The Knight (Endgame #2)(46)
With a sweep of his arm he moves the chess pieces.
He pulls me down on the rug, the pile like velvet against my palms. He presses a kiss to my forehead, almost innocent except for the hard length I feel against my thigh. One kiss on each of my eyelids. I suck in a breath at the tenderness in his lips. His mouth moves down my jaw, warm presses that leave a trail of fire. He reaches my neck, and I arch my body to give him access.
Between the valley of my breasts.
“Wait,” I gasp.
My legs press together, but his knee is already between them. He moves inexorably lower, pushing up my nightgown, pressing openmouthed kisses across my stomach, the flick of his tongue a promise of what’s to come.
His hands pull aside the placket of my panties.
A long lick through my center makes me cry out. “Wait, wait, wait.”
He lifts his head to send me a half smile, pure masculine revenge. “Wait for what?”
“It’s just so much, and I need to catch my breath.” I’m rambling, but I can’t seem to stop. “And I don’t know if this is the right place to do—”
His finger stroking down my cleft tightens my throat. Only a strangled sound emerges.
His lids lower. “Time’s up, beautiful.”
The rug that had felt soft a moment ago now feels like a bed of nails, my skin impossibly sensitive. And the touch of his tongue to my clit is pure torture, a sharp ache that runs the length of my body. I writhe on the floor, unsure if I want to get away or seek more.
Something brushes my fingers, and I clasp it. Small. Cool.
A pawn. The same one he once used on my body? Maybe. It’s anonymous now, as smooth and shiny as every other pawn. Indistinguishable.
He sees what I’m holding, his eyes flickering with brutal amusement.
A queen on the floor catches his eye. He picks it up, considering.
“No,” I say, not wanting the sharp curves of her crown anywhere near my sensitive places.
He laughs and sets it on my stomach instead, just above my belly button. I breathe nice and slow, moving the piece in a gentle wave. He adds a bishop. A rook.
“They’re going to fall,” I warn him, holding in a breathless laugh. My stomach is flat enough to hold the pieces, but not if I move around, not if I breathe too hard. Definitely not if I orgasm.
“Then you’d better be careful,” he warns, adding another pawn. “If they fall down, I’m going to stop.”
“I can’t,” I breathe, more panicked now than when I told him to wait.
His mouth descends on me, and any tenderness is gone. He’s relentless with lips and teeth and tongue, moving through my folds, licking at my clit, until my whole body feels taut as a wire. “Please, please, please.”
No answer. He doesn’t even pause, his mouth working at a merciless game.
The chess pieces tremble along with my body, wobbling from side to side on my stomach even as I struggle to control my breathing. I’m too close, and the panting knocks the queen to the ground.
He pulls away, his lips still damp with my arousal. “Too bad.”
“Don’t stop,” I say, and like dominoes the other pieces topple to the ground.
A low chuckle. “You should have stayed still, little virgin.”
He can’t leave me like this. “I need you,” I whimper.
“Fuck,” he breathes. “I can’t say no to you.”
I press my hips into the air, silently begging, beyond words now.
He answers by opening his pants. I don’t see him from here, only feel him in blind need, the blunt press of him, the hot stretch. And then his body covers mine, a full thrust that has me crying out into the tall library, the sound captured by the hundreds of books, thousands, their leather spines and old pages, holding my pleasure and pain for eternity.
The silk of my nightgown chafes, driving my arousal even higher.
His mouth touches mine, tongue nudging my lips apart. In his kiss I taste myself, salt and a feminine musk. I taste the need and pent-up fury that he’s been hiding. He can put the chess pieces up like a wall between us, but when it comes down, I see him clearly, feel every hungry thrust inside me, hear every rough grunt he makes on entry, live in every heartbeat that he looks into my eyes, walls torn down for a few priceless moments as the climax hits us both.
Chapter Thirty
Only after he pulls out, after we’ve had sex, does he undress me and himself completely. It’s a new kind of intimacy to be naked when we’re both sated, bare in every sense of the word.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, running his hand over my hip.
Our bodies are a study in contrasts, mine pale and smooth, his made of scars. I copy the motion over him, feeling something small and puckered at his back. I sit up, peeking over his body.
“What happened here?”
“Bullet,” he says casually.
“You were shot? With a gun?”
“That’s typically where bullets come from.”
“Don’t make jokes. That’s horrible. What happened?”
“A customer didn’t want to pay. Or didn’t I mention that? I worked as an enforcer for my father. When a bastard wanted to fuck a girl and then leave without paying.”
“The brothel.”