Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
My pulse thrummed as I slid my hand down as I had when I answered his demand. I hesitated, not from shame or inexperience—I’d pleasured myself before, obviously. But I didn’t let my mind wander to how I’d learned to do so—those memories were not welcome here—I hesitated because there would be no faceless, nameless visage in my mind like the times before. The lines and planes would be clear, as would the name. If I touched myself, it would be Nyktos’s fingers I imagined inside me. There would be no denying that.
Show me…
I let my thighs fall open to the cool air and the darkness of the room. I slid my hand farther down as I went back to the memory of us. I was in his bed, and Nyktos’s mouth was on my breast. But it wasn’t my fingers that I rode as I eased one through the slippery wetness. It was his cock. I moaned, kicking my head back against the pillow as I began working my finger in and out, pressing the heel of my palm against the ultra-sensitive piece of flesh. The feel of him, stretching and filling me, was branded on my skin, too easy to recall. I eased another finger inside—
My eyes flew open as my heart pounded. There was no sound. Nothing I could hear over my panting, but there was that…shift in the chamber again. An awareness.
A knowledge that I wasn’t alone.
My heart lurched as I looked down, past the fingers on my breast and between my legs, past my bent knees. I scanned the space at the foot of the bed, the unlit fireplace by the balcony doors, the shadowy chaise before it—
The unlit fire?
Air stalling in my lungs, my gaze swung back to the chaise and the thick mass of shadows there. My heart continued to skip. That cluster of shadows didn’t seem normal. They weren’t as opaque as what the Cimmerian had conjured, and I could see the muted glow of flames behind them now, but the shadows seemed to churn. I dragged in a breath. The scent of citrus and fresh air surrounded me.
The scent of Nyktos.
My body flashed cold and then hot as my lips parted. It had to be my imagination or the wine. He couldn’t be in here, but as I stared at the shadows, I was reminded of when I’d first seen him in the Shadow Temple and he’d been cloaked in endless night. The shadows seemed to have stilled.
Could he…could he be in here? Watching me?
The sharp twist of pleasure curling deep inside me was downright sinful. As was the flush of heat and wetness. My desire-laden thoughts raced. Nyktos…he could sense extreme emotion, and what I was feeling was pretty extreme. Could he even sense my need if he were in another chamber?
And had he come to me?
That wanton curl of pleasure coiled even deeper, tighter. If he was here, watching…
My breath caught. Eyes drifting halfway closed, I dragged my teeth over my lower lip as I moved my fingers at my breast and inside me. The answering swirl of pleasure was echoed in those shadows at the foot of the bed. My hips lifted, following the slow rhythm. Those shadows seemed to solidify. Thicken. Pulse. My blood did the same. The feeling of awareness increased. Tiny bumps spread across my exposed flesh.
I could feel his stare.
Like all the times before, when I knew he was looking at me. His stare was always a caress, and it was then, too, heavy against my breasts, my belly, and the fingers between my legs. And I knew…I knew he was there. Either that or I’d really drunk far too much wine. Both were equally possible, but I chose to believe the former.
That Nyktos had snuck into my chamber, cloaked in the shadows, and was even now watching me.
The shadows throbbed, appearing to expand and darken at the foot of the bed. My back arched as tension spun.
Air grazed the bottom of my foot, icy and yet burning, and it was real.
It…it wasn’t my imagination.
Oh, gods, I jerked my hand away, my fingers glossy and damp against my belly. I went completely still as I watched a misty tendril of night slip over the bed. I didn’t close my legs. I did nothing but wait…and want. And I knew I shouldn’t want such a thing, but oh, gods, I did.
I gasped as that wisp of dark air kissed my calf, and another licked my inner thigh. I held my breath, my pulse pounding as my hands fell to the bed. I grasped the sheet beneath me, my chest rising and falling sharply. Seconds stretched out for an eternity, then I dragged my feet over the bed, responding to some unknown instinct and opening myself farther for him. The icy yet hot shadow brushed against my core.