“Please, princess . . .”
Big, bad, not-quite-sane Isdernus begging her? She smiled and granted his wish.
When her hand closed around him, they both gasped. His shoulders came off the bed, and his eyes flared like an inferno—hot and unstoppable. Incredible. Tingles skipped down her arm. Gripping him was like holding power in her hand. Her hand didn’t quite wrap around all his girth, so she wrapped her other around him as well.
An earthy curse slipped from his lips. “I dreamed of this. God, so often. The minute I met you, I could only think of having you with me, naked, touching me, letting me touch you . . .”
She rubbed her thumb over the damp head of his cock. He sucked in a breath. Reducing Ice to nothing but gasps and moans filled her with both power and peace. She was where she belonged. No other wizard had ever felt so right. But still, she wanted more.
Throwing her hair over one shoulder, she bent to him. Ice tensed, and when her tongue laved his erection then took him deeper in her mouth, he dissolved into sheet-fisting groans. He tasted harsh and hot and so exquisitely salty and male.
She savored him, the slow learning of his body and pleasures. In the past, sex had been anything from a mere energy exchange to a fun, flirty way to pass time. But being with Ice … a treasure, a moment of worship, a quickly burgeoning addiction.
“Yes,” he murmured, then raised a hand to her hair. Fingers filtering through the strands, anchoring against her scalp, he arched his hips, sinking his stiff flesh deeper into her mouth.
Amazingly, he grew harder, longer, his motions more insistent and urgent. Sabelle reveled in the fact that she could bring such a fierce warrior and wizard so much bliss.
Moments passed that lapsed into long minutes. His fever rose, and he grasped her hair in both hands, guiding her to deeper, faster strokes. Then suddenly he stilled and gritted his teeth.
“No more.” Gently, he lifted her head away from him, then raised her face to his. “Thank you for the incredible pleasure, princess, but I want to share the sensations with you, feel you all around me. I need that now.”
Before she could reply, he rolled her beneath him, lodged himself in the cradle of her thighs, and plunged deep. She was wet, of course. Simply being in the same room with Ice excited her, and her body was all too eager to receive every hard inch. But he surged into her fast and deep, and she gasped as his cock scraped every one of her nerve endings as he buried himself to the hilt.
“You drive me to madness.” He gripped her hips, then gasped when he sank in deeper. “Give me your pleasure.”
It was impossible to merge his body with hers and not feel as if she was drowning in ecstasy. He unleashed a firestorm of furious need, thrusting in slow, deep strokes that quickly had her gasping and tightening around him. Ice’s lips brushed across hers, then he melded their mouths together.
The double assault on her defenses overwhelmed her in moments. Ice surrounded her, and she didn’t just feel his kiss or his passion, but his very soul as he poured it into her with measured, relentless strokes that quickly pushed her over the edge, into a realm where sensation ruled and he was king. With a cry, her heart followed.
Still, Ice wasn’t satisfied. The release of her power into him invigorated and energized him. He picked up the pace, shuttling into her with increasing demand. By rights, after a release as powerful as the one she’d just experienced, she should be somewhere between sated and numb, but Ice would not be denied.
He palmed her breast, his thumb brushing the sensitive peak as he continued to delve her mouth and body with a determination that stunned her. Shockingly, the heat and pressure between her legs built again, this time darker and more demanding than before. Up, up, up her need clawed. Sabelle feared Ice must still carry the wounds of his mistreatment at Mathias’s hands, but she couldn’t stop herself from digging her fingers into his shoulders, wrapping her legs around his waist and meeting him stroke for stroke until she dissolved into a million pieces.
Moments later, Ice remade her as he ground out a harsh male cry and emptied every bit of himself—breath, heart, seed—deep into her.
In the moment, she wondered if life as his mate would be like this. If so, she wanted it badly.
The Binding words hovered on the tip of her tongue as they each recovered their breathing. She wanted to speak them—so much. But Bram . . .
Ice raised up on his elbows and peered down into her face with eyes so green and tender, her heart melted all over again. “Princess, something ails your mind already?”
She forced a smile. How simple it would be to tell him that she intended to become his mate. But Sabelle didn’t deceive herself. Getting her brother’s blessing would take more than a few moments and require her best logic. And she wanted Bram’s approval. Giving up her family and all she’d known for a wizard she’d never spoken to until a few days past, a man clearly haunted by secrets … it hardly made sense. She wished she had a wizard’s mating instinct. They had the luxury of taking a single taste and knowing the right female for them. Witches had nothing but their hearts. Still, something tugged at her, telling her that, without Ice, she’d live a half-life.
“I don’t know what to do,” she confessed. “About this. About us.”
Ice sucked in a deep breath. “Sabelle, you know what I want. My wishes have not changed. But if you will not Bind to me, please say so.”
“I can’t make myself Renounce you. I’ve tried, for my brother’s sake.” Tears broke her voice and regret welled deep inside her, a burn in her chest she wished she could ignore. “But my heart . . .”
“Wants more than a loveless political marriage.” He cupped her face. “You deserve more, princess. Become my mate. Everything else, we will work out together.”
Sabelle hesitated. Ice made the matter sound so simple when she knew it was anything but. “I cannot do that to my brother. I owe him my well-being and happiness, my respect and allegiance. He removed me from the clutches of a selfish mother. When I was but six, she was already seeking to sell my future to the highest bidder, promising the most powerful wizard that I would mate with them or their sons upon my transition.”
He blanched, turned white. His face closed up. “You were a child! Bram rescued you?”
“Yes. Before he came for me, I had never met or heard of him. I knew what my mother plotted, and it terrified me. Wizards who were five hundred or more, many of whom had acquired their power by nefarious means, all openly vying for the chance to mate with Merlin’s granddaughter. They knew nothing of me, the real me inside. Just my bloodline.”
Ice swallowed, looked away. “You owe him a great debt, yes, but the rest of your life?”
“Today, my brother may be well.” Sabelle glanced out the window to see pale edges of gray creeping into the lace-draped window. A fist-tight tension gripped her stomach. Soon, she’d know if the dark healer had healed Bram. “Then I’m hoping to speak to him.”
With a sigh, Ice rolled away. “It will do no good.”
Sabelle frowned, reminded again that she knew nothing about the enmity between her brother and Ice. “Why? Why do you hate each other so much?”