inch,” he said. “I would cup your breasts in my hands, framing your nipples with my fingers as they pearled for me.”
Her knees trembled. “I should hate the thought,” she told him, breathless. She brought her hands to his chest, brushing her thumbs over his nipples. They were hard little points she wanted to lick and suck. And, as her fingertip curled in the steel loop anchored in the right one, she wanted to lick and suck that, too. “Should absolutely, positively hate it.”
He groaned. “If this is the way you hate...”
“The pheromone. Only the pheromone.”
“No.” He grated the negation.
Angry with her now?
She licked the seam of his lips, and his anger returned to passion. Their breaths had mingled. Now their gazes locked, a sultry clash of turquoise against brown, passion against passion.
“Hate me some more,” he told her.
She rose on her tiptoes—her body seemed to have a mind of its own—placing her lips just in front of his.
He kissed her harder than before, his hands returning to her waist and tightening, his grip needy, firm and commanding.
His message was clear: she could not escape.
Why would she want to escape?
He pulled her closer, until she nestled against the long, rigid length of his erection. A hot, raspy gasp left her, spears of pleasure arcing through her, spawning other bursts of sensation.
“I want to hate you, too,” he told her in that same soft tone. “I want to hate you hard and fast the first time, slow and tender the second.”
Behind them, someone cleared his throat. “My king?”
Shaye heard the voice distantly and despised the interruption. More kisses. She wanted more of Valerian’s kisses. And he very clearly wanted to give them to her. Wicked intent gleamed in his eyes.
“I’m so sorry, my king,” the voice said. “The fight...”
Valerian’s fingers clenched on her hips. “I don’t want to stop hating you,” he said softly, the words nothing but a growl.
Saying “You must” almost killed her.
He brushed his nose against hers. “Must hate you?”
“Must stop.” Never stop!
He ran his tongue over his teeth. Then his nostrils flared, as if her taste lingered there. “For now,” he stated. “I will.”
She gulped. She’d never been kissed with such passion or fervor. As if the man claiming her lips truly savored her and would be utterly destroyed without her.
He’s dangerous, her mind whispered. He made her hope, even though there was only one way the relationship would end. Painfully.
All relationships ended. Period.
But going from the beginning to the end will be worth the heartbreak later on, her body responded.
She tugged from his embrace, suddenly cold and empty. Hollow, as she’d been through her entire childhood.
His eyelids compressed to tiny slits, his thick lashes nearly intertwining top with bottom. “You melted for me. That isn’t reason to withdraw from me, Moon. That’s reason to rejoice.”
“Valerian,” yet another man called. Joachim, this time. She recognized the deep baritone, now filled with impatience. “Have you decided against fighting me? Do you concede the victory to me?”
Shaye drew her arms over her middle, tamping down a tremor of dread. “No,” she said. “He doesn’t.”
Valerian cupped her cheeks. His gaze searched hers. He had to wonder why she’d protested the fight before but supported it now.
The answer—whatever he’d decided it was—didn’t please him. He scowled.
Did he think she wanted him to lose now that they’d kissed? Now that fear held her in an obvious choke hold?
“I will never concede,” Valerian said, the words more lethal than the sword strapped to his back. His eyes never left her face. “Never.”
VALERIAN REELED, HARD, as he peered at the exquisite Shaye. Her eyes were wide and haunting—haunted—her lips puffed and red, and a pulse hammering at the base of her neck as she struggled to catch her breath. If he hadn’t already known she belonged to him, he would have known the moment, the very second, he tasted her sweetness. Nothing and no one had ever affected him more profoundly.
I’m owned. She owns me.
Joachim—the man who had interrupted Valerian’s first kiss with his one and only mate—awaited him.
Wrong phrasing. What he and Shaye had done had been more than a kiss. Joachim had interrupted Valerian’s first consuming with his one and only mate.
Yes. Better. They’d consumed each other.
He wanted to consume her again.
My cousin’s death warrant has been signed, sealed and soon, delivered.
Looking away from a female had never been difficult, but fury seethed and bubbled in his veins, a rushing river of acid, giving him the strength he needed to glare at Joachim.
“You will pay for this,” he snapped.
“Only if you beat me,” Joachim replied, smug expectation coloring his face.
The man truly thought to win and become king.
“I’ve changed my mind about the fight,” Shaye muttered. “He deserves a royal spanking pronto.”
Valerian reached back, palm extended, waiting for her to willingly place her hand in his. To his delight, she laced her fingers with his without a moment’s hesitation. Her hand was soft and delicate, the bones fine, the skin smooth. Her perfectly rounded nails were painted the color of coral shells.
One day, he would suck them into his mouth.
She tightened her grip, and his delight only magnified. Was she offering him...comfort?
Was she coming to care for him?
Perhaps, perhaps not, but he had made progress with her. Never had a woman reacted so passionately to him, erupting from ice-cold to white-hot in seconds.
I’ll have that—her—again, he vowed. Soon.
“I’m waiting,” Joachim said, tapping a booted foot.
“So ready to die,” Valerian snapped.
His
