Page 57 of The Archer’s Wish

When his lips closed over her taut nipple, she gasped, her fingers instantly threading through his hair, urging him to do more.

He sucked the overly sensitive tip into his mouth, suckling, licking, and gently nipping.

All thoughts were lost. Rivulets of desire traveled up and down her body until gathering at her very core.

Of their own accord, her thighs pressed together in an attempt to ease the fire between her legs.

Liam’s mouth moved to her other breast to continue the magnificent attentions, his one hand cupping her free breast, thumb circling the tip.

Gasps and moans erupted from her unbidden as she lost the battle to contain the assault of sensations.

“Liam!” she cried out, not quite sure what she wanted or what she needed.

After releasing her nipple she cupped his face and brought it to her, kissing him with fervor, unwilling to be separated from him in any way.

Moving his mouth across hers, he reached between them and cupped the furnace between her legs, then slid a finger through the center.

Beitris bucked into his hand, the sensations so overwhelming, she thought to pass out. Still she didnae relinquish his mouth.

Liam broke the kiss, breathing hard and fast. “Relax beauty.”

How was it possible he expected her to be more relaxed? Her entire body felt like water, fluid and soft.

At the hardness probing her very center, she parted her thighs, giving him full access. This was what she wanted more than anything to be fully his.

Liam’s body trembled as he slowly, inch by wonderful inch, slid into her. Then he hesitated, met her gaze for a slight moment before savagely taking her mouth. She responded, needing more. In one quick move, he thrust past her maidenhead.

Beitris grunted at the intrusion that felt strange, abrupt, and unfamiliar. Letting out a soft breath, she was grateful for the moment that she’d expected to hurt worse to have passed.

Then something amazing happened. He began to move, in and out of her. The rhythmic movements at the same time dousing and then reigniting the flames that threatened to consume her.

Before long, bathed in perspiration, limbs entangled, their bodies giving and taking, more and more.

Beitris was torn between passionate cries and repeating his name over and over.

Liam’s magnificent body worked over hers, his head thrown back, the sinews of his neck taut as he raced to the elusive crest that beckoned.

At the view of him so overtaken, so raw and so stunning, her body shattered, darkness fell, stars spiraling behind her closed lids.

A swift and relentless release shot through her.

Sensations she’d never knew existed pulled at her as she floated away.

In the midst of it, she heard Liam’s deep moans as his body went rigid. Instinctively she knew he too was lost to passion.

*

A Fortnight Later

Morning sunlight slipped through the soft linen window hangings, casting warm, golden stripes across the bed and the newly decorated chamber. The space felt like a cozy sanctuary now draped in woven tapestries dyed in gentle hues of moss and rose. One hung behind the bed, embroidered with curling vines and tiny stitched flowers, its threads shimmering softly in the dawn light. Another tapestry over the hearth on the stone wall opposite, painted in muted scenes of forest and meadow, giving the room an earthy tranquility.

Rushes mixed with herbs perfumed the floor. Wooden chests held their folded clothes and other personal possessions. There was a carved wooden stand that displayed a bowl of wildflowers Liam had gathered on a whim just days before. Everything about the room felt peaceful, warm, and theirs. The home of two lovers learning to become one.

And at the center of it all, in the large comfortable bed of polished oak that was piled with blankets soft as clouds, Beitris lay nestled against her husband.

She blinked sleepily, startled to find Liam still there.

He was almost always gone before dawn, already out in the training field by the time the first men arrived. But today was their promised day of rest, a day they traveled to the village square to gather food for their larder and enjoy the simple pleasure of time spent together.