Page 192 of Ashborne Phoenix

When we’d climbed inside, I felt cold. But even though he stripped me down—carefully hanging our leathers to dry before morning—I only warmed.

The silence beyond the walls separated us from the world. Nothing existed except this dim little room. The thick fur against my skin. His warmth. Our heaving breaths filling the space between these walls.

Voski slid a hand up the back of my calf and lifted my leg, brushing a kiss to the top of my foot, then the side of my ankle, then my calf, his fingers teasing behind my knee in a way that almost tickled, but sent delicious goosebumps washing up my thigh.

He followed them with his lips, his hot breath, his stroking fingers.

He’d levered my leg higher, until my knee was almost at my chest. He braced his hand on the furs under me, hooking my knee over his shoulder as he kissed his way up the tenderest skin of my inner thigh.

I blew out a breath and reached for him. I wanted him desperately. But though he breathed heavily, and his body clearly ached for mine, he resisted my efforts to pull him up my body by his hair, meeting my eyes and grinning wickedly.

“Princess needs to rest,” he whispered.

I spluttered. “Please, don’t ever call me that again.”

“I’ll agree if you promise to lie back and stop fighting me.”

I slumped back on the pillow—but not for long. Because his hot breath washed up my leg, and then he kissed me there.

With a small gasp, I buried both hands in his hair as my hips rose instinctively. I wanted to groan—he always took his time here, and even though it was wonderful, I’d been aching to have him in my arms for hours.

“Voski…” I said his name on a heavy exhale, and sent him an image of what I truly wanted most—him covering me, his weight pinning me, his hands on my body, his lips on mine.

A deep rumble vibrated in his chest and his hand flattened on my hip, pushing me down into the furs. He flicked me with his tongue, then growled, ‘Soon.’

I whimpered and felt him shiver—then I was drowning in sensation. The thick firm strokes of his tongue. The tingling teases of his fingers. The vibration in his chest when he wanted me.

It all pressed me higher, until I was aware of nothing but that beckoning promise, my body humming with increasing need, and the tantalizing summit of the mountain we climbed together.

“Voski… oh God—”

My breath came in short, sharp bursts—then caught when he stroked again. He’d buried himself between my legs, his shoulder forcing both knees up. I was pinned, unable to move except to arch into him. Unable to think except I love you, and more.

And with the waves of pleasure building at my core, I turned into a tuning fork, shaking, humming, singing.

His grip tightened on me. I lifted my head, panting, clawing for him, “Voski, please!”

His shoulders flexed, and he lifted his eyes, locking gazes with me.

For a split second, neither of us moved, then his tongue plunged into me, then out and up, sliding to flick me twice, and I broke—never losing eye contact as I gasped his name, and my body came apart.

The moment I did, he swooped in, rearing over me, curling my legs around his waist, positioning himself, and then with an animalistic roar, he took me in a single thrust that pushed the next wave of my orgasm so high I couldn’t breathe.

~ VOSKI ~

The rush of finally having her, of taking her, of joining with her was so intense, I shuddered. Grace, in the throes of an orgasm, clenched on me like a fist, and the sensation shredded my already aching control. I almost came.

Falling over her, bracing elbows over her shoulders, I grabbed two fistfuls of her hair and groaned as I drew out of her, then drove us together again.

Grace’s cries broke, shivering in the cool air on our sweaty skins. Her hand slapped to my back, and she clawed nails up my spine, desperately pulling me toward her, tighter, frantic, shaking.

And even when her climax finally broke and she sucked in a heated breath, she didn’t stop.

Kissing, whispering my name, clinging. I tasted her mouth over and over as I took her, curling myself over her, with each thrust telling myself that on the next I’d take control back and settle in. Yet finding myself still shaking, still catching, halting, wrestling for control.

It had only been a day since I had her, yet I quivered for her like we’d been parted for months.

Watching her ride her return, triumphant, after her final trial today had left me with nothing but pride. I’d known she was ready. Known she wouldn’t fail. And I still had to blink away tears when she found me, threw herself into my arms sobbing, and clung, legs around my waist, arms around my neck, whole body trembling.