Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
“Is that the woman who brought you into the trade?”
Ignoring him, I nibble off a bit with my front teeth, cautious in case my nose has misidentified things, and it is something tough and tasteless—
My mouth blooms with the most delicious taste, and I can’t help but moan while I eye the carcass. How anything so tough on the exterior can provide this singular delicacy, I have no idea, but my stomach doesn’t care about the particulars—or the bloody mess we took the meat from.
It just wants more.
“Oh, crescent moon…” I chew slowly to savor the experience. “This is—”
“Lewis was an arse who did not take care of you well enough. Here, have more.” Then Merc tacks on dryly, “Brace yourself, my sword’s coming at you again.”
As I glance his way, there’s a sexual charge to the comment and my cheeks get even hotter. “What about you?”
“We feed you first. Then I’ll see about me.”
I’m so touched, I nearly forget everything and meet his eyes. But that warmth fades as he announces practically, “If you’re going to make it through the journey that awaits us after our swim, we need you properly fed.”
The disappointment that hits me is as misplaced as my speculations about his lovers. And really, after all I’ve seen, why should I ever assume tenderness from any man?
“And one more thing.”
I finish chewing and take another piece. “What is that.”
“I am going to kiss you.” His voice lowers into a silky drawl. “Before we leave here.”
Eighteen
An Abrupt End.
Merc feeds me as if I’m a pig to the slaughter. All of the bread, all of the meat he’s cut from the ribs of the balas, and he makes me drink everything that’s in the bladder Mr. Lewis pushed into my hands. I’m now chewing on a root of mint wood, cleaning my teeth thanks to a supply he keeps within the folds of his surcoat. Following his announcement about our mouths meeting, he’s remained silent, but in my head, we’re arguing back and forth—
No, wait. I do believe I’m fighting with myself.
I want him to kiss me, and know that’s a stupidity from which I’ll not easily recover. The problem is, even with the full belly he’s given me, I’m not likely to survive what we must do next—whether that’s somehow getting through that pool or whatever’s past that. Do I really want to go to a watery grave without knowing what it feels like to have a man’s lips on my own?
Merc’s lips.
Going on this theory, we might as well have the sex now—
“What—” Merc sputters. Then he puts his broadsword aside and shoves the butt of the torch into a fissure in the wall. “I mean, yes. Now—”
“Wait, what—”
Merc rises up on his knees, and he’s magnificent in the torchlight, his hair one with the black of his tunic, his harsh face carved with a mating need I’ve seen before on other men—but never had directed at me. His blunted fingers yank the knot out of the laces that close the front of his britches, and behind the leather, the bulge of his sex thickens and extends out to the side in its confinement.
I’m so shocked, I can’t respond. I must have spoken my thoughts aloud—
“Only a kiss,” I blurt.
And then wish I could take that back, too.
He freezes, his corded forearms in mid-flex, his hands run with veins. I have a thought that his palms must be callused from fighting, and I shock myself by wondering what they would feel like on the inside of my thighs as he spreads me—
Merc redoes the knot. “All right, a kiss then.”
And still the length and thickness of his sex grows. And grows.
“My veil stays on.”
That’s the last thing I say. I suddenly can’t breathe, but in contrast to my earlier panic, this suffocation is sweet. Behind my sternum, my heart skips beats, then thunders.
“Just a kiss.” Now his deep voice is a purr. “With your veil … still on. Yes, that’ll be fine.”
He falls forward, and just when I think he might land on his face, his hands flatten and his palms catch his weight on the tunnel’s stone floor. Then he prowls toward me in a crouch, his long, black hair hanging down, those braids swinging freely, his massive shoulders larger than ever before.
“Are you going to eat me,” I whisper.
“Yes. I am.”
Good. I want to be consumed. There’s lightning in my veins, a heady combination of fear and desire—except I’m not ready for all of him, not yet. Still, he’s so big, and we’re alone down here. I don’t think he’ll take what I’m not offering, but I don’t know that for sure. I’ll find out, though.
Right now.
We are face-to-face, separated only by the shift of linen. I can smell the leather and that spice of cedar coming off of him, and the scent kills the mold and mud in the air. My stare stays on his mouth, but I can feel the heat in his scarred gaze, the raw sexual need.