Page 23 of A Matter of Dragons

I pulled out of his embrace and stepped back. Doshir’s eyes raked over me, burning with an unsteady mixture of desire and confusion and what might have been fear. I smiled back, trying to look like a lady.

“I thought you said,” I panted as I smoothed down the front of my dress, “that I should lie down.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rayne

Doshir’s brow furrowed. I didn’t give him time to respond. Still smiling, I grabbed the crumpled blanket from where it had fallen around Doshir’s legs, spread it out, and then lay down. Just to make sure he got the message, I pooled my skirts around my waist, leaving my legs bare to the night air.

Doshir grinned. His dark eyes narrowed. He sank down next to me and pressed another kiss to my lips while his fingers danced along the inside of my thigh.

“Hmmm, yes,” he said, his voice so low and thick it was almost a growl. “Tell me, what do you think of the view this way?”

His lips found my neck, and I gasped. His fingers traced a slow path down the inside of my thigh as his teeth nipped my neck, my ears, my collarbone. But his hand hesitated, brushing the curls between my legs. Need and desire coursed through me, pounding in rhythm with my heart. Oh, stars, I wanted this! I wanted this more than I’d wanted the last soldier who’d sweet-talked me into the weapons storage room, and more than I’d ever wanted His Highness. I wanted to be the elegant lady seduced by a rakish storekeeper, swept off her feet and pleasured in a forbidden garden. Doshir’s hand brushed my sex softly, as gentle as his kisses, and I moaned.

“Please,” I whispered.

Doshir kissed me again, hard and deep and insistent, as his thumb swirled across my clit. I moaned into his mouth, my hips lifting, reaching for him. He met me with his own rhythm, his fingers exploring me, playing me. I trembled inside his kiss, my legs open, my body his for the taking.

But he didn’t take. He just kissed me, hard and long and deep, and sank his fingers into me as his thumb traced my clit, responding to my gasps and swallowing my cries. I tried to pull away as I felt myself crumbling, coming apart in his arms, but he held fast, his fingers curled inside me, his thumb circling and withdrawing, circling and withdrawing, bringing me closer, closer, closer.

Until the wave crashed over me, and I threw my head back and moaned my pleasure to the indifferent stars. Doshir caught my cries in his mouth, pressing a kiss to my lips as his fingers danced inside of me, wringing the last crests of pleasure from my body. I sank into the blanket, panting at the stars as they danced above me, beyond words, beyond thought. Doshir’s hand withdrew, trailing heat and moisture down the inside of my thighs. The night suddenly felt cold. My breath caught in my throat.

No. I didn’t want him to pull away. I wrapped my hand around his arm, then turned until I was staring into those dark eyes. And those full lips - oh, kings, those lips cried out for kisses. I reached for him, sinking my fingers into his hair, pulling him toward me. Our lips met like lovers, embracing, dancing, trading secrets. We kissed for so long that the embers of my desire flared back to life and my sex began to pulse with a low, deep hunger.

I ran my fingers down the back of his neck, over the curve of his spine, and around his hips until my hand was between us, toying with the hem of his shirt. When I reached for the waistline of his pants, his breath hitched and our kiss broke.

“Doshir,” I whispered, and his name was a plea.

I let my hand drop to the place I’d felt through my skirts, the hard, hot length of him straining against the lacings of his pants. He gasped; his breath was hot against my neck. I explored him slowly, dancing my fingertips along his length, caressing the fabric of his pants. When I pulled my hand away, he trembled.

“Rayne,” he whispered, turning the word into something rare, exotic, and beautiful. “Do you want—”

“Yes.” I pressed my lips to his before he could even finish his question.

He kissed me back with hunger and urgency, pressing me into the dark fabric that couldn’t possibly be silk as his hand dropped to fumble with his lacings. He pulled away to wrestle with his pants, and then he was back, kissing me into the silk, his hands in my hair and his legs against mine, skin on skin as he settled between my thighs, and oh, kings, I was burning again, burning for him.

“Doshir,” I whispered.

It was hardly a word, hardly a name. It was a moan, an inculcate desire that slipped through my lips. He met my gaze as he entered me, moving so slowly it was almost agony.

“Oh!” I gasped, panting and incoherent, completely wrecked by him already. “Oh, kings!”

I rocked my hips forward, wanting him, wanting all of him, but Doshir held firm. He entered me with exquisite patience, tracing his fingers up my neck as his cock sank into me, and bringing our lips together only once he was fully sheathed. He held himself perfectly still as we kissed and my body went up in flames all around him. Kings, he felt good, he felt so damned good inside me—

Our kiss deepened, and he began to rock slowly against my hips, setting a rhythm that suggested he could damn well do this all night, swallowing my moans and cries and whimpers. I wanted him, kings, I wanted him hard and fast and now, and I had no choice but to match his rhythm, to follow his lead as he teased me toward the edge of another precipice.

He broke our kiss with a moan.

“Fuck,” he growled in my ear, “you feel good.”

I opened my mouth, gasped for air, and tried to think of something sexy to say in response.

“More,” I whispered.

Silver moonlight traced the curves of his smile. “More,” he agreed.

And he gave it to me. His hips crashed into mine like breakers on the shore, utterly destroying me, and I plunged headfirst over the precipice he’d been leading me toward so gently all night. Silk and ecstasy swallowed me whole. I screamed again, something that was almost his name and almost a prayer and almost a curse, as my body tensed then drowned in the velvet wash of one of the greatest orgasms of my life.