the floor and angling her hips higher, and the next thrust makes her wail, loud and unrestrained.

‘Oh saints,’ she cries out.

‘You were made for me,’ he grits, hips snapping harder now, pace increasing as her slickness coats him. ‘My Maid Marian.’

No longer gentle, Lox pounds into her like he’s being chased. Marian clenches around him, mouth parted as her pleasure climbs higher and higher, a spiral that coils tighter with every thrust.

When he brings a hand between her legs and rubs, the sensation rips through her. Her thighs lock around his waist, back arching off the bed. She roars as her entire body is wracked with sensations so intense that they border on pain. The world goes white for a moment, ecstasy seizing her spine and scattering thought.

Her vision blurs, tears springing to her lashes with the sheer force of release, but he doesn’t relent. He drives into her through the tremors of her climax, every thrust coaxing new ripples of aftershocks that make her body quake around him. She claws at his shoulders, his back, dragging nails down hard enough to welt; her moans spill into the hollow of his throat like confessions.

Lox’s body is damp with sweat, his hair plastered wild to his temples. He buries his face against her neck and mutters fractured prayers in a tongue she doesn’t know.