Page 180 of The Games Gods Play
“I want you,” he says. “Though I’m damning us both with it.”
Is he still fighting this? I won’t push him more than I already have. I’ve made my choice and made it clear.
After a taut moment of silence, he doesn’t lift his head, but his arms tighten slowly, drawing me back against his flesh, which is hot enough to warm the water around us. He pulls my body flush against his, then trails a single, teasing, questing touch down my belly to the soft curls at the juncture of my thighs.
With the lightest, most frustrating of brushes, he sends that single finger over the spot that makes my body hum.
I drop my head back against his shoulder on a gasp, and a lightning flash of his emotion charges through me.
Satisfaction and need that is nearly overwhelming. And something else. A determined sort of control.
It’s gone before I can hold on to it, but it only makes what he’s doing with his hand, the thickness of the shaft pressed into my backside, that much…more.
Over and over, and oh gods, over again, he teases. Until I’m moving my hips to chase his fingers. Until my breath hitches in my throat. Until I raise my arms up and behind me to wrap around his neck, anchoring us together.
I might have expected this to be fast and hard. But tender and teasing—gods, I’m already coming undone.
His free hand trails up my ribs to tease the underside of my breast before moving up to cup it, and then he barely brushes over my nipple. Desire sizzles from that touch to the throbbing point where his other finger still teases.
Then that questing finger dips lower, parts me, slips inside me, testing me, and I couldn’t hold back the moan if I wanted to. Not that I want to.
He stops there, finger buried in me. Tormenting me.
“Don’t stop now,” I demand. Mewl, even. That’s what he does to me.
I sense his smile, and then he presses a sweet, claim-staking kiss to the nape of my neck that I feel like a brand. He’s marking me as his. Different from the kiss of blessing on my lips. This isn’t about protection.
“There are a thousand reasons we shouldn’t… I shouldn’t…” he whispers, that rough voice rubbing against my senses. “But I want you, Lyra. I’ve wanted you for a long time…”
He takes a shuddering breath against me, all leashed power and desire. Utter determined control.
His fingers move over me, one teasing, one sliding out, drawing a tremor from my flesh. “I want you the way stars burn.” Another move of those torturous fingers, back in, but it’s his words that are driving me higher. “I want you in the way a storm gathers over mountains only to give in to violent release.”
Finger still buried in me, he brushes his thumb over that spot that makes me quiver. But it’s his words that curl around my heart and make it beat faster. It’s knowing he wants me that way—me, someone who has been invisible and unwanted all my life—that makes me quiver for him. Whimper for him.
Yearn for him.
His lips move to the spot just behind my ear. “I want you in the way the first mortals in the wilderness found their like in each other and…hungered.”
The last word is a promise-filled purr that captures me so fully, I want to hear that sound for the rest of my short, mortal life.
“Good,” I sigh into his tormenting touch, then drop a hand to slip it behind me, between us, wrapping it around him and squeezing, reveling in the way he groans against my skin. “Then we want each other the same way.”
I’ve never touched anyone this way before, and yet it’s so…natural.
The feel of him in my hand is silk-covered iron, and the way he pulses—I made him feel that.
Wondering… I pump my hand once. Twice.
The way his entire body goes rigid before he groans makes me smile my own satisfaction. “Now what I want…is for you to stop holding back.”
He stills. I can hear the harsh in and out of his breath, his chest pressing against me in time. He’s still fighting for control. Then, “I don’t want to hurt you. If I lose control—”
I grip him tighter and revel in his groan. “I want you to fucking break me.”
“Fuck, Lyra—”
He moves out of my grip and pulls his own hands away all of a sudden, and I barely have time for my heart to drop, thinking he’s stopping this, before he grips my hips, so urgent his fingers dig in hard as he spins me to face him, and I suck in at the sight of his eyes. Molten, liquid silver.
