His eyes are pools of heated gold when he peers up at me. “Yes.”
My stomach flutters with his candor. “You’ve never shown me your teeth. Like, really shown them to me.”
“Because I hate them. I hate everything they stand for, everything they make me.” He presses a kiss against my inner thigh.
I knew this already. But I love everything that makes him who he is. “Show me now.”
He swallows. “Now would be a very”—he presses another kiss against my inner thigh—“very”—and another, higher—“dangerous time to do that.” He leans in but pauses, his breath skating over my sensitive flesh for three long beats, just long enough to melt my core, aching with need, before he closes the distance with his skilled tongue.
A whimper escapes me.
It takes only minutes of watching him before my hips are rolling and I’m grabbing a fistful of his golden-brown hair to pull him closer, desperate for my release. Conscious of the open window and the milling people outside—and Jarek’s taunting—I bite my bottom lip to keep the noise to a minimum as I unravel for him.
Zander climbs to his feet. “You’re trying to be quiet with me.” His voice holds an accusatory tone.
I reach down between us to give him a stroke. “I don’t feel like being teased by the Legion later.”
“Is that so?” He claims my mouth with a wild kiss, his tongue diving in deep, uninhibited strokes as he sinks into me. The primal sound that escapes him can’t be mistaken for anything else and surely carried outside these walls.
Pulling himself out slowly, he pauses at my entrance and presses his forehead against mine. He holds my gaze without flinching. “Let them hear it. I don’t care if they hear it.”
He sinks in again, fully seated this time, my body stretching around him. His grip on my hips tightens. “Let them know how desperate I am for you, how you haunt my every waking thought.”
I roll my hips, coaxing him to keep going.
He responds with a hard thrust, but then stalls again, a somber expression taking over his face. “Whether it was a curse of fates or prophecy that brought us together, I no longer care, and I will not allow anything or anyone to keep us from each other again.” His brow tightens. “If that is what you want.”
My heart swells with his display of vulnerability. “I can’t live in this world if it’s not with you by my side.”
“Then that is where I will be. Always.” He responds with a kiss that bleeds promise as he sinks into me again.
I cling to his straining arms and whisper his name over and over as his thrusts turn hard and merciless, his guttural moans overt and raw.
Eventually, he wins, dragging my cries out of me.
By the time I feel him pulsating deep inside, all of Norcaster must be listening.
“How long did this take Gesine to heal?” I trace the silver line across Zander’s neck where the waitress cut him.
“Not long. Maybe ten minutes? Another scar for my collection.”
“You bled a lot for such a tiny scratch.”
“It was actually quite deep.” His gaze is on the sloped ceiling above us as we lie together in bed, my body nestled against his side. Despite the cool air, he hasn’t drawn the wool blankets over himself, and I appreciate the view. He’s a sculpture of perfection, lazing in the afterglow of our intimacy—two rounds of it.
I know. My rage flares. “Have you found the woman who did it?”
“I have. That was her gown you stripped off earlier. She was kind enough to offer it when I carried you in, soaked.”
“How generous.” My molars grind. “It doesn’t seem her style, though. My breasts weren’t hanging out. It needs fewer buttons for that.”
He laughs. “Good linen is hard to come by, especially up here. Do not ruin it in your anger.”
“She could have killed you.”
His laughter falls off with a sigh that lifts his bare chest. “I will admit, she caught me off guard. It will not happen again.” He pauses. “Just as I will never attempt to shelter you by keeping you away.”
“You mean like sending me off to the tent, excited, and then jumping on a horse and riding into danger?” My hand skates over his chest, his abdomen, moving downward. “Forcing me to sneak out to find you?”