Page 169 of A Promise so Bold and Broken

Merrick let her lead.

As if he understood that she desperately needed to right now.

That she clung to any whisper of control she had left, refusing to listen to the voice inside her telling her it didn’t matter.

The gods had decided her fate anyway.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she dragged him down on top of her, kissing him harder, until they were a mess of heavy breaths and moans and need.

“Get them off,” she begged when his hands roamed over her, cupping her breasts, then moved down her stomach to tease the skin between her jacket and trousers, only to go back up again, making her squirm with want. “Please, Merrick.”

“Fuck. Say my name like that again,” he rasped as his fingers dug into her hips.

“Merrick,” she whispered. “Merrick, Merrick, Merrick.”

He responded with a growl, and her eyes flew open when his breaths hit her stomach as his teeth dug into the waistband, his hands leaving her heavy breasts to drag her trousers down to her knees as he moved to stand between her legs.

Merrick’s eyes met hers when he pushed her knees up, and she couldn’t look away as he slowly relieved her of the trousers, then removed her undergarments and gently nudged her legs farther apart by sliding his large hands down each of her thighs.

Lessia fought a shudder as the heat in his eyes mirrored that of her own body, and she wrapped her fingers in his hair again when he began kissing his way down her legs, the anticipation making them shake, nearly clamping around his face in her need for release.

She cried out when his mouth found its intended purpose.

His first touch wasn’t tentative—not even gentle—as if he knew exactly how much she needed to see those stars, and he swore something she couldn’t make out in the haze as he began devouring her.

Lessia arched off the table as his mouth closed on her, his tongue alternating between flicking and lapping, sliding over her until she cried out in pleasure at the perfect, aching sensation.

Her eyes shut when he growled against her, her legs shaking so hard Merrick’s hands flew up to steady her.

“More… I need…”

She wasn’t sure what she needed, the words jumbling within her mind.

Merrick knew, though.

As he drove his tongue deep into her, that heat racing up her spine turned into an inferno, her core throbbing so hard every breath leaving her turned into a moan.

And when Merrick’s teeth scraped against her sensitive bud, his tongue circling it after each bite as if to soothe it, the fire within her burned hotter, so hot that she pressed against him, pulling at his hair to get him closer—desperate for more.

And when he playfully moved to nip at her inner thigh, and the gentle bite turned into something more—a possessive, territorial marking that made them both swear loudly—the pain mingling with the desire drove every thought from her mind and pushed her over the edge.

As she convulsed beneath him, Merrick straightened from where he’d knelt before her, and she cried out again when he, in one fluid motion, escaped his own trousers and thrust into her, pressing her back against the table as he rolled his hips, stretching her so perfectly as he filled her that she couldn’t help but scream his name.

His lips brushed her ear as he drove into her, so deep that stars—like the silver flecks in Merrick’s eyes—danced before her closed ones once more, exploding into pure light when he whispered, “Mine. You’re. Fucking. Mine.”

Merrick held on to her as they both came down, and while he didn’t say a word when tears slid down her cheeks as she stared up at him—only swept them off with his thumb—she could tell he knew that she was hiding something.

That it hadn’t just been pure lust driving her to this.

As her eyes flitted between his, her harsh breaths the only thing reverberating around them, she wondered whether she should tell him.

Let him share the burden.

But then that crease she hated formed between his brows.

And she knew.

Merrick wouldn’t stop her.

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