Page 19 of Rapunzel's Outlaw Orc
“Is that why you haven’t kissed me since the other night? I’m tougher than I look, Bran. And I’m not afraid of you,” I whisper, trembling with too many emotions to contain.
His jaw tightens under my touch, tusks gleaming in the moonlight, a reminder of everything he is—beast, warrior, outsider. He looks like he belongs to the wild. Dangerous. Devastating. And somehow still gentle. And his eyes… those burning emerald eyes are locked on my lips like they’ll grant him absolution.
“Say my name again,” he rasps, his voice barely more than a snarl. One hand slides to the small of my back, anchoring me to his hard body while the other cups my cheek.
“Kiss me, Bran,” I repeat, firmer now. “Make me yours. I want to know what it feels like when you lose control.”
His mouth crushes mine with such ferocity that it steals the air from my lungs. He doesn’t kiss like a man. He kisses like a ravenous beast, angling his head so his tusks don’t bruise me. His lips are hot and silken and commanding, and his tongue?—
Gods.
His tongue sweeps deep, devouring my gasp. He kisses me as if he’s been holding back for days. His growl vibrates through my entire body, the sound electrifying. Intoxicating.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” he breathes against my lips. “But nothing prepared me for you. For your taste. Your softness.”
I thread my fingers into his coarse hair, dragging him back down, because once isn’t enough. It will never be enough. Our mouths move in frantic, messy sync. I clutch at his shirt, tasting him, needing him, the world shrinking until nothing matters but this—his lips, his breath, and the heat coiled tight between us.
And I know with a fierce, impossible certainty that I’ve just been marked. Not with teeth or claws, but with a kiss that has carved its way into my soul.
Chapter 9
Brannock
I try to take it slow and remember to be gentle–to remind myself that she’s precious and priceless–but her hands are on my body, and her soft sounds are in my ears. And I’ve always been more beast than man. After three nights of holding her in my arms, her soft body pressed to mine, the only thing left is the beast.
She’s sunshine and smoke around me, and I’ve never ached like I do right now.
“Rapunzel,” I growl against her skin, my hands around her waist to anchor myself to the moment, to her, to whatever little sliver of sanity I still possess. But her scent is in my lungs, and her hands are in my hair, tugging insistently. “We should?—”
“Please don’t say stop,” she whimpers. “Please, Brannock.”
“Gods.” I press my forehead to her throat, my heart kicking against my breastbone. My hands clenched around her hips, desperate to keep going, to explore and conquer and claim.
One shapely thigh wrapping around my hip tips me right over the edge. Her heat sears me through our thin layers of clothing. It sends fire into my veins and need crashing through my soul.
I roll us slightly, afraid I might crush her with my weight. She says she isn’t fragile, and she’s right about that. But she’s so much smaller than me, so much softer. It would destroy me to hurt her now.
My tusks scrape her skin gently as I slip my hands beneath her thin nightgown. That virginal white fabric has taunted me for three nights now, testing my patience and restraint. I’ve thought a thousand times about using my tusks to slice it from her body.
Apparently, I still have a little restraint left in me, after all, because I don’t do that now. I lift it ever so slowly, giving her time to change her mind or stop me, to scream and lock herself in the tiny bathroom as she should.
She doesn’t. She rises above me, confident and sure, even as she trembles. Her beautiful eyes are wide in her pale face, fingers trembling as she reaches for the hem of the gown to help me lift it over her head.
“Gods,” I growl, eyes locked on her pale skin. Acres of it, gleaming and creamy in the firelight. Dusky pink nipples and a soft, sweet flush. “You’re so beautiful.”
A ghost of a smile dances at her lips as she dips her head, shy in the face of my honest praise. “No one has ever told me that before.”
She should be told every day. But I’ll be the one who does the telling, no one else. The thought of anyone looking at her like I am right now—of anyone touching her the way I ache to touch and taste and take—has my hands flexing on her hips.
I sit up beneath her, forcing her to lock her legs around my hips. She gasps slightly, eyes wide and dazed when she feels how much I want her. How much I need her.
“So beautiful,” I rasp, wrapping my lips around one nipple as carefully as I can. I know she doesn’t mind when the side of my tusk scrapes across the sensitive flesh. She quivers on my lap, moaning.
Her hands fall to my chest, plucking at my shirt as she writhes against me, the ridge of my cock between her legs. Does she feel how desperate she’s made me? How wildly my heart beats right now?
Gods, it feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest as I suckle on her, drawing one nipple between my teeth before lavishing the same attention on the other.
One of the small tears in the fabric she mended just days ago rips open beneath her fingers.
