“Need. You. Now!” Olivia tore her hand from his grasp and planted it in his hair, her fingers curling around the strands all the way to his scalp, then using her grip to position him as she slanted her mouth across his own.
Instantly, her flavor burst across his tongue. Not minty like toothpaste. Not heavy like coffee. Not sweet with something she’d eaten. Just…Olivia, mysterious and irresistible.
On a groan, he dove into her mouth. From the moment their lips met, his goal became to taste, plunder, master. With fevered kisses, he took her mouth with unrelenting passion. Need roared inside him.
Olivia wrapped her legs around him, her nails digging into his shoulders, as she arched into the kiss. If he had ever lain with a more responsive woman, he did not recall it. Or maybe he had, and he’d simply forgotten every other woman. Olivia obliterated them with her white-hot responses and the little catches at the back of her throat.
He held her face, his thumbs brushing her cheeks, and kept her still for his mouth’s pleasure. He was starved for her, yet every taste did naught to assuage his hunger. He took the kiss deeper, overwhelmed by sensation. She clung tighter.
Her nipples stabbed into his chest. Blast it, he could scarcely take a good breath. Olivia seemed no better, her chest heaving, cheeks flushed, her ragged inhalations shouting that she was racing to the brink as quickly as he.
And they’d done little more than kiss.
His gaze touched the skeins of her dark hair framing a haunting face, those eyes so like Morganna’s, but without the calculation and guile. He yearned to feel her, to take her.
“Tell me what you need.”
Desire leapt in her vivid eyes as she placed his hand on the swell of her breast. Her nipples stood up, begging for his caress. He complied, grazing the sensitive tip. She keened, a sound of longing and frustration.
Marrok shifted to drop a kiss into the silky valley between her breasts. By hell’s fire, her scent was strong here. Inhaling it deep made him harder.
He tongued the soft skin of her cleavage and tasted the spice of her desire. It mixed with her innocence and female strength to beguile him. One taste would never be enough. Nor would a million.
With a deep breath, Marrok switched to the untended nipple. It leapt to attention against his tongue, and a fresh burst of her spice spilled into his mouth. Never had he experienced a woman before with such sensory depth, but he was bloody ravenous over her softness and the desire he swore he could taste on her skin.
He dusted open-mouthed kisses to the underside of her breasts, where her heavenly smell loomed strong. As it filled his head, he could hardly think of aught but getting deep inside her.
Yet he could not pry his lips from her long enough to mount her. Soon. But first he wanted her slick heat under his fingers. Touching her pouting flesh, caressing her swelling clit, bringing her to the brink…Aye.
Trailing his fingers down her stomach and into her wet curls, the taste of her sex exploded across his memory.
Bring her to peak now!
In the part of his brain still capable of rational thought, Marrok knew he must arouse her only. Allowing her release would expend too much of her energy while she sat at death’s door. The pleasure might cost her her life. But she must be well prepared, since Olivia had taken him deep but once. As hard as he felt now, he could inadvertently hurt her. He wanted to bask in her pleasure, but he must not wring it from her without sharing in the climax.
He slid his fingers through her hot, narrow channel. Already her flesh tried to suck him deeper. Zounds, how could he possibly outlast her lure?
“Marrok, please. Don’t…don’t stop. Oh my God!” she cried as he dragged his thumb across her nub of nerves. “I need you.”
Her body tensed, her legs splayed wide. Marrok dared not arouse her more. He yearned to. Desperately. Violently. They were mated, and he should have the privilege of watching her come repeatedly, to see her face flush with pleasure and hear her scream his name.
First, he must seal this bond by giving her all the vitality he could expend from his body into hers. Somehow.
Marrok was not a man given to prayer, but at this moment, he would have gladly gotten on his knees for some Hail Marys.
Please God, do not let her die.
Marrok shoved the thought out of his mind as he pushed another finger inside her, and she arched off the mattress, whimpering, wet, clutching his shoulders. She grabbed his head and held him still for a kiss that bewitched him—just as she did.
She loosed a tremulous gasp, then stiffened. Her sex rippled around his fingers. He pulled free of her scalding passage and rolled back on top of her. Instantly, she wrapped her legs around his hips and scattered wild kisses across his sensitive throat that made him shiver.
“I need you inside me.”
He shuddered as she wriggled beneath him, shoved a hand between them, aligned the sensitive head of his cock to her opening and…
“Please…”
How the bloody hell was a man to say no to that?
Impossible, Marrok thought as he slammed into her, down, down, the tight squeeze of her sex boggling his mind and adding a new layer of torment to the pleasure.
She cried out and dug her fingernails into his back. He was glad for the signs of her desire and possession. As she arched to him and bit at the sensitive skin between his neck and shoulder, he thrilled that she wanted to mark him as hers.
Under him, she writhed, impaling herself on his stiff length with every thrust. Deep. Deeper. So perfect. He savored the clasp of her body and the little moans he wrenched from her.
Marrok withdrew inch by torturous inch. Then he filled her again. As he glided over her sensitive spot, Olivia’s breath caught. When he pushed in once more and felt the mouth of her womb, she gasped and gripped him tighter.
He became lost in her, a prisoner to the rush of electric pleasure that arced up his shaft, straight into his gut. He hardened even more, though he had not thought such possible.
Gritting his teeth, he repeated the process, a slow thrill ride of mind-boggling pleasure that began to unravel him. Another thrust, and the sensations stacked on top of each other, staggering him. He began to sweat, tremble, letting the need build and build. But Olivia fluttered against his cock.
“Not yet, love,” he growled. “Hold on.”
“No,” she panted. “I need—”
“Together. We both need it.”
What he needed was more of her. Lacing his fingers through hers, he held her to the mattress for slow thrusts and drugging kisses. Under him, she stiffened, arched. The pulses of her channel pushed him to the brink. Desire loomed, coiling lower and tighter inside him. In centuries, he had not been this close to achieving climax! He must reach it.
Or…else.
Shoving aside the consequences of failure, Marrok slid inside Olivia again. Slowly. His breath came hard. So bloody close…but that meant nothing.
Damn it, this wasn’t simply his pleasure at stake; it was Olivia’s life. His forever.