“I’m thinking that…a kiss would be acceptable.”
A muscle clenches in his cheek. “A kiss.”
I hum quietly, my gaze settling on his mouth quite shamefully. “That’s right.”
His black brow wings upward toward his hairline. “You think I will be able to stop at tasting your mouth?”
Moisture gathers between my thighs so abruptly, my lips part on a shaky intake of breath. “You’ll have to manage somehow, Your Majesty.”
Gripping my hair, he tips my head back and examines the line of my throat, his attention sliding down to my breasts where they threaten to spill from the neckline of my dress. And he makes a rumbling sound deep in his chest that causes me to arch my back, without a command from my brain. Letting him look. “Let’s amend this plan, shall we?” he rasps.
Danger. Turn back. “How so?”
“If you want me to stop after a kiss, I’ll stop.” His tongue traces the seam of his mouth. “But if you want more, you’ll say the word…”
“Jester,” I supply, breathily.
He chuckles quietly, his mouth lowering to mine. “That’ll do.”
I brace a hand to his chest to slow his progress. “Just so I know exactly what you mean…what does more include?”
I only observe the slightest jump of his lips before they’re on mine.
He presses our mouths together, the contact firm, like a stamp. The sides of our noses touch, his beard tickling my chin. Already it’s the most intimate I’ve ever been with another person and I sink into the sensations. The flavor of ale, the way my curves mold around his muscle, my tiptoes pushing me up so I can get close, his arm slung around my lower back possessively. And then he licks into my mouth with a growl—and the kiss takes on new life. A life I’ve never lived before. It’s wild and messy. It happens so fast.
One second we’re in the shadow of the mountain and the next, he’s walking me farther into the shallow cave and pressing my back to stone, his mouth insatiable on mine. Collecting oxygen becomes a bothersome chore. We break away only briefly to drag in droves of the stuff before our mouths are reattaching, his tongue rubbing against mine, his hands twisting in fistfuls of my hair while I claw at the front of his tunic, dragging my nails over heaving muscle.
Oh lord, oh lord.
His shaft is thick against my belly, and just like the rest of him, it’s enormous. Experimentally, I rub my stomach side to side, something deeply feminine inside me satisfied by his hoarse moan.
But he’s not satisfied. Oh no, the move seems to frustrate him to the point of pain. “Say the word, woman.” He kisses me hard, dragging at my lower lip with his teeth. “Say it. I need your touch more than I’ve ever needed anything.”
It seems so fast. Didn’t we just begin? But my hands are aching to explore him and it’s obvious, so obvious, that going further than kissing is inevitable and I was too naïve to realize it at the outset. “Jester,” I whisper.
With a harsh grunt, his right hand leaves my hair and snags my wrist, drawing my hand down to his lap and pressing my palm to his erection. Using me, fondling himself with my touch.
“It longs to pump between your pretty thighs, woman,” Corbet says, his lips flush to mine. “Jesus Christ, I’d go back and fight all my battles a second time for the honor of pushing up these skirts and mounting that pussy.”
I gasp. Of course I do. I’ve never heard coarse words bandied about like this. I taught my sisters to knee a man between the legs for such disrespect, but oh…when he says the words while his hot open mouth is skating up the side of my neck, they sound so good.
And the stiff weight of him in my palm calls to me, begs me to explore. It was only supposed to be a kiss, but I can sense the pain he’s harboring in that thick stalk of flesh. Can feel it in the vibration of his muscles and the manner in which it throbs, throbs, in time with the beating of our hearts. I stroke him once, hesitantly, through his breeches, and he stumbles into me, pinning me to the wall with my hand between us. His breathing is ragged and uneven in my hair, his hips grinding into my hand, and I understand now. I understand why seemingly sensible maidens lose their virtue at the Joining. If they feel even a hint of the desire that’s encompassing me right now, it makes all the sense.
“I’ve gone a long, long while without relief, sweet woman,” Corbet says, tracing the shell of my ear with his lips. “I thought the pleasures of the flesh were for weaker men. And then I saw you and years of denial caught up with me. I can think of nothing but getting my bare cock as deep inside you as possible.”
A tremor wracks me, lust curling deep in my belly. For this man. I want not only to release him from his obvious pain, but I want to feel him planted deep within me. Want to be his savior for those precious moments, watching him turn from man to animal in the name of relieving the male hunger he’s been plagued with.
I cannot lose my head, though.
I cannot give my virginity to this man. This king. He will not take me as his wife and no other man will either, without my virtue intact.
“No,” I breathe, shaking my head, although my hand continues its journey up and down his steel rod, growing bolder and bolder with each pass.
Corbet bashes a fist into the side of the mountain, bares his teeth.
And that same fist falls to my breasts, his knuckles teasing my nipples through the thin material of my dress, stiffening them further. “There will be pleasure for you in a good hard rut, woman. I won’t be the only one finding satisfaction.”
“I might be a virgin, but even I know that’s a lie that men often tell women.”
By accident, I’ve issued a challenge and it makes his eyes bright. I’ve made a mistake in doing so, because this is not a man who takes a dare lightly. “Do you question my honor?”
“It’s not a question of honor, it’s a question of skill.”
Lord, why can’t I seem to stop digging my own grave?
When I expect him to react with affront, however, he only nods with conviction. “By demanding better from me, you prove what I already knew. You were made for a fucking king.”
Without taking his eyes off mine, he slowly unties the bodice of my dress, freeing the laces that keep my bosom plumped in my neckline. But with the loss of support, the material of my dress sags and reveals my large breasts clothed only in moonlight.
“Dear God, beautiful Gwen,” he says gruffly, going down on his knees, taking my breasts in his large hands and kneading them reverently. “You are without equal. Sent to me from God himself.”
Without his erection to caress, I no longer know what to do with my hands, but they spear into Corbet’s hair when he guides a nipple to his mouth and molests it with his tongue. Raking it up and back until I’m whimpering. Eyes glittering up at me, he sucks the stiff peak past his lips and pulls on it deeply, his hands gathering the hem of my skirts, revealing more and more of my legs. But I can’t seem to form the word stop. Not when he’s creating this…this magnificent tug between my legs that promises something magical.
Something I’ve never known.
“I will see to your pleasure first, woman,” Corbet rasps, his mouth sliding across to my opposite breast, wrapping his warrior’s mouth around my puckered nipple and groaning, suckling it atop his tongue, before letting it go reluctantly. “Then we will discuss mine.”