Chapter 57

The rain stops as I sprint into the jungle’s dense confines, pursued by silence. But my prickling skin and fraying nerves make me innately aware that he’s chasing.

Hunting.

My lungs labor, heart pounding in rhythm with my feet, each hurried step strumming that raw, tender ache between my legs until every forward motion is a scarcely won victory.

I power around partially glassed trees half frozen in an eerie, see-through eternity, the other halves dead or bleached or crumbling. Rays of sunlight spear through translucent foliage, creating bright, glistening pockets in the gloom. Part of me wants to stop and marvel at the changing world around me, but my heart is pounding too hard. The throb in my core is too crippling.

My monster’s on my heels.

Passing what looks like an entrance to a cave bored into the edge of a hill, I risk a peek behind, unable to see him, but I feel his icy stare track across my face like a chilling prelude. Another bolt of pulse-scattering thrill erupts low in my belly and high in my chest, a moan whittling through my lips still stained in the taste of him.

Perfectly, beautifully him.

Heart in my throat, I loop around, then dash behind a massive fallen log that’s half clothed in moss, tucking myself into a knot, heaving shuddered breaths. My gaze darts left and right, up and down, and I battle the urge to push my hand beneath the waistband of my pants. To press my fingers against the hungry ache.

Silence.

No slow patter of water still dribbling down from above. No crackle of thunder. Even the wind has stopped, the world around me so hollow of noise my breaths saw, my galloping heartbeat akin to the pound of hooves clopping against hard-packed soil.

If I can hear it, so can he.

Slowly, my breaths begin to tame. Still, the silence prevails, my skin prickling with baited anticipation, my pulse like a butterfly caught in the base of my throat as I continue to search left, right, up, down.

Where is he?

Frowning, I spin, rising onto my knees. Daring a peek over the log, I search the mangled jungle for any sign of—

A heavy thump behind me rattles my bones, and I gasp, whipping around, seeing him—a vision of corded muscle and fierce, regal beauty. All his veins have pushed to the surface; his tattoos so eerily still, no light flickers through the silver scrawl.

His eyes are the most catastrophic shade of black I’ve ever seen.

I scramble over the log in a flurry of unsteady movement, knees crumbling the moment I reach the other side.

He steps over it effortlessly, prowling after me as I scurry backward. Fanning a heat low in my belly that becomes unbearable, my nerves exposed to every sweep of his crippling gaze.

He looms above, casting me in a delicious slab of shadow.

My muscles lose strength, and I soften against the ground.

He drops to his knees, holding my stare as he reaches forward and unbuckles my sheath with slow, steady motions, setting it aside. He rips the buttons on my pants, easing the stubborn leather barrier down. My underwear yields to his slashing hand like they’re nothing more than tissue paper, and my legs begin to part.

A raw, carnal invitation.

He makes a low rumbling sound, grips my thighs, and spreads them so wide there’s nowhere for me to hide.

Bared.

Vulnerable.

He’s right there, looking straight at me. Seeing the flushed, swollen evidence of my frantic need for him.

He sits perfectly still, releasing that rumbling sound with every deep exhale while his gaze hungers. While my core aches to be filled with his finger.

His tongue.

Something.

“Rhordyn. I need you …”

More than I need air in my lungs.

His gaze cuts to mine, and he makes that sound again—almost a purr. So animalistic, betraying the words he’s not saying.

It picks at the thread of my composure, leaving me so frayed I’m barely holding together.

I rock my hips. “Rhor—”

He drops his head between my thighs and plants his mouth on me, arms weaving around my legs as his tongue lashes through my folds—like a ravenous, feasting beast. A vortex of muscle-melting pleasure stirs, branches up into my center and down the inside of my thighs as I rock against his face, stomach clenched, peering over my heaving chest. Watching this big, barbaric man paw at my thighs while he rumbles through his meal, back muscles bulging, clawed fingers dimpling my skin.

There is nothing gentle about the way he’s devouring me, every hot swirl of his tongue knotting me up until my entire body blazes with this tangled heat.

The rocking of my hips grows strength, and he sets a hand over my womb. Pins me down with silent command.

He flicks his thumb over that sensitive nub, kindling me, easing a finger inside. He pumps.

Pumps.

I whimper,tumbling, dissolving beneath him. My nails gouge into the dirt in a pathetic attempt to ground myself.

Still strumming that raw, exposed bundle of nerves, he replaces his finger with his tongue—digging deep.

I cry out, thighs trembling as he spreads my core, exposing more of me to his ravaging attention. Those dense rumbling sounds pour up into me, his tongue oscillating as it spears to a devastating beat while heat gathers.

Spreads.

Peaks.

My muscles clamp down as I erupt, spine curling, fingers tangling with his hair as he lifts his hand from my lower belly, releasing me.

I tug at the inky strands, wailing through the violent bolt of pleasure—wild and unleashed. I thrust against his face, softening with each roll of my hips until my muscles melt to buttery splendor.

He flattens his tongue against me, lapping, wringing out the last of my orgasm’s fluttered heartbeat until I’m past the whittled end. Planting a kiss upon the inside of my thigh, he watches me from beneath the heavy fall of his lids, unraveling, breath blown out on a growl.

He rises, licking his lips. My legs still splayed before him.

I’m honey—warm and loose. Begging for something else.

Something more.

His hands drop to his pants, unbuttoning, and my heart lodges in my throat. I suck a shuddered gasp, eyes widening as he shucks them off, releasing his hard manhood—so thick and embossed in veins as pumped as the ones on his body.

A pearly bead leaks from the tip.

I moan, hungering at the sight of him, wondering what he would taste like. My hand threads down my body at the thought, fingers sliding through my slick folds, swirling around that bundle of nerves. Wanting.

Needing.

Watching every swirl, every dipping sweep, he makes this raw, carnal sound. The tension between us grows tighter.

Tighter.

He moves, lifting me. Flipping me around effortlessly, my back flush with his heaving chest.

I reach—hands delving through his hair.

He binds me with his arm, nudging my head aside and laving at the sensitive skin below my ear as his hand eases between my legs, cupping me.

Holding me.

Then his fingers are coasting around my entrance. Spreading me. In me—thrusting.

Stretching.

Enriching me with a roll of slow, steady pumps.

My entire body tides with the motion, and I rock against him while he plants kisses upon my ear, easing his hand up under my shirt and brushing the tender peaks of my nipples.

My sensual moans bruise the atmosphere.

He rumbles as he tries to thread another finger in, strumming the strings of my already singing euphoria. “You’re not ready for me, Milaje …”

Ahh—

In a knee-jerk reaction, I manage to yank myself from his hold. From the thrusts of pleasure his fingers are devastating me with.

I clamber up to the tune of his sawing growl, spinning.

He’s crouched on the ground where I left him—a sculpture of impeccably carved brawn, his eyes swirling shadows regarding me with crippling focus.

“Let me be the judge of that,” I declare, walking backward through the underbrush, watching him from beneath my lids.

He rumbles, fisting his thick length in slow pumps, the vision so raw and erotic my knees almost give way. “I’m not a regular man, Milaje. My body wasn’t built to be broken. It was built to break.”

I remember the way he handled my hair while he severed the heavy lengths, like a giant cradling a mouse.

That spark of thrill strikes me like a match, and I steal another backward step …

“You’re fragile. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I decide what I can and cannot handle.” I reach for the hem of my—his shirt and pull it over my head, letting it fall to the ground.

His chest inflates, this deep, abrasive sound grinding out of him as he devours me with his sweeping stare. He continues to work himself in long, white-knuckled strokes, and I raise my hands, threading my fingers through the damp tangles of my hair. “I want you inside my body.”

His canines slide back down, the vision lashing me with a ripple of pleasure.

I don’t want to hide—not with him. I want him to see that I’m here, achingly ready to take him.

Have him.

As me.

I want to feel him against a skin that’s not covered in a layer of somebody else.

Skin that’s mine.

Skin that’s untouched—untainted by the hands and the feel of other men.

He lets out a warning growl as I reach for the chain around my neck and unlatch the clasp, letting the necklace, gem, and conch fall to the ground with a clattering thump. My skin peels away, dissolving the final layer between us. Baring my true self.

My mark.

The flush of blooms weighing down my shoulder.

So many …

Something lethal flashes in his eyes that would probably bring a spark of fear to my chest if I hadn’t witnessed the way he so delicately handled my haircut. Instead, it feeds another wild blaze of pure electric thrill.

I’m playing with fire, I know I am, but I’m not leaving until I burn.

I lift my chin, brimming with fierce, primal confidence. “My body, Rhordyn.”

My.

Body.

He stands—looking bigger than he ever has. Like this world is too small to smother the mighty essence of him erupting through the cracks of his stripped composure. So beautifully, boldly naked, carved to monstrous perfection.

I moan at the sight, coaxing him with another backward step.

He collects our clothes, my sheath, crushing them in his fist as he advances. Slow.

Predatory.

There’s a challenge in my stare as I meet him stride for stride.

“Okay,” he says carefully—too carefully.

Another step forward.

I thieve another back, watching him crouch and sweep my necklace into the crushing might of his fist. “But if anybody sees you without this necklace on,” he says, pushing to a stand, “I won’t think twice before I put them down.”

My heart thumps to a halt, the statement delivered with such cutthroat poise I feel the words sliding across my skin like a blade.

”So, what do you suggest, Milaje?” His head cants to the side. “Because those pretty blooms are out, and my tether is fraying by the second.”

My heart vaults into my throat, cheeks heating.

He called them pretty …

His deep voice cradled the word in such a beautiful way, I tuck the trinket beneath my ribs where I can love it forever.

I think of the cave a short sprint away—the one I passed during my dash through the jungle.

“Then I guess we find somewhere to hide together,” I whisper, a smile kicking up the corner of my mouth at the ebony flame in his eyes.

I spin and run—faster than I ever have. So fast, the half-glassed trees smudge in my peripheral as I dodge and dip and leap.

It’s no longer silent behind me.

It’s thunderous.