Page 96 of War

Still, it’s War who pulls my arms away from my chest, revealing my dusky nipples. His smoldering gaze dips to meet mine. “You have no reason to be nervous, wife.”

Wife. The sentiment makes my stomach drop.

“Please don’t call me that right now.” I thought I’d gotten used to the term, but I was wrong. Right now it sounds far too intimate. I can trivialize what I do with the horseman so long as I remain emotionally distant.

“That’s one thing I will not agree to. Wife.”

I narrow my eyes at him.

His hand skims over my skin, then cups a breast. It’s almost laughable, how big his hands are. They engulf my breast—and then some.

He brings his other hand up, so that he’s cupping them both. His thumb scrapes over a nipple.

“I want to be in you, Miriam,” he breathes. “It’s all I’ve been able to think about lately.”

His words set my core on fire. Need is growing in me to take this farther,faster.

War lifts me easily, giving himself access to the breast. I feel his hot breath exhale against my nipple, and then he takes it into his mouth.

My reaction is instant.

I moan, arching against him, pressing myself against his chest. His lips are like sin, and I can feel myself getting wet with every stroke of his tongue.

He groans against me. “Wife. That sound.”

I need more.

“What do you want me to do?” I say instead.

“Touch me wherever it pleases you.”

Nowthatis a tricky command. It implies thatanypart of him pleases me, and even though my lips are already swollen from his kiss, and even though I’m straddled in his lap and my panties are soaked, I still don’twantany part of him to please me.

And I definitely don’t want him to know it.

But desire wins out. I run my hands over his pecs, his shoulders, his back and arms. I’m touching him everywhere,everywhere. His body is enormous, his massive torso dwarfing mine.

The horseman groans again, and again he grinds against me. His lips begin to skim over my chest, getting more demanding, and his hands are getting greedier. Reflexively, I run my fingers through his dark hair.

His violent, kohl-lined eyes lock on mine, and they sharpen with purpose.

War picks me up and carries me over to his pallet, setting me down on the bed I slept in not so long ago. It feels familiar and foreign all at the same time, the sheets smelling faintly like the horseman.

I lay there and look up at War, who looks larger than life from this angle.

Minutes ago I would’ve been all jittery nerves. Now I just want him.

He kneels down next to me, his gaze pinned to mine. His hands go to my boots, removing them and my socks one by one. He moves up the bed, his fingers going to my waistband.

My throat bobs a little as he unbuttons my pants. The sound of the zipper dragging down ratchets up my excitement. He hooks his fingers around my pants and underwear, and then he drags it all down, bit by bit, unveiling me as he goes.

I hear his sharp intake of air, and his eyes are transfixed on my core, even as he pulls my clothes down my calves then off my feet. He looks mesmerized by the sight of me laid bare on his bed.

After a moment, War straightens, his own hands going to the black boots he wears, his muscles rippling with the movement.

He begins stripping for me, and it’s so damn sexy. The horseman is shirtless, so there’s not much to remove once his shoes are off. His hands move to his own black trousers. He doesn’t look away from me as he draws them—and whatever he wears beneath them—down, down, down.

My gaze dips, and—oh. A little tendril of nerves come back.

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