Page 92 of The Garnet Daughter
He breaks away with a devilish smile and then nips his way down my chin and neck. I gasp when his tongue runs over what feels like an exposed nerve connecting the spot under my ear to the ones currently firing between my legs.
And if that didn’t make the thin fabric of my undergarments wet enough, the way he murmurs my name does.
I squeeze my thighs together, trying to relieve some of the throbbing now in sync with each of his nips against my skin.
“I have never been more scared in my life.” His teeth dig in lightly, followed by a gentle kiss. “When I put you in that escape pod, it was the hardest thing I have ever done, and perhaps it was a bad call, an unfair one. But I was blinded by the thought of them getting to you.”
I cling to him as he kisses his way back up to my mouth, so slow my toes curl as I only half-listen to his words.
But then he holds my chin, his face like it was that day on the ship, calm and serious but holding all other emotions in his eyes. “Callia, my heart did not beat again until I heard your voice on that ridge.”
He speaks of emotions so freely, it aches. This is not lust or circumstance; it’s something else entirely and it terrifies me. For reasons I do not know, my eyes line with moisture, mixing with all the other, more primal needs surging through me. He kisses me again, slower this time when he notices how overcome I am by his confession.
I angle my pelvis against the hard bulge in his pants, and he presses it against the mound of my sex in return. The thin fabric between us seems like a steel wall that I have to tear down or I will suffocate.
I slide my palm from his back, across his tapered side to his waistband. His vibrating rumble of approval does nothing but encourage me to begin unfastening the belt holding it all together. I claw at it blind and bite his lip until his fingers click something, and his cock springs free, hot and scorching between us.
His hips buck upward slightly, like an involuntary action, our dewy skin allowing him to slide his hard member up my naval.
I pull back shamelessly, wanting to see him. The flared tip is already dripping in a bead of his pre-release. It bobs with his panting breaths, jutting straight out and kissing against my skin with fiery heat.
“Can I touch you?” I whisper.
His breath hitches, his hooded eyes watching me with a feral edge I have not seen before as he slowly nods.
I trace my fingertips upward from the dark curls of his base, running over the veins that dance up his thick shaft. He hissesthrough his teeth when I run my thumb over the weeping tip, smearing the moisture along the underside.
“Calliape.” He shudders against my neck, nestling against it, cupping one of my breasts with his large, calloused palm, stroking his thumb against the sensitive peak. “By the three worlds, you are beautiful.”
The way he pants against me sends me plummeting back into a frantic wave of neediness. I clasp my fingers around his cock in a tight ring and stroke him down to the base.
He emits a sound deep in his throat, a choking groan that makes me repeat the action just to hear it again, to hear him losing control.
My core clenches around nothing, a dull ache blooming with each of his masculine moans.
“August.” My own voice is so breathy and desperate, I barely recognize it. “I need you.” I bite the bottom of his ear, stroking his entire impressive length again.
He doesn’t answer. Instead, his mouth hangs open, hips jutting upward, stealing another thrust into the ring of my palm.
Suddenly, he is quaking against me, panting heavily and body rigid.
He thrusts against my stomach with rasping breaths, like he can’t control the movement.
“Callia, I— Fuuuck.”
Molten liquid shoots upward between us, painting my navel with his unexpected release.
I gasp in surprise as he shudders again and again.
He finally sinks into me and braces his weight on the tree and makes an apologetic groan.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
“August?” I pat his shoulder and press my lips between my teeth, trying to hide my smile. I’m not sure why, but I find it charming that he finished so soon, that when he was able to lose control with me, that he couldn’t hold back.
He groans again, and when he finally faces me, he avoids my eyes. I can tell he is a little embarrassed. “Sorry,” he mutters.
