With each major achievement in a Lycian’s life, he or she received ink from the family elders, turning each Lycian into a walking record of their honor and service. He and his siblings were the most marked in Lycia other than their father. He wore his skin with a great deal of pride. That she found it beautiful only made him want to preen for her gaze.
That she understood just how much it meant made him rejoice that he’d found this female.
She traced over the trails of ink. Over dates and words, over animals and maps, kissing here and there as she did. It was difficult not to push her back and feast on her skin, but he managed to hold still, his beast taking over and standing proudly for her to examine him.
“Your body is ridiculous.” She looked up into his gaze, a smile marking her lips.
He didn’t resist the urge to dip and take a taste of her mouth, his fingers sliding through her hair, taking it down from the ponytail. He breathed her in, the scent of her hair, of her skin, of everything that made her. His beast stirred, satisfied, but demanding more.
“Ridiculous bad or ridiculous good?”
She laughed, her head tipping back, and he feasted on the line of her neck, warm and supple skin, heavy with her scent and the tang of her magick.
“So, even four-hundred-year-old males who look like you do fish for compliments?”
“Only from the most beautiful women in the world.”
He unbuttoned her blouse and eased it away from her body, pausing to take in the sight of the pale silk camisole she wore underneath. “You have marks too?” He figured she would. He knew her sister had them; he’d seen them when she’d come to Lycia for the binding ceremony and had worn a backless gown.
She hummed her delight as he kissed her shoulders and over to her neck. “Yes. Lark and I wanted to honor all the big moments. It sort of became a competition to see who got what tattoo first.”
“You and your sister are very competitive.” He brushed his fingertips over a scar on her side and another on her upper arm.
“Rogue wolf,” she gasped as he licked over the inside of her arm, at the elbow.
“And where is that wolf today?”
“Nowhere.”
He smiled against her skin. So fierce. “You should probably know up front just how sexy I find it when you say such things.”
He pulled the right strap down, kissing to her elbow, then followed up with the left. But he leaned back, speechless after he’d pulled the camisole free of her body and she knelt there, her upper body in nothing but her bra. And the beginnings of a wash of bruises. He’d be angry about that later.
“We’ve competed at everything I can remember since we were little kids. Never in a mean-spirited way. I’ve always felt that we push each other to be our best. Sometimes we manage to do it right.”
“You and I are going to have to discuss this guilt you seem to carry over things you can’t possibly really be guilty for. After.”
His annoyance at her self-blame dissolved like smoke as he took her in. Long and lean, fit. Layers of muscle defined her upper arms. Her tits were freaking magnificent in a barely there wisp of a pale blue bra.
“I don’t say a lot, but fifty thousand pages of poetry could be written about you.”
The harsher edges of need on her features eased into a flattered smile. And a blush.
“Do you know I can smell you when you blush?” He slid his thumbs over her nipples through the bra and she arched into his touch.
“Huh?”
He popped the hooks at the back and removed the bra, exposing all that glorious tawny skin to his gaze. “Am I distracting you?” He gently laid her back on the bed, pulling the soft pants from her long-as-sin legs. Her panties were in the boy-short style, accentuating her belly and thighs and most likely her ass.
But she’d have to stand up for him to see and he didn’t want that. Not right then. He pulled her underpants from her, leaving her totally naked.
“When you blush it heats your skin and your scent rises. I’ve never smelled anything like you before. Your magick smells like snowflakes and pomegranate. And sex. Heaven help me, when you heat up my beast wants to drop to his knees and worship you.”
“Wow, you’re lethal with your mouth.”
He laughed, loving the way her gaze never left his hands at his waistband as he unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans and shimmied from them and his shorts.
“I haven’t even begun to show you just how talented I am with my mouth.”
She sucked in a breath. “I can’t wait.”
Helena knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, the place she was actively ignoring, that having sex with Faine was a monumentally bad idea.
But he was too much. Big and tall, broad shouldered. Covered in ink and muscles and tight skin. She sighed happily as she took him in. He smiled, knowing she was objectifying him. Totally digging it, and who was she to judge? The way his gaze ate up every bit of her body thrilled her to her toes.
He kissed her slow and deep, his lips were sure and gentle. At first. But once he lay against her, skin to skin, he hissed as she arched. His skin was hot, nearly scalding hers, and yet she couldn’t get more. Her magick seemed to wake and radiate outward in a way that left her dizzy.
And that gentle, sure kiss deepened. He’d teased her mouth open but now he took. Demanded more as his tongue slid into her mouth, sliding against hers. She held on, her nails digging into the skin of his back, urging him closer.
He growled. Like, really growled. His beast making itself known, and she hadn’t had any idea how much she’d like it.
But she really, really liked it. There was something dangerous about what lurked just beneath the smooth, debonair surface of this male. That she had no fear at all he’d ever use it to harm her was . . . interesting to say the least.
He’d made the comment that she knew they’d have awesome sexytimes and he’d been right. She’d had the feeling it would be combustible. But this was something else. The way not only her body reacted, but her magick rose to meld with his, wasn’t something she’d experienced before.
His mouth left hers, cruising down her jaw, pausing at the hollow of her throat, licking over the skin there until she made a sound she had no idea she could make.
More kisses. Down over each breast, down her belly, those big hands pressed her thighs wide open and he took a long lick. And then another. Over and over and he did, indeed, show her just how talented he was with his mouth.
Twice.
She was still shaking with her second climax when he slid the head of his cock through her and then barely inside.
Her lethargy was replaced by renewed need.
“More.” She rolled her hips, taking a bit more of him.
“I’m trying to take it slow, but you’re making it hard.”
She laughed, opening her eyes so she could look up at him.
“What are you laughing at?”
“I’m supposed to make it hard. That’s the point.”
He got it, laughing, bending to kiss her quickly. “Funny.”
“You can tell if I’m, um, fertile and stuff, right? Lark said you guys have some sort of Spidey-sense about that.”
“Spidey-sense? Like the comic book?” He shook his head. “You’re very fertile. So fertile it’s a struggle not to sniff you all the time. But you’re not in a time of your cycle when you can get pregnant.”
“This is a weird conversation. Fuck me instead.”
He grinned and pressed all the way inside until she gave him a low moan. “Your wish is mine to make a reality.”
He really was good with words.
But even better with his body.