Page 54 of A Monsoon Rising

She shivered instead.

Alaric watched with hawklike eyes as Talasyn unwound the band that covered her chest. Even though the plain, practical undergarment was a far cry from seductive, seeing her take it off made every drop of blood in his veins rush south. He fought to maintain what little composure he had left, but when the band fell to the planks at her feet and—gods, at last—he had an unobstructed view of her chest, it was all he could do to not come in his trousers right then and there.

The woman he had reluctantly married was in possession of the loveliest breasts on Lir. Granted, his opinion was hardly that of an expert, but he would gut anyone who wished to posit the contrary. They were small and shapely and, to his never-ending delight, dusted with freckles here and there. He could have studied them for hours, and perhaps he would have had Talasyn not started to cross her arms, a nervous intake of breath parting her lips.

“No,” Alaric said hurriedly, all dignity forgotten. He was going to die from anguish if he couldn’t look some more. He caught her wrists and dragged her hands back to her sides. Even in the storm’s gloom he could see that her dusky nipples had pebbled—perhaps from the cold, perhaps from the need to be touched.

Figuring that he might as well cover all his bases, he blew into his palms and then rubbed them together to create more heat, and Talasyn gasped when he cupped her breasts, a tremor running through her as though she couldn’t make up her mindwhether to jerk away or to strain further into his touch. She mercifully decided on the latter, and he tried to be gentle at first, of course he did, but it was just so—

—fascinating. The suppleness of her skin, the smooth swell. She fell forward with a sharp cry, clutching at his shoulders for support. This brought the most beautiful breasts in the world mere inches below his mouth, and he was suddenly struck by the greatest idea of his life.

He bent his head and took her right nipple between his lips.Oh, how she jumped at that, how she raked her fingers down the back of his neck as he sucked. This was the most amazing thing, the only thing, using his mouth to elicit such startled mewls of pleasure from his fiery little wife. He slid his hand over her neglected left breast, rolling the tight bead of her nipple between forefinger and thumb while he laved at its twin with the flat of his tongue, tasting ocean and sunlight on her skin. Her cries grew louder, the husky scrape of her voice forming the shape of his name while the monsoon raged all around them, sound and fury piercing through their little shelter of wooden boards and canvas sails.

By the timebothher breasts were flushed and wet from his ministrations, Alaric couldn’t take it anymore. He swept Talasyn off her feet, cradling her in his arms. She showed him exactly what she thought of his oafish maneuver by biting his bottom lip. It was the kind of pain that sang, and he snarled as he tossed her onto her back, there against the inward curve of the lopsided airship’s hull. As good a bed as any.

Talasyn propped herself up on her elbows to glare at him. “What did I say about you manhandling me?”

“I’ll stop whenyoulearn to be gentler with your teeth,” Alaric retorted, kneeling between her spread legs. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, the smear of blood she’d drawn dark against his skin in the faded day.

“Little hellcat,” he muttered, lost in her narrowed eyes flashing with hints of gold. “Claws out even while you purr.”

“I don’t hear any complaints from you,” she said, with a pointed glance at the tenting in his trousers.

He bent down and stifled a sardonic laugh in the junction of her neck and shoulder as he peeled her breeches down her glorious legs. She kicked them off the rest of the way, and then it was a blur of sliding against each other, squirming together, lips catching in open-mouthed kisses, his hand fumbling until it found its way home between her thighs, thumbing the gusset of her underwear aside, a finger sinking in.

She was as tight as he remembered. Wet and warm, pulsing around the stretch, eager for him.Let me have this,he thought, through the intoxicating muddle of sensations, through the roar of the storm-tossed waves, through the pounding of blood.Just for a while.

Talasyn was well aware that she was digging a deeper and deeper hole for herself with every moment that passed. With each kiss, with each caress, some distant corner of her mind screamed that no good could come from this, that she was betraying Sardovia and Nenavar, that there were some things that would always be unforgivable in whatever light. But somehow she could not be swayed from responding to Alaric, the haze of desire clouding all considerations of the future.

The last time they’d done this, she’d climaxed so quickly, unused to being touched after a lifetime of loneliness. But now her body knew what to expect, was drinking it all in, demanding more. And Alaric, as in tune with her in this as he was when they dueled, kissed his way down to her breasts, his clever mouth latching on yet again as his finger prodded andcurled.

She was so focused on the circuit of pleasure afforded by him lavishing attention on two different parts of her body that, when he added a second finger, she almost didn’t notice until he started to thrust. How she loved it, though. How her hips canted to meet his wrist, how she clawed at his bicep, how—

“Ouch!” Talasyn yelped. Alaric had wiggled his fingers perhaps a bit too ambitiously within her walls, the sudden sting similar to that of a pinched nerve.

He raised his head from her chest, his expression a mixture of horror and guilt in the half-light. “Too much?”

“Your fingers are clearly bigger than mine, and it’s not like I’ve ever had anyone else in there before you—” she started to rant, only for the rest of it to die in her throat as the swift understanding that dawned in his eyes gave way to a burning possessiveness.

He leaned in and slipped his tongue between her lips, rolling it underneath the roof of her mouth as his fingers moved more gently inside her, figuring out what she liked. Before long, her pleasure had mounted again as though it had never been interrupted in the first place. Another strong gust of wind sent a curtain of heavy rain thudding against the airship, the racket echoing the jagged drum that her heart had become as it beat frantically, in near-perfect sync with how she throbbed and ached for him. He’d tucked his ring finger against his palm and the cool golden edge of his wedding band brushed against her with every downstroke, adding another layer of debauchery that threatened to overwhelm. And surely she was almost there, surely just a little more—

“That’s it, Tala.” Alaric pressed a feverish kiss to her temple, then another one to her jaw. He sounded as broken as she felt, that deep rasp of a voice guiding her higher. “Come all over your husband’s wedding ring.”

Her hips rolled as she gave herself over to the cresting, to the light, clamping down on him, shuddering, her hoarse cry drowned out by the swirling tempest. And he watched her the way one watched a sunrise.

Somehow, it wasn’t enough. Somehow, she needed more. After the pleasure tore through her, it left a space aching to be filled.

Alaric must have read it on her face, or guessed it from how she reached for him, limply, silently.

He sat back, leaning against the shallop’s bulkhead, hauling her into his lap. Talasyn went willingly, straddling him, his arousal straining against his trousers, the friction making her gasp. Lightning flashed at the periphery of her vision, but it was nothing compared to the look in his eyes. He was gazing at her with such sheer hunger that he looked like a man possessed, and she didn’t feel entirely like herself, either. Her breasts covered in love bites, her body bared to the howling skies and the furious ocean. There was a wicked wind blowing through her, through them both, through the currents of aetherspace, matching the intensity of the gale that beat at the walls of the ship.

Barely remembering how to control her limbs, her world floating in a blur of heated kisses and illicit touches, she helped him wrestle off her undergarments, then the bunched-up tunic. There was something primeval about being stripped down to only her boots in such an untamed landscape, her braid tossing in the wind, her man looking at her with fierce reverence. There was power here, sung to her by the swaying trees, by the crashing waves, by the rain that lashed at her exposed skin. She reached down, blindly, and it was the work of moments to free him from his trousers, to encircle him in half a fist. He was heavy in her palm, twitching, so longand thick that a spark of nervous delight rippled through her core. Her knees dug into the teak boards as she poised herself above him, and a shudder went through his broad frame as his tip grazed her entrance. He rested his forehead against hers, breathing harshly. His question unspoken, but unmistakable.

Yes,she thought, but couldn’t say out loud. She was afraid that the word would crack and her vulnerability would come seeping through. She was afraid that he would see the full scale of it, of what he was capable of doing to her. She—

—had hesitated too long. Alaric drew his head back slightly, peering at her through half-lidded gray eyes.

“Well?” he asked, his voice gruff.

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