Page 87 of The Hunted

He wanted the next things he said to be very clear.

“Why shouldn’t you have done that, Arelle?”

There was something delicious about the way her throat jumped at his demand. He could practically hear the words wanting to come right out of her mouth, but she was a stubborn one. Occasionally, he might appreciate that.

Not tonight, however.

The rain continued to pound down from the sky like paradise had opened up to welcome them home with a flood of tears. The wind had her soaked hair flying out behind her with a wildness that any human woman would have been scared of, from the sheer force alone. Arelle, on the other hand, stood steady and unafraid at the storm and the man.

“I belong to the sea,” she told him softly. “I belong to my pe—”

“You belong to me.”

The sky cracked open with more lightning.

It was his voice that still boomed.

The heat that burst in his chest at the declaration could only be matched by the reflection of him in her blown out pupils. She didn’t even have time for her next breath before his mouth crashed down on hers. There was no fight in her kiss to stop—only an answer when her tongue slashed along his for a taste of her own.

Eryx had no idea where the horses had gone, and he couldn’t find a single shit to give about the fact they were currently on a muddy path that typically had a lot of travel.

In good weather, that was.

Like this, no one would dare to be outside.

Except for them, it seemed.

Her fingers slipped through the low-hanging neck of his nightshirt to scrape across his chest. The sting had his cock daring to punch through the trousers he’d barely managed to pull on before leaving his chambers when he heard the bell ringing to signal her escape.

“You belong to me,” he breathed against her mouth when he finally dragged himself away from the kiss. His hand came up to grab tight to her jaw when he added, “And unless told otherwise, you will behave like it, Arelle.”

The same heat flashed in her eyes as before. Now, he only saw it as an invitation when she flexed her sharp fingernails against the carved muscles of his chest one more time.

“If you claw me like that again, I will bend you over, rip your dress up your back, and fuck you against the boulder behind you.”

That was the only warning she would get.

“You wouldn’t,” she returned.

It almost sounded confident.

Eryx chuckled. “Wouldn’t I? You are mine to do with what I want. And you say it like you might not enjoy yourself—we very much know you would.”

The pink came back to her cheeks, too. It did wicked things for his lust and he wouldn’t pretend differently. His next kiss came harsher and harder. The force of it propelled them off the path and into the wet, cold grass until her back hit the rock he’d promised would be there. He released her jaw from his hold, but only to shove that hand between the silk of her skirt. The sopping fabric molded to the sweet slit between her thighs for him to stroke when she widened her legs for him.

He wished he cared that she was brazen enough to let him have her like this, but he found he craved it. The wild rawness of it called to him, and before he knew it, Eryx had her turned around on the rock so that her round, pert ass fit tightly against his groin.

He kept another promise when the silk of her dress ripped apart from the seam where the skirt had been sewed into the bottom of the bodice. Her heavy intake of air answered the cold wind that whispered across her naked skin.

The crack of his palm to her ass accompanied his next words when he asked, “Why won’t you wear undergarments? They’re brought to you for a reason.”

All she breathed back was, “But why bother?”

Gods.

She would kill him.

Eryx believed it to be true.