“I’d feel the beat of your heart,” he said, relentless. “You’d respond to me. That wouldn’t be enough, though. I’d want your mouth. To feel it against mine. To taste you. I’d start slowly, just little sips, the brush of my mouth against yours. How silky your lips are, so full and ripe. Your lips are made for kissing—did you know? You might think they were for shaping the words for spells, or issuing commands to your trembling underlings, and they do those things very well, but their true purpose is in kissing me. I’d show you that. I’d kiss you deeper. You’d taste of spice, too.” He licked his lips and gave a small hum of pleasure.

By the gods, she could almost feel his kiss.

“There was a time when I loved nothing more than kissing,” he continued, almost conversational but for the depth of his voice and the blue fire in his eyes. “Could do it for hours, and be satisfied. Perhaps I’ll do that with you. Kiss you until you melt in my mouth and I drink you in.” His nostrils flared. “Another time. This kiss is a prelude. I’d take my lips from yours and then I’d run them down your neck. I’d bite you there, too. My teeth just here.” He circled the convergence of her neck and shoulder. “Hard enough to leave a mark, so anyone who saw you would know exactly what happened. They’d know that I bit you like a wolf claiming his mate. The mighty priestess marked. By me.”

An involuntary moan crept up her throat. She could well imagine it—the gleaming flare of pleasure and pain, his hot breath upon her, the red indentations left by his teeth. His audacious, animalistic marking.

“What if I threatened to turn you into an actual wolf?” she breathed. “Transform you into a beast? Would you be so impudent?”

He grinned savagely. “I’d bite you harder. Until you give in.”

“I never submit.”

“Then this will be a delightful challenge. For, you see, as I’m biting you, I’d unfasten your tunic and slide it down to your waist. Cup your bared breasts in my hands. You’ve full breasts, but my hands are large. Nothing would go unattended. I’d stroke and caress them. They’d feel like . . . like paradise. So soft. Lush.” His hands hovered over her breasts, and he stared with open need.

She arched up, even though she could not feel his palms against her.

“Your nipples would harden. I’d run the tip of my fingers back and forth over them, and you’d feel it all through your body. Then I’d take your nipples between my fingers and pinch.”

She couldn’t stop the gasp that formed on her lips. His words burned her, banishing the chill of her cold nullity.

“I’d take my fingers away and put my mouth in their place. Lick you. Have your nipple between my lips and tug. I’d make your breasts glisten from my tongue. Until you’d writhe beneath me, begging me not to stop.”

She did want him to stop. This was a torment, a tease, and could end only in frustration. Yet if he stopped, she would tear the walls down with her scream.

“The tunic would come off, all of it. I’d push it past your hips, until you’d stand completely naked, wearing only the ripe curves of your hips and the dark gloss of your maidenhair.” He moved a hand down to hover above the junction of her thighs. She instinctively widened her legs.

“We’d have a bed nearby. Not this one. A better bed, with a good, firm mattress, and silk sheets. I’d urge you back to the bed and lay you down, your hips right at the edge, your feet on the floor.”

“And where would you be?” she asked, breathless.

“Kneeling between your legs, of course. My hands would grip your thighs. They’re sleek, your thighs, and I’d feel the tension in them, the muscles beneath your skin as you’d hold yourself in readiness. Waiting. Waiting. You’d jump a little at the first touch of my breath on you. A sigh, that breath, and a breathing in. This close, I’d smell how much you want me there. I’d see it, too. That gleam of wetness. Can you picture that? Can you see how your body would demand me?”

“Yes.”

“But I’d be a hungry man, standing at the banquet. I’d not be able to wait for long before feasting. A few gentle licks at first, learning how you taste, feeling your impossible softness. You’d be so wet my face would be glistening. And you’d get even wetter. I’d suck on you, consume you. I’d thrust my tongue inside of you. God, you’d be delicious.”

He groaned. “I’d take your bud between my lips, swirl my tongue around it. Back and forth. Inside you, over you. I’d fill you with pleasure. And you’d scream when you came, your fingers in my hair, pulling me tight against you.”

She wanted to close her eyes, stop her ears, but he had her in his thrall, and she truly did writhe, gasping even though she’d no need for air.

“You’d think we were done,” he went on, inexorable, “but I’d continue. I wouldn’t stop. Not until you came so many times you’d go limp and had screamed yourself voiceless.”

The dark tapestry he wove with words ensnared her. She fell, farther, farther, tangled in fantasy, craving what he offered, needing to give him what he gave her.

“That wouldn’t be all,” she breathed. “You’d be hard, and aching. Wanting inside me.”

His lids lowered, and he dragged in a breath. “Yes.”

“I’d undress you. This time fast, but there will come a time when I’d go slowly, peeling away layer after layer to bare your skin and your body. But for this moment, I’d be swift, because I would not be able to wait. I’d have you naked before ten grains of sand hit the bottom of the hourglass.”

She had already seen him unclothed, but picturing it now within the illusion they shaped made her tight and ravenous. The moonlight would be silver upon the wide expanse of his shoulders, tracing the solid arcs of his muscles, disappearing into dips and hollows.

“And I would see how hard you’d be,” she continued. “Curving up, as if made to fit precisely within me. The head pulling upward. There’d be a small drop weeping from the slit, because you’d want inside me so badly.”

His breath came raggedly, and he pressed his hand against the hard ridge of his cock. “Yes—just there.”

“But not yet. I wouldn’t let you between my legs right away. I’d stay on the bed, just where I lay, and make you kneel on the mattress beside my head. Your cock would be so close to my lips. I’d lift up, like this.” She raised herself onto her elbows. “My mouth would open. You’d put one hand behind my head. And then . . . I’d take you into my mouth.”

Bram gave another groan. His groin pressed into his hand. Yet he held himself back.

“Go on,” she urged. “Let me see you.”

His fingers flew over the fastenings of his breeches. With a hiss of relief, he freed his erection, his hand wrapping around its thickness.

Never had a crude piece of flesh been so tempting. His cock was dark, flushed with blood, and just as she had predicted, fluid glistened at the top of the round head. She wanted him within her so badly. But she was only spirit, so she gave him what she could with words.

“I’d lick you to start. Run my tongue around the top, and just beneath the ridge. There’d be a bit of salt on my tongue from your own need, and I’d lap that up. Then I’d draw you deeper into my mouth. Slowly. Inch by inch, stopping along the way to taste you. But I would take more and more of you within me, until I could go no further. And that’s when I’d begin to suck.”

His hand slid up and down his shaft as she spoke, yet she saw how he kept his strokes slow, light, as if trying to prolong the pleasure. No hurried release for him. He was a voluptuary, taking delight from sensation even more than the release.

“You’d feel my tongue on the underside of your cock. I’d run it all over you as I moved up and down. Every so often, I’d lightly scrape my teeth along the shaft, just enough to remind you that I’m a woman who is always in command, even with your cock in my mouth.”

“And when you’d do that,” he breathed, “I’d push a little harder on your head. Making you swallow more of me.”

“Both of us could not be in charge. Someone has to follow.”

“Neither of us are followers. We’ll make it succeed. That I don’t doubt. See, as you’d be sucking me, I’d reach over to stroke your sweet quim. You’d already be hot and wet from your climaxes, and I’d slip easily between your lips and inside you. Two fingers, I think.” His fingers tightened around his shaft. “See? The two of us in command.”

It would be a wondrous thing—the pull and push of each other, yielding and obdurate at the same time.

“But this wouldn’t last,” he went on. “Only so much I’d be able to endure before I had to have my cock truly inside you. I’d pull from your mouth—”

“And I would stay on the bed, my hips at the edge of the bed—”

“I’d stand between your legs and hold tight to your hips—”

“My breath would hold, and I’d watch you—”

“As I slid my cock into you.”

She felt a bright radiance gathering within, coalescing. Trying to look away from Bram stroking himself was impossible. His hand moved faster, his grip tense, and his shirt clung as sweat filmed his body.

“You wouldn’t move,” she whispered. “We’d allow ourselves a moment to just feel one another, you thick and hard in me—”

“Your tight softness all around me. God.” A rough animal sound reverberated from his chest. “Then I’d move. I’d pull back, only a little, then thrust forward. A few slow strokes as we’d learn each other.”

“Then you’d move faster, and I’d push to meet you.”

“I’d watch your breasts shake with each thrust. I’d watch my cock as it slid in and out of you, wet with you. I’d watch your face as I filled you, watch the pleasure build, watch your eyes close, your mouth open.”