I hear his sharp intake of air, and his eyes are transfixed on my core, even as he pulls my clothes down my calves then off my feet. He looks mesmerized by the sight of me laid bare on his bed.

After a moment, War straightens, his own hands going to the black boots he wears, his muscles rippling with the movement.

He begins stripping for me, and it’s so damn sexy. The horseman is shirtless, so there’s not much to remove once his shoes are off. His hands move to his own black trousers. He doesn’t look away from me as he draws them—and whatever he wears beneath them—down, down, down.

My gaze dips, and—oh. A little tendril of nerves come back.

His cock is enormous. Big enough to intimidate me, and big enough to hurt, if we’re not careful.

I suddenly feel my inexperience. I’m in over my head, and War has probably been with enough women to see just how unpracticed I am.

Before my insecurities can rush in, the horseman kneels on the pallet, and then his body settles heavily over me. His hips fit themselves between mine, just like I once imagined they would, and his chest presses against every bit of my exposed skin. The sensation is better than what my sick fantasies could dream up.

Around us, the lamps flicker, their glittering light dancing along War’s body.

The horseman gazes down at me for several seconds. “Now, wife, I can breathe easy. All is as it should be.”

His mouth meets mine, and it feels like I’m being brought to life.

War doesn’t ask me again to touch him. He doesn’t need to. His mouth lights a fire within me, and I’m filled with wild, reckless need.

I slip my hands around his torso, my palms skimming up his back. I don’t need to hear him speak to feel how pleased he is. Maybe it’s having my hands on his skin, maybe it’s the proprietary nature of the touch. All I know is that he deepens the kiss, his tongue lashing against mine.

His cock is trapped between us, and having him inside me is a physical need.

Burning up. I’m burning up from the inside out, my breath coming quicker and quicker.

My hands slide back down the slope of his spine and over the sculpted roll of his ass.

Need him in me.

He smiles against my lips as he kisses me, like he heard my thoughts.

“For millennia I’ve craved this.” His low voice seems to vibrate against my skin. “For millennia I’ve been denied.”

I release a breath, caught between how frightening his words are and how sexy the sentiment is.

I reach between us, wrapping a hand around his cock.

War hisses through his teeth. “God’s will, Miriam, your touch …”

He descends on my lips, thrusting forward into my hand.

I lift my hips, positioning him at my entrance. I’m panting, ready to feel—

“No.” War says, his body tensing against mine.

No?

He moves a little off me then, and my hand slips from him. I want to weep that the ache inside me hasn’t been abated. I’m three deft thrusts away from completion, and he’s denying me?

“Not until you surrender,” War says.

“What?” I can barely focus on his words. I have no idea what he’s talking about, only that he’s mentioned me surrendering to him once before.

“I want more than your body, wife, and I won’t fully have you until you surrender yourself to me.”

What? I put a hand to my head. What does that even mean?

For several seconds, the only sound in the room is my shallow breath. “So we’re not having sex?”

Please. Take my vagina. She wants you.

War’s eyes gleam. He grabs my knees and spreads my thighs, exposing my most intimate parts.

“Well now, that depends on your definition of sex.”

And then he descends on me.

Chapter 27

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

“What are you doing?” My voice sounds breathless, but those damn nerves have come back.

War’s only response is a slow kiss on my inner thigh.

My mouth goes dry. I’ve never done this, I’ve never ever done this and I think I might be panicking. War has me wholly and completely at his mercy.

And he doesn’t have all that much fucking mercy to begin with.

I try to move my legs, but War has them pinned in their current, uncompromising position. He glances up at me, steadily trailing those kisses inward, towards my core.

“Relax, wife, you’re going to enjoy this.”

Why is he doing this? The sexual favors were supposed to be to his benefit, not mine.

War is a good kisser, but I don’t find out just how good until his mouth makes its way to the end of my thighs.

He pauses, and I can’t stand this long, drawn out moment.

Then his mouth meets my pussy, and it is like nothing I have ever felt before. Reflexively, I buck against his kiss, and I don’t think I like this. I’m too exposed, and it feels overwhelming. His lips and tongue move over every section of my core, and nerve endings I didn’t even know I had are now going off.

I try to shrug him off, but it’s like trying to knock over a building. “It’s too much, War. Please.”

I feel him smile against me. “Steady, wife, I haven’t even gotten to the best part.”

The best part?

I’m breathless with sensation, and he’s unrelenting. The horseman licks and nips and sucks and torments me until I’m gasping and moaning and helplessly shifting my hips up to meet his mouth.

And then he finds my clit.

“Oh my God.” It’s like a bomb goes off. I almost come right there and then.

My hands find their way into his hair, and he makes a deep, approving noise low in his throat.

“Please, War, please.” I don’t even know what I’m begging for, only that the horseman can fix it.

He inserts a finger into me, and that’s all it takes.

I cry out as an almost violent orgasm rips through me.

“War.” My fingers tighten into his hair as wave after wave of it radiates through me. I’m making embarrassing, desperate noises, and I am not okay. I move against him over and over, his mouth dragging the sensation out for as long as he can.

It’s only after I come down that War moves away from my pussy. I stare at him like I’ve never seen him before.

The horseman moves up my body and gives me a carnal kiss. I can taste myself in the kiss, and I’m embarrassed and aroused and I don’t know what to do about the fact that that was so much more than I intended it to be.

He lays down next to me, gathering me into his arms.

And he cuddles.

Shit. A lonely girl like me has no defense against this, especially right now, when I feel particularly vulnerable.

I’ve only just caught my breath when I realize that now it’s my turn.

I don’t think War is going to ask, but I also really want those aviaries intact. That’s why I made this trade in the first place.

The horseman is drawing circles on my back when I reach down between us and wrap my hand around him.

He’s still painfully hard. His cock jerks, and his body tenses.

I start to move down his body, past his glowing tattoos, past his abs, past the tantalizing triangle of muscle that makes up his pelvis, until I’m kneeling between his thighs, my hand still fisted around him.