rose-colored nipples that wouldn’t even fill his large hands. My hips were narrow, and I was slender in build with a round ass that was bubble-shaped. My skin was lighter than most moon-touched, which caused me to glow brighter. My eyes were slanted and a deep azure color, but the moon’s power added rainbow-colors to their depths, which was like my hair. I had a delicate nose that looked more like a button shape than anything else. My lips were full, lush, and one thing that added sensuality to me since everything else lacked enticement.
I lifted my body, settling onto Torrin’s lap, and he tensed beneath me. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I somehow managed to keep my face impersonal. I felt him growing hard against my junction and frowned. Leaning over, I placed the tonic cap on the small table, bringing my breasts against his chest, and my nipples hardened at the touch.
His eyes watched me closely, noting every single move I made as I set the bottle down beside the cap and began working the mixture of sage and oils into his chest muscles. I felt a jolt of lightning when they connected with his chest. His body heated beneath my touch, slowly tensing and becoming firmer as I worked the tonic into the wounds as his muscles flinched beneath my fingers’ slow perusal of his physique.
My eyes lifted to hold his as I gradually worked my fingertips against the sinewy, hard muscles of his marred abdomen. His tattoos were a work of art, of birds flying toward dark clouds that stretched over bronzed flesh. I chewed my lip, working the oil in deeper, forcing myself to slow my movements. I knew from experience that reaper burns felt like fire kissing flesh. I rubbed my hands over his chest, slowly running them over the ripped coils of his abdomen.
Our breathing was ragged and heavy, and no matter how much I denied it, I felt an attraction to Torrin. I had no intention of acting on it, but there was something undeniably appealing about him that both pissed me off and confused me.
I started to back away, but his hands snaked out, gripping my hips to hold me in place. I tensed from the strength of his hold, and our eyes met and locked in silence, speaking.
His eyes promised me pleasure—and pain.
Mine begged for him to give it to me, knowing that in pain, there would be pleasure.
It was as if we were two storms preparing to let loose against one another, to leave havoc in our wake.
I wanted Torrin, and he wasn’t opposed to giving me everything I needed. Strange bedfellows, considering we were enemies. But I wasn’t looking for something soft and sweet, and neither was this man.
Dark lust tended to collide. It searched likeness out and matched it at the strangest times. Monsters connected with other monsters, their ability to see beneath the surface a skill learned and honed in the shadows.
I slid my hands down my sides, rising in the silence that had wrapped around us. I leaned over, hovering my lips a hairsbreadth away from his, my entire body shuddering with need, violently wanting what he could offer me. His thumbs ran over my nipples, and I swallowed hard, brushing my mouth against his, then I yanked back. I stared at Torrin as the moonlight pooled inside the window, shocking us both out of the trance in which we’d been held.
Torrin lifted from the tub, and his cock skimmed over my mouth, and I yelped as if it had burned me as he smiled, but it was all teeth. I moved from the tub, grabbing the drying cloth before heading toward the fire.
Gazing down into the dancing blue and red flames, I prayed for comfort and perseverance to keep my vow for another two weeks until the full moon rose high in the sky. That was the vow I’d made to pay, to sacrifice one year of pleasure for each life lost under my watch. Bad leadership and one night of sex had led to four lives lost, and that was on me.
Torrin’s hands touched my shoulders, and I exhaled, turning to look up into icy eyes. I started to speak, but he shoved the tonic into my hand and sat down in the chair by the fire, studying my face.
“Warriors take vows of celibacy to punish themselves. So what did you do that ended with you being celibate?” he asked, his eyes