Page 195 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
Maybe Ryker liked the idea of me. The formidable Huntress who didn’t fear and didn’t cower.
Not the reality, of a full human, with weaknesses and wants and desires.
Wasn’t that how it always went?
People wanted the name, not the person behind it.
I needed to get out of here. Run back to my room, slam the door behind me, and hope the night would erase my embarrassment.
His hand shot out, grabbing the back of my neck.
My gaze snapped to his face. I gasped when I saw the pure male smile slowly pulling at his lips, promising wicked, terrible things.
“Oh, Huntress. You have no idea what I can make you beg for.”
Chapter
Forty-One
RYKER
The Huntress was an anomaly.
A being who could be as strong as steel and proud as mountains one moment, then soft as a petal the next.
She was no blushing rose, but, gods, the color looked good on her cheeks as it rose up from her neck.
I pulled her toward me, leaning our foreheads together.
“Would you like that?” I asked with a hungry fierceness I didn’t recognize.
It took all of my self-control to not rip the slip off Allie and show her how her body deserved to be worshiped.
But she needed a gentle touch. That was obvious from the way her eyelids fluttered, unsure but craving, how her palms pressed against my chest, looking for support and contact.
“I–I don’t know,” she whispered, growing softer against me. And I loved that.
Loved that she was comfortable enough around me that the unflinching Huntress could afford to be vulnerable around me, even in such a small way.
I could’t–and wouldn’t–let her down.
“Why don’t we find out?” I muttered, my hand against her neck sliding up in her hair and tangling in those untamed waves. “I know one thing you like.”
I claimed her lips, thanking the gods for allowing me to taste her once more.
So this is what happiness felt like.
Allie in my arms, her hands coiling around my neck as if she never wanted to let me go, her mouth devouring me.
My arm circled her waist and pulled her into me until nothing remained between us. Who needed air when kissing Allie made me feel alive?
My fingers twisted in that mane of hers that drove me mad every single day, as I tilted her head to the side to better savor her. This storm of a woman clinging to me.
My hand slid down her spine, lower and lower, until I reached the hem of her slip. Greedy fingers stroked her thigh, skin indeed as soft as first spring’s petals, before they gripped her ass.
In one pull, I snapped her up and her legs twisted around my waist.
She’d seemed to love that back in the Memory Hall, her soft moans branded in my mind.
