Page 46 of The Stag & The Owl
“Knew what?”Alina asked, her brazen couragefaltering.That she was an easy mark?That he was bait she couldn’trefuse?
He held her face in his hands and grinned,slow and easy.“I knew that you were mine, as I was yours.”
Alina let out the breath she’d been holdingwith a long sigh.“I knew it too,” she whispered.“Despiteeverything that’s happened, I’ve always known it.”Her couragebuilding apace with her desire, she bumped her pelvis against hiserection, his groan reverberating to her core.“What are we goingto do about it?”she asked, her voice low and thick.
He touched his lips to hers.“Everythingbut,” he said, nipping her lower lip.“We are going to doeverything but.”He claimed her with his mouth, branding her withhis lips as he trailed searing kisses along her jaw and down herthroat to her shoulder, the neck of her tunic.“Lift your arms,” herasped, grabbing her tunic by the hem and pulling it up over herhead and tossing it onto the bedrolls.
Alina stood half-naked before him, basking inthe heat of his gaze as he stared at her breasts, her nipplespebbling.He doffed his tunic and embraced her so they werestanding skin to skin, her breasts pressed against the hard warmthof his chest.She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid herhead on his shoulder, content to absorb the living heat of him, torun her hands up and down the length and breadth of his back, feelthe contours of his muscles as he ran his big, tactile hands up anddown her bare back.She buried her nose into the crook of his neckwhere it met his thickly muscled shoulders and breathed in thescent of river water and soap, of rain, sweat, and leather.
He nipped the skin of her shoulder and sheshivered.She lifted her head and met his hazed gaze, felt therumble in his chest.He stepped back and took her by the hand,gently pulling her down to the bedrolls, where she lay on her backand he lay on his side, propped up on his elbow, his eyes raining asoft heat that spread from her face to her breasts to herbelly.
“Damnation, Ali,” he said, his voice echoingthe same need throbbing in her core.“Thathubraegha.You are beyond beautiful.”
She reached out a tentative hand and ran itdown the length of his arm, stopping at the waist of his breeches.“Ni ye hen piaoling.So are you.”
One hand under her head and the other on herback, he pulled her onto her side and kissed her senseless, tastingand tangling his tongue with hers.He trailed his lips and tonguedown her throat to her breasts and took one nipple into his mouthas he rubbed tantalizing circles around the other with histhumb.
Alina gasped and moaned as he licked andsuckled first one breast and then the other.She grasped hisshoulders and arched her back to give him more.Gently, he pushedher onto her back and kissed his way down her belly, and she fistedher hands in his hair as he ran a fingertip along the waistband ofher breeches.She went still as he pulled the end of her stays withhis teeth, untying them.
Kissing her belly, he pulled her breechesdown her legs, rubbing his soft beard along the insides of herthighs and nipping her tender skin.She whimpered as he sat back onhis heels, desperate to feel his mouth on her again, and then hepulled off her boots, and yanked her breeches down over her knees,her calves, her feet, and tossed them aside with a hungry grin.
He stood and untied the stays to hisbreeches, and Alina watched, enthralled, as he pulled his breechesdown and kicked them off, his erect cock springing free.It hadbeen one thing to ogle him through the spyglass, and quite anotherto see all of him up close.
She bit her lower lip, glad they’d agreed notto have intercourse.She knew a woman’s body was made to fit aman’s, yet staring at Roark’s thick, engorged cock, she wasn’t surehow.He knelt at her feet and lowered his naked body over hers andAlina stopped thinking.All she could do was feel.
The length and the solid weight of him onher, skin on skin.The hard heat of his cock against her belly.Hismouth on hers, on her breasts.His hands moving over her, caressingher breasts, roaming down her back and cupping her backside,running his fingertips down the backs of her thighs and up theinsides.His fingertip pushing through her thatch of tight curlsand touching her intimate flesh.
She moaned.
He covered her mouth with his and swallowedher moan, rubbing delicious, tortuous circles around her flesh.Alina moved her hips with his hand, her need building, to what end,she couldn’t have said.She only knew that she wanted, sheneeded…something.All feeling and thought had gathered between herlegs.
Roark slowed his circles and pressed hisfinger to the nubbin of flesh where all her sensations had pooled.He tapped the nubbin with his fingertip and Alina lifted her pelvisand pressed it into his hand, moving with his finger, his hand,until her muscles tightened and convulsed and ripples of intensepleasure flowed through her, leaving her spent and panting as shegazed at him in awe.
She smiled, boneless, weightless, sated, andhe grinned, slow and easy.“My passionate lady owl,” herumbled.
Alina wrapped her arms around his neck andpulled his mouth down to hers.“Tell me how to bring you to yourrelease, sir stag,” she whispered hoarsely against his lips.
“It’ll be my pleasure,” he rasped.He rolledonto his side and placed her hand on his cock, closing his eyes andgroaning as she gently wrapped her fingers around it.
“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed.
Roark opened his eyes, heavy-lidded withdesire.“Touch me, pet me, rub me,” he told her.“I’ve dreamt ofthis, of you, so many times, your touch alone is about to undome.”
Alina unwrapped her fingers and ran themlightly up and down the length of his cock, amazed at how hard,warm, and responsive he was to her touch.How his cock wasn’t someseparate entity, it was a part of him, his flesh and blood, full ofhis seed, his life force in her hand.
She splayed her fingers and rubbed them upand down him, her own flesh heating again as he moved with herhand.She wrapped her fingers around him and watched in fascinationas he pushed and pulled himself into and through her grip, grippingfirmer, tighter, as he moved faster, moving her hand faster andfaster until his body went rigid, his cock pulsed in her hand, andhe spurt his seed with a shuddering groan.
***
Roark kissed Alina’s bare shoulder.“It’sstopped raining,” he whispered in her ear, grinning as she buriedher nose deeper into the bedroll.
He stood and pulled the blanket over hershoulders, stretched his sated body, and went to the cave’sentrance.The horses were huddled together under the overhang,cramped but dry.The ground had standing puddles of water and mud,and the clouds were dark and ominous.He figured it was somewherearound noon, but with the sun hidden behind a wall of clouds, itwas impossible to tell for certain.He rubbed his beard and gavethe sky another look.They wouldn’t be riding anytime today.
Back inside the cave, he dressed and stareddown at Alina sleeping.Her lush, full lips that’d been wrappedaround his cock sometime around dawn, slightly open, her breath,which had been panting and gasping in his ear several times lastnight, quiet and steady.
Adjusting his randy cock, already half-hardsimply from looking at her, he went back outside and led the horsesto a patch of grass, letting them relieve themselves and grazewhile they could.He stayed outside with them, enjoying the briskair and reliving the most amazing night in his life.
He’d been more right than he knew when he’dsaid he and Alina belonged together, belonged to each other.Thewidow had been a skilled and lusty lover, but his princess madelove to him with a pure, raw passion, which made up for any lack ofskill.She gave all of herself to him, body, heart, and soul, andtook all of him in return.Plus, she was a quick learner.
