dinner, and some secret flavor that was unique to him, something dark and very male. It was perfect, sating a hunger she hadn’t known she possessed. She fell back against her pillows and he followed, their tongues sliding against each other in a twisting dance.
He finally pulled back, gasping. “It’s a good thing I didn’t kiss you like that earlier today,” he said. “I would’ve taken you in front of the entire cathedral.”
“Perhaps a bit more than the nobles of Ypres needed to see,” she agreed, breathless. “Not to mention my brother and Patriarch Reniel.”
Matthias tilted her chin up, nuzzling the soft skin of her jaw. “He would’ve had me building shrines in atonement to the end of my days. And your brother would have run me through.”
“Which would have caused an unpleasant international incident.” She arched when his mouth hit a sensitive spot on her neck. “Not to mention I would have to have him executed for killing my husband.”
“It’s a good thing we avoided all that, then,” Matthias agreed, licking delicate spirals on her skin down towards her breast. He stopped at the point where the flesh began to mound and kissed his way to her nipple. Dragging the very tip of his tongue around the areola, he then flicked it across the stiff little nub. “Best we save such things for the privacy of our bed.”
“Agreed,” she gasped as his mouth closed over her aching breast and sucked once, hard. “Matthias.”
He responded to her unspoken plea, alternating between running the flat of his tongue over her nipple, flicking it with his tongue, and sucking it, before repeating the same sensual torture on her other nipple. The flesh between her legs was already aching with desire, and she could feel wetness sliding down the inside of her thighs.
Turnabout was fair play. She ran her palms over his broad shoulders, caressing the curves of hard muscle there, before slipping down to the firm flesh of his back. A long valley of muscle ran down the length of his spine and she explored it with her fingertips. Bringing her hands up in a caressing stroke, she ran her nails over the skin of his upper back. It was meant more to stimulate than scratch, but from the way his head jerked from her breast and he groaned in pleasure she knew she’d found a special spot.
“Gods, yes. Do that some more,” he begged.
She started dragging her nails in circles, observing in delight as a blissful expression bloomed on his face. “That feels astounding. No one’s ever done that to me before,” he confessed.
“I think it’s because it’s the one spot on our body we can’t reach by ourselves, so we need someone else to attend to it. It’s very sensual, isn’t it?”
His answer was a deep, lusty kiss that lit up her own nerve endings with sparks of joy. Wonderful as his muscled back felt under her touch, however, there was much more she wanted to explore on her new husband. She let her hands trail down, stroking the curve of muscle and bone along his sides. One hand slid underneath and in towards his groin, cupping the thick, hot shaft there in a teasing grip. “What a wonderful wedding gift you have for me here.”
He made a sound that was half-chuckle, half-gasp. “I’m pleased you like it, my dear. I’m rather fond of it myself.”
The skin was pure satin, but underneath it was warm, heavy steel, ribboned with veins that she wanted to trace. Sliding up to the bulbous tip, she rubbed a thumb over it and felt the first drops of his own pleasure. The movement made him close his eyes again and hiss in appreciation.
She started a deliberate, playful stroke up and down the shaft, rubbing his foreskin back and forth. When he hardened even more in her grasp she abandoned her new toy for a moment, sliding her hand down further and cupping his bollocks. They felt full and heavy, ripe with seed.
He reached down and clasped her wrist. “Danaë, if you don’t want me spending in your hand like a
Learning to Kill: Stories