When Nelle Wychthorn was forced to sign herself away in marriage, she should have read the contract's fine print. Because she signs not with ink, but with blood. And that changes everything.
Season 1 'Of Crows and Thorns'
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Fiery Nelle, the isolat...
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I flung the adjoining door open.
I didn't know who I was expecting to find in there, but it wasn't this.
Graysen Crowther.
My fury sparked and I was opening up my mouth to roar at him to get the hells out, when I realized, just what he wasn't wearing.
My mouth fell open.
My anger sputtered out.
All that confusion and embarrassment and desire swept through me with the ferocity of wildfire, threatening to incinerate me from the inside out.
Graysen was standing in the middle of the bedroom, shirtless.
Every angry thought slowly eddied out of my head and I wasn't sure if I even remembered my own name as he paused in the middle of sliding a t-shirt on. One eyebrow quirked at me, and his nostrils flared, just before his mouth curved into a delicious smile. "Didn't take you long to change your mind."
I knew that he was speaking, but for some gods-forsaken reason, I couldn't quite grasp what he was saying.
Holy Skalki!
Graysen Crowther was shirtless!
I'd never seen Graysen shirtless before. Ever. I'd only partially seen the tattoos that webbed across his golden skin, down exposed arms, or winding up his throat. I knew of House Crowther's insignia that branded the flesh above his heart, and I'd felt it for the very first time when I teased him out on the patio and spread my hand over his heart, but I'd never actually seen it. I caught a glimpse of the brand, the writhing serpentine wyrm woven into the coils of ink scoring across his chest, just before he pulled on a tight t-shirt, the name of a band only he knew scrawled across the front.
I swallowed thickly. His entire chest was muscled steel, smooth but for the triangle of dark hair that dipped below his belt line.
My eyes startled wide as I saw the unmistakable ridgeline in his pants growing thicker—Gods, he had a hard-on!
"Get your fill, little bird," he smirked. He adjusted his crotch, gifting me a wink.
My cheeks flushed, and I made a pfffting noise, followed by a muttered, "As if."
I tore my gaze from the hard ridgeline pressing against his pants to dart about the room. Safer, much safer, to look at anything else but him. I wasn't really seeing anything, though. Not the leather and redwood armchair where his saddlebags sat unzipped—a glimpse of neatly folded clothes—and three garment bags hanging from where he'd hooked them over the edge of the bathroom door. I didn't see the large bed, adorned in soft greens, nor even the original Klimt painting I suddenly realized I'd been staring blankly at.
"Wychthorn?"
I slowly blinked, trying to mentally shake the image of that honed chiseled body away. Gods, what would it be like to touch that bare chest, the ripple of abs—
