House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(113)

I’m glad for the darkness, for the light reveals all, and there’s much I’d prefer Lore not to see yet—the first, being the slenderness I’ve acquired; the second, being the blush smothering my face.

“I love when your cheeks pinken. Especially when I’m the one to paint them that color. As for your body, Fallon”—he tugs on my hand, twirling me into him, then settles both hands on my hips—“I’ve been painfully attracted to you since before Mórrígan decided that I, a man with a heart of steel and talons tipped in blood, could be worthy of such a sweet mate.”

My chest tightens at his declaration, yet I roll my eyes. “Please. I’m many things, but sweet isn’t one of them.”

He slides one of his hands to the small of my back while the other travels toward my front, circling my thigh, leaving behind a ring of frost that grows hot in his wake. His palm lifts until only two fingers remain in contact with my skin. He walks them toward the slit in my skirt and kicks it open.

I drop my gaze just as his hand penetrates beneath the black chiffon. A heartbeat later, the same two fingers that parted my skirt settle over the taut opacity shielding my most intimate region.

I hold my breath, waiting to see and feel what he does next. In some recess of my brain, I think I should touch him as well, but I’m loathe to lose what little pressure he exerts on my center.

His fingertips curve around me, stilling on where the fabric is embarrassingly wet.

He leans over until his mouth is flush with my ear. “There is no greater turn-on than to feel your body priming itself for mine.” As he hooks the damp fabric, he licks up the shell of my ear toward the naked gold hoop.

My lungs are so cramped and my heart so wild that when his cold knuckle connects with my heated flesh, a tremulous moan escapes my mouth. One that turns into a choked mewl when he closes his fingers around the crotch of my bodysuit, driving his knuckles into me.

“I cannot decide whether to snap the fabric or use it.”

I imagine he means to sop up the additional wet coursing from me.

“And deprive my mouth of drinking from you?”

Oh.

My.

Gods.

Between his dirty confession and the slide of his knuckles, the whole of me burns as though lit from within. How can he keep alluding to wanting to put his mouth there? He surely cannot desire such a thing.

“I desire nothing more.”

“Why?” I choke as his knuckles crest higher, hitting a particularly tender part of me. “Why would you want to do that?”

He stops teasing me and straightens to peer down at me. “Mo khrà, why wouldn’t I want to do that?”

“Because . . . Isn’t it”—I wrinkle my nose—“foul?”

“Foul?” He pivots his hand, extends one finger, and dips it into me.

The shock of the intrusion is quickly replaced by a delicious fullness. My lungs seize, and his name leaves my mouth on a gasp. He tows his finger out and, at the very same time as he noses the column of my throat, he sinks his finger back inside my heat. A full body shudder takes ahold of me and doesn’t let go.

“You’ve already ensnared me, Behach ?an. But rattle away.”

“Is that—is that why—I’m shaking?”

“It is, mo bahdéach moannan.”

Mo badock meanan. “What does—that mean?”

“My beautiful mate.”

When he removes his finger, it feels as though I’ve lost an essential part of myself. The sensation of emptiness only worsens when he releases the fabric he pulled away from my flesh and it settles against me with a snap.

My frustration must score itself across my face because he murmurs, a lilt to his tone, “What an impatient little bird you are.” He raises the fingers that were on me—in me—to his mouth, extending his middle finger, the tip of which glistens as though he’s dipped it in honey. When he laves it clean with the flat of his tongue, I can hardly draw breath.

“Honey. That is exactly how you taste, Fallon.”

The air grows as stiflingly hot as the pulse of blood beneath my skin.

Lore moves the finger he’s licked clean back beneath my skirt, shifts the black fabric aside, then sinks not just one finger but two inside of me. After pumping them twice—fucking only twice—he deserts me again.

I narrow my eyes.

“Now, now.” He chuckles softly because he knows his teasing is driving me close to tears. “Stop pouting, Behach ?an, and open that pretty mouth of yours. I want you to understand why I plan to spend a great portion of my life between your legs.” He holds his fingers in front of my mouth and waits.

And waits.

Is he really expecting me to . . . to . . . to—

“I will not touch you again until you taste yourself.”

“Here I thought a man like you would be above blackmail.”

“My love, a man like me lives to coerce and confound. Now open wide.”

So I do, and he presses his fingers into my mouth with a languor that slicks my juices over every millimeter of my tongue. And, nope, I don’t understand the appeal. I mean, the musky sweetness is not the absolute worst thing in the world, but I’ve tasted far better things, like beinnfrhal and the liquor they squeeze from the fruit’s thin skin; Lore’s mouth—I adore the taste of his kisses; and Montelucin cheese—Gods, the addition of salt to curd is otherworldly.