Page 79 of Vicious Is My Throne

He totally did, one of those wicked grins creasing his face as his fingers slid around and unbuttoned my leathers, his mouth an inch from mine, our breath tangling together, warm and wanting.

“Keep looking at me like that, wife, and I’m going to forget all about this pitcher of water and clean you with my tongue.”

I shoved at his shoulder, my voice high. “Tavion. You can’t. Actually…” I glanced toward the bathing room. “I should do this myself. In private.”

His soft laugh skated down my spine. “I’m a wolf. A fucking predator, Anaria, and you are my mate. Putting my mouth on you satisfies a very primal part of me, and if you think I’ll deprive myself of such a basic pleasure, you should really think again.”

Dear gods.

Heat didn’t build inside me, it roared, a storm blowing through me like a molten explosion until desire overflowed every crevice as Tavion peeled the leathers down my legs.

He ran his fingers up the lightning strike on my leg, frowning slightly at the darkness of the new tendrils that had formed against the pale cream of my thigh. Then he bowed his head and pressed his lips to that cursed mark.

The one I’d despised, and loved, and now used like some kind of twisted barometer to judge how close we all were to becoming monsters. But when Tavion’s lips moved against my skin, my fingers immediately tangled in his hair, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him, his hands gripping my thighs, those soft lips nibbling gently.

“Let me in, Anaria.” He lifted his head. “Let me taste my mate.”

“You’ve never called me that before tonight. And now—twice—I’ve heard those words,” I said quietly, searching his face.

“No. I haven’t.”

And maybe it was the desperate need in Tavion’s eyes, or how desperately his fingers sank ever so slowly into my thighs, like he didn’t even realize what he was doing, but I cupped his face in my palms. “But yes. Anything you want from me is yours.”

He blinked, like he was processing what I said, then swept me into his arms and laid me on the bed, the cold-as-ice covers a shock to the heated skin of my back.

Tavion smoothed my hair back. “I didn’t want to frighten you, Anaria. Wife and husband…those are bland, simple words. Vows made; rings exchanged. A marriage of convenience made to save you from a terrible fate…that you understood.”

“I never got a ring,” I felt obligated to say, and I was rewarded by a small smile.

“I knew…” He blew out a shaky breath. “It was when I found you in the dungeon, after Solok. I knew then you were my mate. But I was too blinded by hate and vengeance and male pride, too convinced we were enemies to recognize the bond for what it was.”

He looked more vulnerable than I’d ever seen him, weighed down with guilt and memories he still hasn’t come to terms with.

“But that day when you taunted me about being with Raz and Zor…” He swallowed. “That’s when I knew for sure. Both that you were my mate and how badly I’d fucked everything up between us. I vowed right then I’d grovel until I won you back.”

“That was months ago. And you still didn’t say anything until tonight.”

“When I touched that knife, I saw something.” His voice shook, every word hitching. “I watched you die, Anaria. It was like I was there, holding you, and I couldn’t bring you back. I couldn’t…I couldn’t…” He sucked in air, trying to gather himself back together.

“And I realized time is only an illusion. That I’d never told you we were mates because I was waiting for the perfect moment. Well, this is that moment. You are my mate. And becoming a wolf’s mate can be…intense.”

“More intense than things already are between us?”

His lip curled up. “Oh, princess, you haven’t seen anything yet.”

Tavion loomed above me, a shadow pierced by two glowing, green eyes. My entire body softened beneath that fierce predator’s stare, filled with dominance and hunger as he parted my legs, that ravenous gaze dropping from my face to my swollen, drenched pussy.

Chest heaving, he stared until I squirmed against his unyielding hold, embarrassed, aching, empty.

He moved so fast that one moment he was above me, the next his tongue lashed across my clit in a storm of sensation that sent my hips bucking into his devouring mouth. He shoved me back down on the bed and held me there as I dissolved beneath a raging storm of lips and tongue and teeth.

The gentle fire Tavion had ignited with his tenderness exploded into slashing, carnal hunger.

I was a bundle of exposed nerves and aching need, nothing in between except shaking muscles and panting breaths as I writhed against the mattress, fighting the hands clamped around my thighs holding me with such powerful mastery.

I tried to rock against that wicked mouth, but his grip was too firm, keeping me open and helpless for him to taste and fondle and plunge a finger in deep, then two, licking my juices off, before fastening his teeth over my tight, swollen clit.

My hands yanked at his hair, twisted the sheets, clawed at his shoulders, trying to gain some leverage to ease this coiling tightness, a mix of grinding pain and soaring pleasure that seemed to have no end. Tavion’s feral growls rumbled through my swollen, sensitive flesh as he feasted, my fingers winding into the long, silky hair of the male between my legs.

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