She slowly shook her head. “I don’t want you to pretend, Jehan. Tonight, I don’t want you to stop. I didn’t want you to stop that first night either.”
A sound escaped him, something raw and otherworldly. He slid his fingers into the scrap of fabric between her legs, and...holy fuck.
She was almost bare beneath the lace. And wet. So damn wet. Hot, liquid silk bathed his fingertips as he delved into her slick cleft.
She bit her lip, dropping her head back on a sigh. Holding on to him as he stroked her silky folds, she squirmed and shuddered against his touch. “Jehan, don’t make me wait. Please, don’t make me want like this again.”
“No chance of that,” he uttered, his voice like gravel in his throat, raw with desire. “Not tonight.”
Not ever again, some possessive part of him growled in agreement.
He didn’t know where it came from—the bone-deep sense that he belonged with this woman.
That she was his.
And that as ridiculous as the ancient pact between their families was, it had somehow delivered him to the one woman he craved more than any other before.
Jehan drew her mouth to his and kissed her again, as reverent as it was claiming. He broke contact only so he could strip out of his shirt and jeans, leaving both at his feet. He wore nothing underneath, and as soon as his cock sprang free, Seraphina’s hands found him.
She stroked and caressed him, her fingers so sure and fevered, he nearly came on the spot.
Need twisted tight and hot with every slide of her hands over his stiff shaft, pressure coiling at the base of his spine.
Somehow, he managed to collect himself enough to douse the lantern with his mind. The tent plunged into darkness. Although the sandstorm raged outside, driving everyone in the camp indoors, he wasn’t going to share Seraphina or this moment with anyone else.
Pulling her down onto the pallet of blankets and pillows with him, Jehan removed her panties, then smoothed his hand along every beautiful swell and delicately muscled plane on her nude body. The temptation of her sex was too much. The sweet scent of her arousal drenched his senses as he moved over her, parting her thighs until she was opened to him like an exotic flower.
One he couldn’t wait to taste.
He lowered his head between her legs, groaning in a mix of agony and ecstasy as his tongue met her nectar-sweet, hot, wet flesh. His fangs were already fully extended, but at the first swallow of Seraphina’s juices, the sharp points grew even larger.
The urge to bite—to draw blood and make her his in the most powerful way he knew how—rose up on him without warning.
No.
He tamped the impulse down hard, blindsided by the force of it.
Losing himself to carnal pleasure was one thing. Binding Seraphina to him for eternity was another. And it was a line he wouldn’t cross.
He had no room in his life for a mate, and if she woke up in the morning with regrets, he sure as hell didn’t want one of them to be irrevocable.
Tonight, he wanted to give her pleasure.
Selfishly, he wanted to give her the kind of pleasure that would ensure that every other male who’d ever touched her was obliterated from her memory.
Tonight, Seraphina was his—not because some ridiculous agreement said she should be, but because she wanted to be.
Because she felt the same undeniable desire that he did.
“Come for me,” he rasped against her tender flesh. “I want to hear you, Seraphina.”
“Oh God,” she gasped in reply, arching up to meet his mouth as he kissed and sucked and teased with his lips and tongue. When she writhed and mewled in rising pleasure, he gave her more, sliding a finger through her juices and into the tight entrance of her body. She cried out as he added another, thrusting in tempo with his tongue’s deep strokes.
He glanced up the length of her twisting body. “Open your eyes, beauty. I want to see you come for me.”
She obeyed, lifting heavy lids, her gaze drunk with pleasure. “Jehan, please...”
Her hands tangled and fisted in his hair as he coaxed her higher, desperate for her pleasure—for her release—before he would let himself inside.