Page 110 of Crown of the Dunes

My head spun, and she bucked her hips, grinding against the hardness already tenting my pants. She broke the kiss with a gasp, twisting and writhing beneath me.

“Erix, I need… please.” Her words became a babbled plea.

I ground my teeth, trying to keep my weight off her and grip onto my quickly slipping sense of control.

“Keera, you aren’t in your right mind,” I murmured, my voice husky.

“But I am,” she murmured. “When Calix was touching me, it felt nice, but I still didn’t desire him. Then you grabbed me, and I knew you were the one I wanted… I’ve always wanted you.”

At the mention of Calix, a wave of possessiveness washed over me, and I leaned in to kiss her, trying to lick all traces of his name from her mouth. I only pulled back again when she was gasping and whining.

“You know what Warrick gave me,” she panted. “Would it make me like this if I didn’t already want you?”

I swallowed thickly, and her gaze darted to the way that my throat bobbed. Anza nectar wasn’t like liquor—every touch would feel like fire, sensations amplified to a dizzying height, but she knew what she was saying.

And the desert knew I was weak.

I pinned her down, devouring her sigh of satisfaction. It quickly turned into a moan as my hands slipped under her top. I walked my fingers up her ribs until I reached the underside of her breasts. Then I broke our kiss for just a moment to tear it off over her head and give my wandering hands more room to explore.

Her shirt discarded, I sat back on my heels, admiring the way she lay bare for me from the waist up. Her nipples hardened to points under my gaze, begging me to touch them, and I obliged. Covering one breast with my hand, I took the other into my mouth.

Her hands flew to my hair, tangling in my curls, and I responded by sucking harder. She whimpered, and I couldn’t help smiling into her skin. Once her breasts were red and glistening from my attention, I pulled back to admire my handiwork.

She tried to follow me up, but I kept her in place with a hand on her sternum.

“Absolutely beautiful,” I said. “And mine.”

The word burned as I said it. I knew it wasn’t true, but for right now, I could pretend.

“Erix,” she breathed. “I need you inside of me.”

An inhuman sound escaped me, and my fingers slipped beneath the waistband of her skirt. I knew Neven had made it, and I had almost cursed him for how much I had wanted to rip it off her all night as I sulked out of sight at the edges of the party. The silk was attached to the waistband in long panels that parted and swayed as she moved, showing long expanses of her golden skin.

Now, I slid it down her legs, and she wiggled to help me. Once she was bare, I wrapped an arm around her waist and flipped her over. Instantly she raised her hips toward me, and my mouth went dry.

“That’s right,” I rumbled, barely recognizing my own voice. “Show me that all of this is mine. Mine to claim. Mine to fill.”

I trailed a hand down her spine, and she arched further, showing me how her sex glistened with wetness that spilled down the back of her thighs. Losing all semblance of control, I ripped my tunic off over my head, before tearing my pants down my legs. I kicked them off clumsily, my boots falling to the floor with loud thunks.

Then I lined up my cock at her sopping entrance. Keera tried to push herself back onto me—to impale herself on my already throbbing length—but I pressed her into the mattress with a hand beneath her shoulder blades.

The pleased whine she let out, partially muffled in the pillows, told me she didn’t mind.

“Mine,” I repeated as I slid inside her.

She was all that existed in the world, hot and pulsing and perfect around me as everything turned in my head into a roar of pleasure. I pulled out, only to snap my hips forward again, forcing a sob from Keera as her breath rushed from her.

One of her hands scrabbled back to find my hip and her nails scratched into it as she pulled me to her. She turned her head sideways on the pillow so I could see the side of her face as it twisted in pleasure.

“Yours,” she admitted.

The magic inside me, so often pacing like a caged animal, purred at her words. “The noises you make for me, the way you’re so wet for me, the way you come apart on my cock,” I gasped, punctuating every statement with a savage thrust. “I will never get enough of it.”

Even as one hand kept her chest pinned to the bed, and she arched her back exquisitely for me, the hand that held her hip drifted to the cleft of her ass. I couldn’t help myself, letting my thumb trace the pucker of her asshole. Her eyes flew open and an obscene noise tore from her lips. I wanted her to make it again, so I repeated the motion, pressing inside just slightly.

“Maybe I’ll make this hole mine too,” I said.

Keera began to quiver and shake. I had tried to ignore the tether at the base of my skull for weeks—tried to deny the way it had pulled me to Keera, fearing exactly this—that I couldn’t handle the idea of somebody else having her in any capacity. Even if it was just political.