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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A touch—a large hand spread across my back that pushed me forward. The rotten tree trunk pressed into my stomach as I bent over. Beneath my curled fingers were patches of broken bark and smooth, slippery wood while mildew and a damp earthy smell tickled my nostrils.
Graysen gently urged me to bend further until I was balanced on my tippy toes.
My skirt was flipped up and the cool air of the night kissed my bare skin. I was exposed like this and made vulnerable to him.
"Beautiful," he murmured. His body heat warmed mine as that awareness bounced between us. One of his hands gripped the tree trunk next to mine and his thumb grazed my pinky. He leaned over me...and then...then...I felt a light feathering stroke against my spine—not fingertips or his palm, it was the back of clenched fingers. Up and down and back up again and it burst into my mind what he was doing, pleasuring himself in long languid strokes.
Sudden panic flared. He was going to take me, my first time, here, pressed around this tree from behind. I would be facing away, unable to touch him, made powerless by the position he had put me in. My voice was shrill, my body pushing back, trying to shove my way free. "Not here, not like this."
Snatching a handful of my hair, he fisted and arched my neck. I gasped as a small shock of pain flashed across my scalp before my gaze slid sideways to where he loomed over me, his eyes narrowed but burning bright with desire.
A low growl clawed from his throat, and all the fine hair on the back of my hair prickled. "You want rose petals scattered across a bed, candles, and champagne? An inexperienced boy from the Upper Ranks crawling on top of you?" He bent and scraped his teeth down my neck—a lick of his hot, wet tongue along my collarbone. "You'll take me, however, I want you."
And just like those other moments, where his touch soothed me, my panic eased as the crisp smell of cedar whispered over me. It wasn't the woods, it was Graysen, the scent of him strangely calming. My breathing slowed, acquiescence flowing through me. "That's it..." he murmured, trailing the tips of his fingers between my shoulder blades, following the rippled path of my spine to the middle of my back. His hand spread and he gently pushed me back down, my stomach conforming to the tree trunk, my hair falling in tangled locks.
His fingers clenched the fabric of my panties. They were torn from me, a scrap of white floating in the air and the dress was next.
The slap of chilly air on my bare flesh made me suck in a sharp breath.
A hard length pressed against my ass, hot silk and steel, just before his chest enveloped my back, his hands brushing down my arms to lace his fingers through my own. I was swallowed up by him. Drowning in him. Skin to skin, that dusting of magic, whatever it was that bound us to one another, strummed and sparked against our bare flesh. Zephyrs, streams of warm air, spun and caressed our bodies, lifting leaves from the woodland floor. His groan was desperate, helpless even, as his fingers clenched around mine tighter. The silk of his hair, the nudge of his nose, hot open-mouthed kisses along my neck. I moaned, throbbing and aching everywhere, arching back into the touch of his lips, not realizing until too late that he'd unlaced his fingers from my own, only to slide them over the back of my hands to silently encourage me to hold on. "I've had a long time to think about all the ways I want to play your sweet body with my hands and my mouth and my tongue."
