Page 84 of Steel & Surrender

But her craving for him overrode all else. She couldn’t turn away from this.

Aye, perhaps she might have regrets in the days or weeks or months to come, but she didn’t now. In fact, there was a part of her that thought she might die of wanting if she didn’t have him.

Wetting her lips with her tongue, she cleared her throat. “I don’t want to stop, Greig,” she whispered. “Do ye?”

He gave a shaky laugh, and suddenly the tough, cynical warrior she’d known over the past year disappeared. The vulnerability in those night-brown eyes nearly undid her. “God, I want ye, Brì,” he said, his voice rough now. “I have never wanted anything more. But I had to be sure.”

She reached up then, her hands sliding along his strong jaw. His short beard was surprisingly soft under her fingertips. She then traced her thumb along the swell of his lower lip, her breath hitching when he drew the tip of her thumb into his mouth and bit it gently.

No more words were needed now.

They’d made their pact.

A moment later, Greig lowered himself between her open thighs. He then pushed them apart even further.

His gaze scorched her, heat washing up from the cradle of her hips to her chest and then her throat.

Oh, Hades. This was intimate indeed; far more vulnerable than she was ready for. But she’d told him she wanted this, and she did. And so, she held fast under his scrutiny.

Greig bent his head then, brushing his lips along her inner thigh.

And then his mouth was there—right there, between her legs.

A heartbeat later, his tongue gave one slow, firm, deliberate stroke right down the center of her.

Brìghde couldn’t help it. She gasped a curse, bucking against him.

His hands tightened on her thighs, bearing her wider still. And then his mouth was devouring her.

Brìghde started to shake, her hands bracing hard against the bench, her head falling back as her eyes closed.

She was sure Duart’s chaplain would declare such an act a sin, but she didn’t care.

This felt incredible.

Aye, she’d touched herself sometimes over the years, exploring her quim with her fingers under the cover of darkness as she lay on her cot. It had felt good—sometimes so much so that she’d had to swallow her moans.

However, it was nothing like this.

This was wild. Raw.

And Greig’s tongue was relentless.

It wasn’t long before tension started to coil in her loins, rising like a swelling tide. And as it did, she pushed herself against him, angling her hips up to give him better access.

He slid his hands under her then, cupping her naked buttocks and hauling her closer still. And then, when he started to suck at the most sensitive spot between her thighs, the pleasure that had been swelling inexorably burst.

It stole the breath from her lungs. For a moment, she wasn’t in the forge—not in Duart—not anywhere at all. Just flying.

A hot, delicious sensation pulsed out in languid ripples that made her toes curl, made her arch up against him, her entire body shuddering as his tongue continued to flick and swirl.

He seemed determined to wring every bit of delight from her.

She had never felt anything like it.

Eventually, as she sagged back on the bench, panting and sweaty, he pushed himself up from between her legs, breathing hard, his cheekbones flushed.

Her kirtle and lèine were bunched around her waist, badly rumpled now, no doubt, but she couldn’t have cared less. Instead, she stared at Greig, marking how his gaze had hooded, the way his broad chest rose and fell shallowly, and his swollen, wet lips.