Page 117 of The Mercy of Dawn

She pressed a finger firmly against his chest, where his shirt dipped low and tempting, and said, “No, it’s not. But if you want more—”

Wolfish was the only way to describe Mikael’s smile as he gripped her waist with the warm and broad span of his hand and silenced her with well-practiced ease.

It was the best bad decision Cyril ever made.

Mikael notched his fingers under Cyril’s chin and tipped that blissfully intrigued face of hers up, pressing his lips to hers far gentler than he wanted to.

He’d give her the decency of a chance to change her mind, to back away if she didn’t want this.

But Cyril didn’t back away from him.

No, the woman was fucking eager.

She pressed the lithe warmth of her body flush to him, and her fingers found purchase in his shirt. The quiet, contented noise that slipped out of her almost brought Mikael to his knees.

Not that he would mind being there… But one thing at a time.

Her lips were so soft it was almost criminal, and the deceptively sweet taste of lockmead still lingered on them. The damn Rhodea woman was intoxicating, consuming even, and Mikael didn’t even try to stop himself from getting swept away.

He kissed her like she was the last breath of air for a drowning man.

Cyril’s wandering hands did nothing to temper his fleeting rationale, and Mikael’s burgeoning need grew at a frantic pace.

Her fingers left near branding paths as she worked a slow, methodical path from his chest out to his shoulders and back down to his stomach. He slipped out a breathy groan when those adventurous fingers grazed his hips and a crack of want ran right through him.

Cyril’s smile against his lips did nothing to help that.

The temptation to take that hand and show her precisely where he wanted to feel those lithe fingers of hers nearly drowned out any other thought in his mind.

If it weren’t for the echo of a quiet, pointed cough serving as a startling reminder they were in the middle of the fucking hallway, Mikael may have very well followed through.

And it was a quiet, feminine cough that he’d recognized anywhere.

He’d spent his entire twenty-seven years of life hearing his mother use it to get a message across, after all.

It took every ounce of his willpower to break the consuming kiss that Cyril showed no interest in ending, and rest his forehead against hers. Both of their breaths came in ragged, uneven bursts.

“Cyril, we should…”

Hells, he didn’t know what they should do, or what she really wanted, but they couldn’t stay there, and his decision-making skills were not in their prime that late into solstice.

“Come inside.”

Cyril half spoke over him, already fumbling for the door handle. She grabbed his hand and tugged him into her room before he even processed the wild implication of every threshold they were crossing.

It hit Mikael, though, when the lock clicked behind him and he turned to look at her. Her pupils were blown wide, just a strand of gold left clinging to them, and she had her kiss-swollen bottom lip drawn between her teeth.

Mikael’s blood ran south at an alarming rate.

He hadn’t even taken a breath before Cyril was reaching for him again, pulling his mouth back to hers. She wielded a soft, needy whine like it was a gods damned weapon.

Mikael gave in to the consuming urge to feel her hair slip through his fingers and threaded them through the silky strands at her nape, gaining every bit of leverage that he could. His other hand found its home anchored across the soft swell of her backside, pulling every damn inch of that deceptive little frame against him.

He’d been a fool to think they wouldn’t end up here.

There was no denying the initial bodily interest he had in Cyril, the day she showed up on their doorstep, armed to the teeth. But he wrote that off as circumstantial, a byproduct of weeks spent cooped up at the mountain base.

Then she beat the hells out of him.