to keep you.”
“I thought there was no real risk for you.”
His eyes gleamed with calculation. “Kiss me now, and I’ll end the fight as quickly as possible. I won’t drag it out.”
Well...
Her gaze lowered, lingering on his lips, and her breath caught in her throat. If her touch strengthened him, how much more so would her kiss? And he needed his strength, right? The future of his kingdom was at stake!
“Fine,” she whispered, already rising on her tiptoes.
He needed no other prompting. He tangled his fingers in her hair and slammed his mouth onto hers. His hot tongue pushed inside, past her teeth, past any thought of resistance.
In seconds she felt burned alive. The woman who’d once eschewed dating became wild. Someone who existed only for pleasure, sex and debauchery. For this man.
Valerian consumed her. Dark need consumed her—and she discovered that she liked every second of it.
His taste was pure sexual heat, raw masculinity, exotic and addictive; his tongue worked hers with expert precision, her every nerve endings leaping to blissful life. Her nipples hardened, the apex of her thighs ached, and her stomach quivered.
She wound her arms around his neck, accepting him fully, demanding more; a feral growl of satisfaction escaped him.
“I want you,” he whispered fiercely and as always, the sound of his wine-rich voice excited her.
He was made for her, only her—his every action, every breath, they happened simply to please her.
The thought intoxicated her. Like the man himself.
“I want you,” he repeated. “Give me everything.”
“Never,” she forced herself to say. Then, of course, she contradicted herself by running his bottom lip between her teeth.
His callused hands slid down the ridges of her spine to settle softly on the curve of her hips.
“I need your breasts in my hands. Please, Shaye.”
Yes! Oh, yes. Her nipples hardened more, and they hurt. They actually hurt, desperate for contact.
He tunneled his hands under her shirt, his fingers tickling her skin. She gasped in wonder when his thumbs grazed each aching crest.
“I wish I could stand you in front of a mirror and slowly remove your top, baring your flesh inch by precious inch,” he said. “I would cup your breasts in my hands, framing your nipples with my fingers as they pearled for me.”
Her knees trembled. “I should hate the thought,” she told him, breathless. She brought her hands to his chest, brushing her thumbs over his nipples. They were hard little points she wanted to lick and suck. And, as her fingertip curled in the steel loop anchored in the right one, she wanted to lick and suck that, too. “Should absolutely, positively hate it.”
He groaned. “If this is the way you hate...”
“The pheromone. Only the pheromone.”
“No.” He grated the negation.
Angry with her now?
She licked the seam of his lips, and his anger returned to passion. Their breaths had mingled. Now their gazes locked, a sultry clash of turquoise against brown, passion against passion.
“Hate me some more,” he told her.
She rose on her tiptoes—her body seemed to have a mind of its own—placing her lips just in front of his.
He kissed her harder than before, his hands returning to her waist and tightening, his grip needy, firm and commanding.
His message was clear: she could not escape.
Why would she want to escape?
He pulled her closer, until she nestled against the long, rigid length of his erection. A hot, raspy gasp left her, spears of pleasure arcing through her, spawning other bursts of sensation.
“I want to hate you, too,” he told her in that same soft tone. “I want to hate you hard and fast the first time, slow and tender the second.”
Behind them, someone cleared his throat. “My king?”
Shaye heard the voice distantly and despised the interruption. More kisses. She wanted more of Valerian’s kisses. And he very clearly wanted to give them to her. Wicked intent gleamed in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry, my king,” the voice said. “The fight...”
Valerian’s fingers clenched on her hips. “I don’t want to stop hating you,” he said softly, the words nothing but a growl.
Saying “You must” almost killed her.
He brushed his nose against hers. “Must hate you?”
“Must stop.” Never stop!
He ran his tongue over his teeth. Then his nostrils flared, as if her taste lingered there. “For now,” he stated. “I will.”
She gulped. She’d never been kissed with such passion or fervor. As if the man claiming her lips truly savored her and would be utterly destroyed without her.
He’s dangerous, her mind whispered. He made her hope, even though there was only one way the relationship would end. Painfully.
All relationships ended. Period.
But going from the beginning to the end will be worth the heartbreak later on, her body responded.
She tugged from his embrace, suddenly cold and empty. Hollow, as she’d been through her entire childhood.
His eyelids compressed to tiny slits, his thick lashes nearly intertwining top with bottom. “You melted for me. That isn’t reason to withdraw from me, Moon. That’s reason to rejoice.”
“Valerian,” yet another man called. Joachim, this time. She recognized the deep baritone, now filled with impatience. “Have you decided against fighting me? Do you concede the victory to me?”
Shaye drew her arms over her middle, tamping down a tremor of dread. “No,” she said. “He doesn’t.”
Valerian cupped her cheeks. His gaze searched hers. He had to wonder why she’d protested the fight before but supported it now.
The answer—whatever he’d decided it was—didn’t please him. He scowled.
Did he think she wanted him to lose now that they’d kissed? Now that fear held her in an obvious choke hold?
“I will never concede,” Valerian said, the words more lethal than the sword strapped to his back. His eyes never left her face. “Never.”
VALERIAN REELED, HARD, as he peered at the exquisite Shaye. Her eyes were wide and haunting—haunted—her lips puffed and red, and a pulse hammering at the base of her neck as she struggled to catch her breath. If he hadn’t already known she belonged to him, he would have known the moment, the very second, he tasted her sweetness. Nothing and no one had ever affected him more profoundly.
I’m owned. She owns me.
Joachim—the man who had interrupted Valerian’s first kiss with his one and only mate—awaited him.
Wrong phrasing. What he and Shaye had done had been more than a kiss. Joachim had interrupted Valerian’s first consuming with his one and only mate.
Yes. Better. They’d consumed each other.
He wanted to consume her again.
My cousin’s death warrant has been signed, sealed and soon, delivered.
Looking