Chapter 17
A squeak escaped Liliana’s mouth. Biting down on it, she tugged away that teasing hand and scrambled up into a sitting position, surprised at her success. Then she turned…and felt every bit of air leave her body.
Micah was naked.
And he was the most sensual creature she had ever seen—all tumbled hair of golden light, eyes of slumberous winter-green and a jutting arousal he fisted without shame. Her own hand flexed and she almost whimpered when he released himself to stand.
Snap out of it, Liliana.
Rising after him on the strength of the command issued by some small sensible part of herself, she tried to find the rest of her rational mind as he closed the distance between them to circle her like the beast he’d been not long ago.
She shivered when he stopped behind her, put his hands on her hips and squeezed. “Mmm.” A deep, rumbling sound as he—
“What are you doing?”
Ignoring her attempt at pushing away his hands, he continued to raise the skirts of her dress. The air was cool against her calves, the backs of her knees, moving ever higher. “Micah, we must stop,” she said, but it came out holding not the least bit of certainty.
“Why?” Kisses on her neck, wet and open and involving licks that made her melt from the inside out.
“It’s not d-decent.” The air had reached her thighs now. “We’re in the great hall.”
Continuing with his sinful game, Micah made no response, not until he said, “You aren’t wearing underthings.”
Red filling her cheeks, she went to tug away but he braceleted her waist with one muscular arm. “They’re drying,” she admitted.
“I’ll find them and throw them away,” he told her, biting her ear. “I like this.” Then he pressed his hotly aroused body against her bare curves.
She shuddered at the shock of feeling that hard ridge of flesh nestled so intimately against her, but Micah snarled in frustration. “You’re too short for this.”
Not sure what to say to that, she’d barely opened her mouth when he swung her up in his arms and made his way to a chair lying on its side, beside the table. Putting her down, he set it upright. Liliana’s befuddled brain took that long to figure out what he intended. “I think I better—oh!” He had her in his arms, his mouth on hers before she could finish the sentence.
His tongue pushed past her lips and, oh, it was a very naughty kind of a kiss but she couldn’t resist him, especially when he was so strong and warm and hard against her. His skin was like hot satin, his muscles fluid beneath the smooth heat. His jaw was a little rough, making her wonder what that stubbled skin would feel like against her breasts.
The wickedness of her own thoughts scandalized her, but that didn’t stop her from sucking on his tongue. He liked that. His hands, those arrogant, wandering hands, told her so. A minute later, he was raising her dress again and she had no will to stop him.
So when he sat down in the chair and swiveled her around so her back faced his front, she went, feeling shameless and brazen and bad. Very, very bad. But Micah didn’t pull her down to the dark temptation of his lap. No, he stopped her between his legs. Then, tucking up her skirt into the thin belt that was part of the dress, he ran his hand over the lush curves she’d hated all her life.
Heat burned her cheeks and she wasn’t sure whether it was arousal or embarrassment. Whatever it was, it left her immobile, waiting on tenterhooks for his next touch.
A hot breath. “So soft, Lily.” His fingers sliding through her slick flesh, heading straight for the little nub that pulsed hot and tight.
“Micah!”
“This place gives you pleasure.” It was a satisfied statement. “Like this?” A rough flick.
Her knees crumpled.
Making a low, rumbling sound that seemed to be a remnant of the creature he’d been before they slept, he held her upright using an arm around her waist. His fingers rubbed, slid back, circled the entrance to her body with an exploring touch. Expecting a sensual intrusion, she was taken utterly by surprise when he arrowed his fingers through her intimate lips again, closing the rough pads of his fingers around the nub that made her boneless. “I want to put my mouth here, Lily.”
“Don’t. You. Dare.” She wouldn’t survive. Even the thought of it—that beautiful, sensual mouth on her most secret place, a place that he was caressing with a distinctly proprietary touch—made her so hot that her dress was suddenly too tight, her breasts feeling far bigger than she knew them to be.
“I will dare.” Continuing to hold her up with that strong arm around her waist, he moved his fingers back down to her slick and sensitive entrance, began to push in a little with one thick finger, halted at her cry. “Am I causing you hurt?”
“No,” she whispered, knowing she should’ve used the opportunity to stop him, keep this from progressing any further—but she wanted this wicked pleasure, would steal it from him.
Taking her at her word, he pushed in slow, so slow.
She cried out again—her body was tight, untried, and it felt too much and not enough at the same time. When he withdrew his finger, she couldn’t help her whimper of protest. But he didn’t leave her for long. Stroking his hands down the insides of her thighs, he said, “Can you reach the table?”
“Yes.” Her hands were already gripping the edge of the fallen wooden table before she realized what she was doing, her thighs parting in an instinctive attempt at balance. Nerves awakened—she’d never had a man within her, and he’d moved so fast, until she was now in position for him to mount her. However, she had no intention of stopping him, not this man who looked at her and saw a woman he desired. Never had she felt as she did in Micah’s arms. Never had she wanted this badly.
The hot gust of his breath on her most intimate flesh was the only warning she had before he put his mouth on her. Her brain simply stopped functioning at the crash of scandalizing pleasure, her entire body taut with shock. She had to protest. This was surely not something… “Oh.” It was a shuddering moan as he flicked his tongue over the entrance to her body.
Micah smiled at the sound of Liliana’s pleasure. It was good that she enjoyed this, because he had every intention of repeating the act; she tasted unlike anything he’d ever before sipped. Hot and dark but with a delicate feminine musk that intoxicated senses still sensitive after the visitation of the curse.
The reminder made him frown, lift his head from his exploration of Liliana’s sweetness. “Was I terrifying?” He didn’t scent fear on her, needed to make certain it didn’t linger in her blood.
“What?” It was a breathless word.
“When the curse came upon me?” He caressed her with his fingertips, deciding that next time, he’d have her on her back in bed, so he could spread her more fully, see everything he tasted. It would be good. She was so soft and flushed and pretty.
For him.
His smile was probably very uncivilized.
Liliana went as if to rise, but he stopped her by the simple expedient of stroking her with his tongue once more. Trembling, she held her position. “You were terrifying,” she said. “But you were rather beautiful, too.”
He liked that answer, liked that she’d seen both beauty and danger in him. What he liked even better was that when he reached down and rubbed his finger on that little nub at the apex of her thighs at the same time that he kissed her long and deep in her most secret place, she made a hotly feminine sound before her body clenched and grew even more slick for him. Lapping up the proof of her pleasure, he inserted a finger inside her again.
“Micah!”
Tiny muscles clenched on his finger over and over again as tremors shook her frame. Pleased, he stroked his hand over her hip until she stopped trembling. “No, Lily,” he murmured when she would’ve pulled away. “I’m not done.”
He’d never had a woman, never wanted any of the silly village creatures so rank with fear. After a while, that part of him had seemed to go to sleep, leaving him the perfect Guardian, cold and without need of any kind. Then had come Liliana. A woman who looked at him as if he was wonderful, told him fantastical tales and filled his castle with laughter. He wanted to lick and suck and bite at her until he knew her every pleasure point, her every sensual weakness. “I like the taste of you.”
“Micah, if you—” A short scream as he covered her with his mouth again.
This time, he decided to try little flicks and licks using his tongue, rubs with his thumb and sucks with his mouth. Lifting away his lips when she began to buck against him, he played his finger through her slickness before sliding it inside…then adding another. Quivering, she gasped, but didn’t ask him to stop. So he pumped his fingers, slow and deep and again. Her body clamped down on his, tight as a fist. Tighter.
His cock surged.
Feeling her spasms subside into shuddering aftershocks, he withdrew his fingers and pulled her down to sit on his lap, ensuring her nakedness met the pulsing rigidity of his own. Soft and wet, she tensed, then folded back against him, boneless. “I gave you much pleasure, Lily.”
He saw her lips curve up at the corners as she lay with her eyes closed, her head against his shoulder. “You sound quite satisfied with yourself.”
“I am.” Reaching forward, he pulled up her dress, ignoring the small attempt she made to slap away his hands. “I like looking at you,” he murmured, and her hands dropped. When he’d exposed her thighs, a paler shade than the honey-brown of her skin where the sun had caressed it, he put his hands on them. It made her shift on him, causing his arousal to nestle more snugly into the hot, wet place between her thighs.
His hands clenched on her, his head dropping back.
The feel of it was so raw, it took him long moments to realize Liliana had gone motionless. “Micah?” Her hand closing over his. “Will you come inside me now?”
“No.” He wanted to try this first. “Move on me, Lily,” he whispered, nuzzling at her throat.
He saw color tinge her skin, but she didn’t deny him, sliding along his hard flesh in small, sensual movements that made his arousal throb. Groaning, he shifted his hands up to close over her breasts. She gasped, her nipples tight points against his palms through the dress, but didn’t stop the hot little movements of her body over his cock.
Hands tightening on her breasts, he buried his face in her neck and urged her to speed up with harsh murmurs against her skin. When she did, pleasure shot a lightning bolt through his body, so primal and raw that he knew he wanted to experience it again and again and again.
He tensed before he spilled, clenching his jaw until his bones grated against one another. “Stop.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” Petting her breasts, he took a deep breath, lay back. “I want to see your face.”
Liliana rose to her feet at his urging. Her cheeks were red when she turned around, but it was pleasure that colored them, not embarrassment. When she touched her fingers to his lips in a shy caress, he pretended to bite. Her laugh was husky, only for him.
Pleased, he pushed up the front of her dress and tugged her forward to straddle him. Her mouth opened in a shocked gasp as their bodies came together, his cock sliding through her delicate folds. “Micah.”
He smiled and claimed a hot, deep kiss, realizing the position allowed his cock to rub up against that sensitive nub, the one he was going to suck on when he had her naked and spread out on his bed. For now, he clasped his hands on her bottom and began to rock through her folds over and over again with her lush cooperation, feeling pleasure build up hot and dark along his spine. His cock jerked as she whimpered, went liquid around him and then his own release had him in a grip hard and brutal.
“That was good,” he murmured afterward, collapsing against the chairback with her limp against his chest. “Next time, I’ll be inside you.”