Tempted by a Rogue Prince (35 page)

Rosalind slowed her kiss, gradually convincing him to do the same, until his lips danced over hers and their tongues occasionally brushed. He softened it further, teasing her lips with his, a bare caress that drove her wild and brought her close to begging him to unleash his passion again. She ran her tongue across the seam of his lips and it brushed the tips of his fangs.

He growled into her mouth and shifted forwards, forcing her to lie back on the grass. He hovered over her as he kissed her, his hands braced on either side of her arms, caging her beneath him but holding him off her at the same time. He deepened the kiss, tangling tongues with her, flooding her with the taste of him and a need for more. Her body ached and hummed, hungry for more. Her breasts throbbed and it was hard to resist rubbing her thighs together to make the most of the pressure building between them.

He seemed content with only kissing, mastering her mouth and her heart, ruining her to all other men, but she ached for more even when she knew she shouldn’t.

Vail didn’t let up or give her a chance to draw breath as he kissed her, a constant low growl rumbling through his chest, a possessive sound that thrilled her and only made it harder to resist taking this to the next level.

It seemed Vail was on the same wavelength as her and wasn’t as content with just kissing her as she had thought.

She gasped as he brought his body down into contact with hers, wedging himself between her thighs, and rolled his hips. The hard bulge in his armour rubbed her and she cried into his mouth as a thousand tiny sparks swept over her thighs and collided in her belly.

He growled into her mouth, the sexiest noise she had ever heard to accompany words that set her on fire.

“My female hungers… I will satisfy her.”

V
ail’s markings flared across his chest and arms, and over his hips, the sharp fiery feeling growing in intensity as it reached his groin beneath his armour. He grunted, balls drawing up as they tingled and his cock throbbed in response. Gods, he needed to be inside her again. He needed to spend himself in her hot body.

She lay beneath him, her golden hair cascading around her like a halo, her beauty arresting his breath and seizing it in his chest. Her rosy lips were darkened and swollen from his kiss. Kiss. His length jerked again, the sweet taste of her on his tongue and the thought of kissing her combining to send his arousal soaring.

He knew she had expected him to lash out at her, because he had expected that reaction in him too, but he had been transfixed by her lips and their invitation. He had been bewitched by the idea that he could kiss her, and she would let him, even after everything he had done.

The scent of her blood permeated the air, a potent reminder that he had hurt her, that he didn’t deserve her, and he couldn’t stop his eyes from darting to the sleeves of her black dress and the small holes where his claws had punctured the material and her flesh.

She was wrong. He didn’t deserve her.

“Vail,” she murmured softly, recapturing his attention and driving the darkness from his heart, filling it with light again.

She gently touched his cheek, bringing his gaze back to her, and he closed his eyes, shutting her out in the only way he could, unable to bear looking at her after what he had done and what he had revealed.

She sighed and stroked his cheek.

“I’m not mad at you,” she whispered, her fingertips dancing along the line of his jaw, sending a tingling bolt of electricity down his spine. “I can feel you… remember? I know you regret what you did when the memories had you in their grip. You came back to me though. You didn’t hurt me.”

“This time.” He turned his face away from her and she drew it back again.

“Open your eyes and look at me, Vail, please?” Those softly spoken words were a command he found impossible to resist.

He frowned and did as she asked, opening his eyes and looking down into hers. They were as soft as her tone had been, filled with the warmth and understanding that flowed into him through their bond, soothing his fears.

“I know a little more about you now and next time I’ll know what to do. I won’t let the darkness take you again like that. I promise.”

Gods, he wished she had that power.

His eyebrows dipped lower. She had freed him from the grip of his memories several times now, driving back the darkness and bringing him back into the light. She had given him the strength to fight the beast within him too, and it had seized control of him less often since he had met her. The gaps between his episodes were growing longer. This forest wasn’t the only thing healing him.

Little Wild Rose was too.

Perhaps she did have the power to help him through his madness and stop him from hurting her. It was all he wanted now. He wanted to be free of the darkness so he would never hurt her.

She brushed her fingers across his lower lip, making it tingle. “Kiss me again?”

He couldn’t deny that request, felt humbled that she had asked it of him, and dropped his head to recapture her lips. The moment they came into contact, she moaned low in her throat and his markings flashed across his body in response. He grunted and nipped at her lower lip, catching it with his fang. She gasped and he swooped on the drop of blood that beaded on her lip, devouring it in another kiss. Gods, he needed more of her.

All of her.

He drew in a deep breath and settled his weight on his right elbow, and placed his left hand on her breast, a base need telling him to surrender to his desire and let his primal instincts take control. She groaned, the breathy sound encouraging him. His female liked this. She desired his touch. He squeezed her breast, feeling the soft flesh give beneath the pressure of his fingers, and she moaned again, tipping her head back and exposing her throat.

Vail snarled and devoured it with his lips as he touched her. Her pulse hammered against his lips and tongue, a tribal beat that called to him, and his fangs lengthened, the hunger of desire merging with a hunger for her blood.

She didn’t resist him as he nicked her throat with one fang and wrapped his lips around the wound. She remained calm beneath him, giving her blood and her body to him, because he was in control. He was master now.

Her blood blossomed on his tongue, the sweet intoxicating taste tearing a moan from him, and he rocked his hips in response to the pleasure that trickled through him, heating every inch of his bones. She moaned and ghosted her hands over his shoulders, as if she wanted to touch him, but then raised them above her head, tangling her fingers in the grass instead.

The momentary ripple of fear that had swept through him faded and he lapped at the tiny cut, every drop of her blood exploding on his senses and making him bolder as it took him higher, sending his desire soaring. His female had said that she could make him see that pleasure could be a good thing.

He would show her that she was right, and she had never known pleasure like what he could give to her.

His hand shook as he lowered it to the hem of her black dress. It had fallen back to reveal her thighs and he looked down at them and his hips nestled between them. The sight of her pale thighs against his black armour was so erotic that he growled without thinking.

“Vail,” she murmured, a desperate edge to his name, and he clutched her knee and slid his hand down her creamy thigh to the hem of her dress.

He shoved it up as he kissed the cut on her throat again, stealing another drop of her precious blood, and eased his hips back. He slipped his hand across the flat plane of her stomach, turned it, and placed it over her mound. Her black shorts were damp and warm with her need.

He unleashed a feral possessive growl. “My female needs.”

She moaned in response, rocking her hips into his touch.

He growled for a different reason, grasped her hip and shoved it down. She strained against him but he held her firm, pushing his weight onto her hip as he rose off her, coming to kneel between her thighs. He hooked his fingers into both sides of her underwear and pulled them roughly down to her ankles. Her boots stopped his progress and he yanked them off, tossing them aside, and then pulled her black shorts off and cast them away too.

He paused, captivated by the sight of Rosalind laying before him, her knees bent and pressed together, her long legs completely on show, and her hands grasping the grass above her head, the position forcing her concealed breasts high into the air.

He growled again, the hunger and need he felt for her spiralling beyond his control. The scent of her arousal filled the air, a sweet heady aroma that called to him, urged him to take her and satisfy her, and spend himself within her.

His length jerked at the idea and he rose to his knees and hesitated only briefly before issuing the mental command to send his armour away. His heart pounded faster and he told himself this was necessary, fighting to control his fear and the seed of vulnerability that threatened to throw tendrils around his heart and squeeze it in his chest. Little Wild Rose would only look upon him with desire, not scorn or disgust. She wanted this and he wanted it too, needed it with a ferocity that drove back his fear, holding it in check.

The black scales of his armour peeled away from his body, racing up his legs, over his torso and down his arms to the twin bands around his wrists.

Rosalind’s eyes tracked them and then roamed back to his chest, her pupils dilating as her gaze devoured him, the intensity of it scalding his flesh.

Her eyes slowly lowered, drifting over his chest at first and causing his markings to flare and a shiver to go through him, and then heading lower still. His heart raced and he fought the urge to call his armour back to him.

That urge died the moment her eyes fixed on his length, darkened to near black, and the scent of her desire grew heavier, the need he could feel in her more intense. It beckoned him, stoking his own hunger for her. The heat of her gaze on his cock, the way she looked at it as if she needed it more than anything in the world, stirred only fire and need within him when he had expected it to bring darker memories to the surface of his mind.

His own need for her, together with his instinct to please his mate and a new desire born of his growing feelings for her, kept them at bay. He wanted his female, his Little Wild Rose, to know pleasure from his touch and his body being within hers. He wanted her to feel every inch of him and know he desired her and no one else.

Needed her and no one else.

He placed his hands on her knees and eased them apart, his breath catching in his throat again as he revealed her plush glistening petals. His cock jerked, throbbed so hard it ached, and he couldn’t hold back the feral growl that curled through him.

She wriggled, her desperation coming through their link, telling him of her need.

He lowered his left hand to her core and groaned as he dipped his fingers into her soft folds, and her hot moisture coated them. So hungry for him. Gods, he was as hungry for her.

He dropped himself over her again, grasped his cock and trailed the head down her. Her heat scalded him, tearing another groan from his throat that she echoed. One he drew out as he pushed inside her, inch by inch, forcing her to take as much of him as her body would allow. Her grip on the grass tightened, her body arching in response to the invasion, and her lips parted as she moaned until the head of him touched her deepest part.

Vail stilled, feeling her wet heat encasing him, her body gloving his, clenching him sweetly and tightly. Made for him. His mate. She would desire him and no other.

He leaned over her, settling his weight on his elbows and thrust forwards, pushing deeper, tearing a moan from her before he withdrew almost all of the way and plunged back in, ripping another from her lips. He lowered his head to her throat, nicked it again with his fangs, and drank as he pumped into her with long deep thrusts. He grunted and instinct seized control, hunger demanded he sate it.

He lowered his left hand to her thigh and grasped it, holding it against his hip as he thrust into her and stole drops of blood from the mark on her throat. She moaned and writhed, her breasts pressing against his chest, and he let her, loving the way she responded so beautifully to him.

When she placed one hand on his shoulders, he allowed it, welcomed the feel of her caressing his back as he made love with her, joining their bodies in a slow union that threatened to send him out of his mind with pleasure. Did she feel the same?

She moaned, as if she knew his thoughts and wanted him to know she felt the same, that bliss flowed through her with each thrust of his length into her, each meeting of their bodies.

“Vail,” she breathed and he moaned against her throat, uttering her name in his mind as his balls drew up.

He grasped her harder and thrust deeper, shorter and quicker strokes that had his pelvis meeting hers. Each meeting tore another moan from her, a little noise of bliss that he used as a guide. His female was close.

She tensed and pressed her fingers into his shoulder. “More.”

Vail could only comply with that command, felt driven to give his female what she desired, because he wanted to feel her climax on him, needed to hear her moan his name as she came with him in a blissful union, one that felt as if it was healing him.

He lost himself in her, in the feel of her clutching him and the sound of her moans, and the taste of her skin and her blood. She whimpered, the sound born of ultimate pleasure, and murmured his name, held him tighter as if she feared he would pull away at this critical moment.

He would never deny her anything.

Not anymore.

His Little Wild Rose had tamed him with her tenderness, had shown him that this act could be beautiful and everything opposite of what he had experienced before, and he was eternally grateful to her for it.

He withdrew and plunged deep into her again, and she cried out, the sound echoing around the forest. Her body exploded into a symphony of quivering and trembling, and her pleasure flooded the link between them, blasting through him as she climaxed.