Page 9 of Wild Fated Mate
He stared into my eyes, that golden-cinnamon color shifting, moving. It had to be a trick of the light. Eyes didn’t change like that—did they?
The pressure points on my forearms sharpened, each finger pressing deep, until I swear I could feel him piercing the skin, becoming part of me.
Suddenly, I realized my position. Standing between his knees, one arm tied to his, both wrists held firm in his grip, his cock still straining to break free.
“You hate me,” I whispered.
“No, Sunshine. I don’t.”
A ripple of warm air skimmed past my shoulder, the rattle of leaves in the trees anchoring the moment in time. Everything around me surged golden and bright. Pointing me right back at Gavin.
The look in his eyes was pure hunger. Devouring, consuming, raw need.
My cheeks heated, the tips of my ears, the back of my neck, as if I was burning from the inside out. The trail of heat wound around me, and I wanted to pull away. To hide.
No one ever looked this closely at me. As if they could learn everything about me by counting my few freckles, or my lashes, or the wispy curls that refused to stay pinned out of my face.
I couldn’t look away, either.
Face-to-face like this, my brain was breaking under the harsh beauty of this ferocious man.
Broken, determined, rugged. A face that had seen the hardness of life and the landscape up close. He wasn’t removed from the world by walls or a screen. He lived fully, wide open in the air and sunshine, in the smoky black of fire, in the loamy green of forests and fields. His beard held a glint of auburn, as though he always carried a bit of fire with him. How soft would that beard be, trailing down my neck, between my breasts, over the crest of my hips, along my soft belly and down, down to my thighs and in between.
My nipples tightened at the thought.
“Sunshine…”
Then his lips were on mine, and he became my world.
His lips were soft, but sure, the scrape of stubble sparking a feeling I’d never experienced. This kiss was like nothing I’d known before.
His kiss pulled me inside out and wrapped me in heated threads of need. My eyes were closed, but if I opened them, those threads would be lit up like a shimmering, golden net pulling us together.
A groan came from his chest, and his kisses grew harder, sharper, more demanding. I wanted to give him more and opened myself to be devoured.
I pressed my legs together to get some friction between my thighs, to ease the slick, sweet, growing ache.
He bit my lip, and I made a noise like a crying kitten.
I needed more. I could see myself on his lap, legs wrapped around his waist, his thick cock pressed against my hot center, using his mouth on my aching nipples the same way he was kissing me.
I needed to get closer, to touch him, to be touched by him.
I wanted to close the gap between us, until I was enveloped in his heat and scent; covered in it so when I finally pulled away, I could take a piece of him with me.
Because this was a moment out of time. When the handfasting was over, he would go back to ignoring me; and I would go back to wishing I could hate him so it wouldn’t hurt when he turned his back on me.
But if what he was saying with the press of his lips, if each stroke of his tongue against mine was an apology, I needed more.
He needed to prove this was more than a kiss. More than two people scratching the surface and discovering that not just sparks, but a wildfire burned between them. But I had to protect my big, dumb heart.
Pulling away physically hurt. My whole body objected. As I’d finally found my match, as if this was more than a kiss.
If the glazed look in his eyes was anything to go by, this really was more than a kiss. But I needed to hear it. I sucked in a breath.
“How can you kiss me like that but refuse to let me any closer?”
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