A River of Golden Bones (The Golden Court, #1)(100)
I stepped back, leaning against a tree trunk that twisted sideways against the winds. My heart pounded as I let him stalk toward me. I felt each step of his paws echoing through my body. When he was a hair’s breadth away, he shifted, golden eyes morphing to dark umber, smooth muscles and sharp jawline replacing his silver fur. My lips parted at the intensity of his stare and the sight of the rest of him. His chest brushed against my peaked nipples with every heaving breath and I could feel him hard and ready against my belly.
My throat no longer stung, my blisters gone and my shoulder healed. My many wounds from the mines and the fire before that were now blissfully absent. Grae’s own smooth bonfire scent finally replaced the stench of smoke in my hair. My heart and mind and soul still felt their stings, though, and there was only one thing that could ever heal me of that.
His eyes drifted from my lips to search my eyes. “It was always you,” he rumbled, and his words made heat pool between my legs. “My mate.”
His rough hand skimmed up my hip, my belly, and to my breast, sweeping his thumb across my nipple. I arched into the sensation as I held his wanton stare.
“Should we keep moving?” he asked. “The others . . .”
“Right now, there are no others. Just you and me, Grae.”
We’d already outrun the wagon at nearly double the pace. If we kept going, we’d be waiting like sitting ducks in the city. No. We had time, and more importantly, my soul needed this moment as much as my body. I needed Grae’s body to fulfill all the truths I already knew in my heart.
“How badly do you want me to make you mine?” I asked as his other hand settled on my hip and his lips skimmed up to my ear. My breathing hitched at the movement. “Tell me.”
“You were the only one I ever wanted, the only part that felt right.” He trembled as I traced my fingers along the muscles of his back. “Always.”
Grae pulled away to look into my eyes. I permitted my hands to roam further down his back and over his firm ass, urging his hips to press into me.
He let out a groaning breath and kissed me as I rocked against him. The same way I had in the love temple and the ruins but now there was nothing between us but the sweet bliss of his skin against my own. His lips sent tingles throughout my body, the warmth of his skin, the fire of his kisses, the anticipation of what was to come making my legs shake.
Grae pushed his knee between my legs, propping me up with his hard thigh as he deepened our kiss. I ground myself against him, spreading my damp heat over his leg, coating him in my scent, showing him how ready I was for him, as a moan escaped my lips.
“Gods, you’re so wet,” he groaned, his lips leaving mine to trail down to my breast.
His mouth closed around my nipple, tugging on it, and I writhed, uncaring as the rough bark of the tree bit into my back. He circled his tongue around my taut bud and tested the sensitive flesh with his teeth. The sensation sent lightning bolts of pleasure straight to my throbbing clit and I squirmed against him, aching to be touched.
“You feel so good, little fox,” he murmured, reading my body like an open book. He dropped to crouch between my legs. “But how do you taste?”
I sucked in a breath as he hooked my leg over his shoulder. My knee clenched into his muscled back, hanging on for dear life, the anticipation making me shake more wildly than the wind-tousled golden leaves above my head.
Grae’s lips traced the flesh of my inner thigh, his tongue trailing my ocean-sprayed skin closer to my pulsing bundle of nerves. I slung my arm over a low branch, bracing myself, my fingers gripping the bark so tight I thought it might snap. I panted—waiting, waiting, waiting, Gods damn it!—as his breath tickled the hairs between my legs. Every sensation in my body was tipped on a knife’s edge.
His tongue slid over the very place I needed it to be and I cried out, the feeling so overwhelming that my standing leg buckled. I would have fallen, but I knew I wouldn’t, knew Grae was right there, slinging my other knee over his shoulder, putting me at his complete mercy as he pinned my hips to the tree. His tongue slid over me again and my fingers gripped the bark tighter, my arms straining as a deep guttural moan cut above the roar of the waves. Grae’s tongue circled me faster, lapping at my clit, each brush of his wet mouth ringing out feral sounds. He hummed his pleasure against me; the vibrations pushing me higher. My thighs clamped around his head, gripping him tight as I rode his mouth. The building pressure made me squirm, but he held me still, feasting on me as the ocean mist swirled around us.
Grae worked my thrumming, swollen clit with skill, again and again, pulling every mewling sound from me I didn’t even know I could make. His lashing strokes turned frenzied, the growling vibrations of his mouth sending me toppling over the precipice. Before I could prepare myself, a euphoric scream escaped me as my body jerked. My hips bucked as I came against Grae’s mouth. His tongue slowed but didn’t stop, working me until my soaked inner walls stopped clenching and my muscles released.
Grae grabbed my hips, guiding me downward onto his lap and holding me against him. I dropped my damp forehead to his shoulder, taking deep gulps of cool air as his fingers traced lovingly up and down my spine. Never had I been so high, so soaring, the echoes of my release pulsing through me like a heartbeat.
His mouth found mine and I tasted myself on his tongue. Warmth seeped from his skin as my hand dropped between us. Wrapping my hand around his silky, thick length, I stroked him up and down. His eyelids drooped as he groaned against my mouth, his breath more jagged with each pump of my hand.