His eyes flashed with surprise that a moment later turned into fiery understanding. He lowered his voice. “A prize without fighting? What have I done to deserve it?”
She closed the distance between them and took his hand. “You surprised me yesterday,” she said, moving her fingertips lightly over his palm. She raised her gaze to his face. “Today I want to surprise you.”
He smiled. “The truth is that you surprise me every day.” He leaned over and brushed her lips with his. “But I do not mind such surprises.”
Lannahi let him embrace her and parted her lips, surrendering to his kiss, which began sweetly and innocently and ended in feverish greed.
“Yesterday, when you were bent over the table,” Ashared rasped out when they pushed away from each other to catch their breaths. “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Lannahi licked her lips. She slipped out of his embrace, walked to the table, and resting her hands on it, she bent over in silent invitation.
Ashared followed her. He lifted the folds of her dress and gently took off her undergarment. Although she expected it, she twitched when he started touching her.
“Did you think about that moment too, Lannahi?” he asked in a low voice.
When his fingers touched a sensitive spot, she sighed. “Yes.”
She heard him unbutton his pants. A moment later, she sighed as she felt him slide into her. She remembered the breadth of him, but reality overweighed the memory. She leaned against the table more firmly.
Instead of easing the fever consuming her body, his every move intensified it. She realized she’d started to move her hips only when he pressed his hands against them, holding her in place. She felt grounded and exposed. Defenseless. On edge.
His slow, methodical movements finally brought her the relief she craved, but it didn’t last long. He quickened his pace, and a new need, a new hunger, surged within her. Satiated sighs quickly turned into desperate moans.
When she neared her own release again, Ashared leaned over her, caging her in with his arms and began nipping at her exposed neck as if he wanted to feel every spasm and moan that rippled through her body. Pleasure rocked through them both, their gasping breaths becoming one melody.
Before he withdrew, he kissed the side of her head and stroked her buttock in a gentle caress, but when Lannahi straightened and faced him, she didn’t see tenderness in his expression.
In Ashared’s eyes lurked savagery.
“Be mine, Lannahi,” he said with vehement ardor in his voice. “Promise me that as long as you share a passion with me, you will not touch another man.”
Lannahi, intoxicated by the recent pleasure and puzzled by his fervor, needed a moment to collect her thoughts. She swallowed. “You want a promise of fidelity?”
“Yes.”
Lannahi knew that she shouldn’t make promises in the heat of the moment. She should wait at least until the morning and prepare the text of the vows carefully, but looking into the silvery flame of Ashared’s eyes she could only think of one thing.
“Will you promise me the same?” she asked.
When the man realized that she wasn’t refusing him, he smiled, and the wild gleam in his eyes softened. “Of course.” He lifted her hand to his lips. “I want only you, Lannahi. As long as you share your body with me, I will not share mine with anyone but you. I promise.”
Trying not to attach importance to the hope squeezing her heart, Lannahi promised as well.
They kissed. Ashared held her with one hand and with the other moved the chair away from the table to sit so that their faces were more or less on the same level. Lannahi thought that his wolfish nature had effaced itself, but suddenly the man broke the kiss and began kissing her neck and she was proven wrong.
“Do you know what a ‘wolf kiss’ is?” he asked with an animal passion echoing in his voice again.
“Yes,” she said hoarsely.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Lannahi,” he murmured, pushing back the material covering her arm and placing more kisses on her skin. “But I want to see my mark on you. I want others to know that you are mine.”
When his teeth brushed her skin, Lannahi stiffened. Ashared froze, and then slowly, as if it cost him a lot of effort, leaned away from her. The look on his face was torn between a civilized man and a wild animal. This was the first time she’d seen the duality of his nature so clearly, and fascination overshadowed her fear.
“Do it,” she said.
The predatory glint in his eyes was the only warning. The man embraced her tightly and bit the skin on her shoulder. Although Lannahi expected it, she involuntarily hissed in pain. Ashared started licking the bite, and when her breathing began to even out, he returned to placing kisses on her skin, moving in the opposite direction this time, from her shoulder to her neck and mouth.
“My turn,” Lannahi whispered when their lips were about to touch.
