Page 130 of Scourged

She hesitated. Just for a moment. The longer she held his stare, the greater the inferno in his eyes grew.

She drew up her other leg. And let them fall apart.

From where he sat, he could see all of her. Every single inch. Nothing hidden, nothing shadowed. But for their agreement that he would not touch her, she was utterly at his mercy.

He watched her, his rapt attention nearly burning. “Just like you told me, princess,” he whispered, leaning back in his chair. “So fuckingperfect.” He licked his lips, the tip of his tongue darting out to swipe along the seam of his mouth.

“Now, your hand. Whose is it, Mariah?”

Gods. The way he said her name. “Yours. It’s yours.” She almost choked on the words, how quickly she forced them past her teeth.

“That’s right.Mine.” His eyes were shadowed. “Your right hand. Show it to me.”

She lifted it without hesitation. The fight had left her, replaced by this indescribable burning need.

She’d had her fair share of sexual encounters. Had her fair share of encounters with him.

Not one had made her feel quite likethis.

“Start at your throat.”

She touched her fingers to the column of her neck, brushing them back and forth. Her heartbeat hammered beneath her fingertips, heat pouring off her skin.

“Now move down. To those perfect tits. Show me how good it feels to touch you there.”

She obliged, her hand drifting down her chest before circling her breast. She closed her eyes, her inhale sharp as her fingers found her nipple, pinching and pulling, her body responding as her back arched off the bed.

Andrian groaned.

“Open your eyes, Mariah.”

She forced her lids open, blinking against the heaviness, the weight of her desire.

She found his stare easily, a glowing blue lighthouse against the dark.

“I want you to watch me for this next part.”

She nodded.

An answering growl.

“Move your hand down.”

Mariah did, her fingers dancing across her stomach, inching closer to her center. Where she really wanted them, where his attention was now locked, watching her every move with a scalding intensity.

His eyes flashed as she grazed the soft skin of her center. Felt her wetness there, the madness he’d forced upon her sinceseating her between his legs as they rode her horse through the city.

Since long before that.

“That’s it, princess,” he praised. She held his gaze steadily, even as her own fingers began to move in and around her, dragging that wetness up to circle her clit. Even as his own hand, the one that had rested on his lap, slipped beneath the waistband of his pants, grabbing hold of his length. “Show me how you find your pleasure, Mariah.”

Her fucking name. It sounded like a mixture of a prayer and a curse, something both saintly and sinful, whenever he said it like that.

And because he had, she had no choice but to oblige.

Mariah didn’t break from his stare as she used her fingers to inch herself higher and higher, pushing herself toward the cliffside waiting for her. His hand matched her rhythm, chasing after his own release. Sweat beaded their brows, breath hitched in their lungs, but they refused to break.

Even when she pushed herself over the edge, her back arching from the pillows, she held his gaze. Even when he followed soon after her, breath hissing through his teeth with her name panted between jolts of his body, he held her gaze.