Tucking the blunt into the corner of my mouth like I'd seen countless actors do in movies, freed up my hands so I was able to pull Graysen's t-shirt up. The backs of my fingers grazed along hard muscle encased by silken skin. A thrill rushed through my veins when I caught the twitch of muscle and the throaty moan he tried to stifle.

Graysen took over, tugging the hem of his shirt up with one hand, but he didn't remove it, instead holding the bunched material near the base of his throat. Reaching forward, he plucked the blunt from my mouth, taking a hit as he leaned back against the headboard to allow my gaze to roam leisurely over his chest.

A shooting spark of arousal carved downward to spear through my core. His face was beautiful, his chest perfection.

Holy, holy, holy hells—he's finely cut.

There seemed not an ounce of fat on him. All muscle and golden skin. His tattoos scored across most of his chest and twined up one side of his throat to his jawline. The whorls of ink curled over both shoulders and downwards to a full arm sleeve on the right, while the flames and Ukkenskrit tales reached only as far as his left bicep.

But it was the brand that ensnared my attention.

My greedy gaze gobbled up every detail of the insignia of his House.

The flesh over his heart was raised, ruined flesh. It was a brand of a wyrm—a scaled serpentine creature. Elegant wings were tucked into the sides of its long, coiled body, while its talons and fangs were extended. The wyrm's detail was a little rough, not neat and precise like it had been created professionally with a laser. No, this was done with an iron brand dipped into fire and pressed against flesh.

"Did it hurt?"

"Like a motherfucker. I almost passed out." His free hand returned to my side, his fingers splayed wide and curving around my hip. I swallowed, my blood heating. His touch was a brand on my own skin.

My fingers skimmed the scarred flesh of a wing. He grunted and his pec flexed as my fingertips traced around the coiled serpent's body.

"They're territorial, obsessive, and greedy," Graysen shared. "When they want something they pursue it with single-minded determination. Claim it. Mark it...and they mate for life."

"They're gone now," I said with a pinch of sadness. "All died out." I'd come across that in the history books I'd read in my family's library.

"No. A few still hibernate deep in the bowels of the earth."

I glanced upward, astonishment expanding through my entire being. "How do you know that?"

"My ancestors tamed wyrms. Used them to hunt for the Horned Gods. Battled alongside them. But we freed the last of them after the Final War."

Excitement raced through me to think that Wyrms still lived.

When I took a really good look at everything together—the naked flesh of the wyrm brand surrounded by inked flames— it looked as if half his body was scorched in wyrmfire.

"It's beautiful," I murmured, tracing a lick of fire across his pecs, feeling his muscles ripple with the feather-light stroke.

"You're beautiful."

Beautiful?

My shocked gaze snapped up to find him staring at me, his eyes gleaming with lust. My heartbeat stumbled. I'd never been called beautiful before.

"That's the weed talking," I said, cursing myself for the flush that heated my cheeks.

Embarrassed, I shoved against his thighs and squirmed backward across the bed, trying to hide the pleasure I felt for him saying I was beautiful.

Graysen dropped the hold on his t-shirt and the fabric slipped back down to hug his chest. Leaning sideways, he placed the nearly cut blunt on the plate scattered with ash. "Oh, you're a thorn in my ass, but it doesn't make what I said untrue," he answered with a small smile, before lunging so swiftly I didn't see it coming. He grabbed hold of my ankle and jerked. I fell backward on the mattress with a startled shriek as he yanked me up the bed, my skirt riding up my thighs. He pulled me between his parted legs—now laid flat on the mattress—and I pressed my bare feet against the bedhead on either side of his body.

My heart drummed a frantic beat.

Holy Skalki, what the hells is going on?!

Am I ready for this?

Graysen encircled his hands around my hips to pull me in even closer. My knees bent to accommodate the shift in proximity. I was exposed like this, in more ways than just my panties on show. I was made vulnerable to his gaze as he took a long, leisurely look over every curve of my body.

A glint of amusement sparkled in his eyes as his hands lightly skimmed down my thighs.

I didn't know what amused him.

Me, was it me?

Was he silently laughing at me? Mocking me?

He tsked. "No dagger tonight?"

It had been unconsciously done, leaving that dagger on the bathroom floor with the burnt shredded dress, not taking it and strapping it to the outside of my thigh like I'd done every single time we'd been in one another's company.

Maybe this was what I'd wanted all along. Him.

He pushed my skirt up further. The cottony material gathered at my waist. A square-tipped finger traced the scalloped edge of my white panties. He growled, "Virginal white. The best kind."

The words were a sensual stroke on the place he almost touched and I chewed back a traitorous moan. An inferno of heat exploded in my very center, spreading out like shockwaves. Dampness slicked between my thighs, wetting my panties. I realized in sickly, sweet horror, he'd be able to see just how aroused I was. He could scent it too.

Graysen stared as if he'd never seen underwear before. "Fuck, I think I'll come just from touching your silly, practical panties," he muttered, easing a fingertip just under the scalloped band.

I squirmed a little as his finger lazily skimmed beneath the edge of my panties, gliding ever so slowly to my inner thigh.

Hells! Fucking hells!

Everything was focused on that scorching touch.

Seconds, hours, perhaps it took an eternity for him to reach that place no one had ever touched before. And just as he was about to touch me there, he glided that finger back up to the curve of my hip and rested his hand there.

I was wound so tightly, I didn't know if it was utter relief I felt or disappointment.

Shit, I'm disappointed.

I was also almost jumping out of my skin with giddy need as his thumb started making delicious, little circles on my inner thigh, each sweep moving closer and closer to my core.

He hitched a leg up and rested his forearm on his bent knee. His eyelids grew a little heavier, his smile a little lazier. "Unbutton your dress," he said softly, still caressing my hip with his hand.

My eyes flared wide. "Pardon?"

His thumb was now brushing back and forth along the scalloped edge of my panties. Panties which were pretty much soaked under that touch.

"Your. Dress. Unbutton. It."

"I-I—"

Suddenly it was too much, too intense.

What the hells am I thinking?

I'll never survive Graysen Crowther!

Bunching my muscles, I pushed my feet against the headboard, using it like a springboard to propel my body away before levering up on my elbows to scurry backward like a crab across the quilt-covered mattress.

Graysen moved fast. Impossibly fast. And I found myself trapped beneath him and unable to move. He stretched his body long, hovering over top of me, his hands braced on either side of my head. He didn't lean down to kiss or even touch me, but he was so close he may as well have been.

Heat and hunger swirled in the small gap between our bodies. Desire thrummed against my bones and my dark power stirred, breathing outward as gentle as a spring breeze to ruffle his hair and tease my own. Blood pounded in my ears in time with our matching heartbeat.

"Don't think." His mouth chased my lips as I slightly tilted my head to slowly blink into his eyes, gone as velvet-dark as his voice. "Just stop thinking, little bird. I can see that clever little mind, freaking out—"

"But, I—"

One eyebrow rose. "I want to see." He gestured to his chest. "Fairs fair." Drawing closer, firm lips pressed a kiss against my throat, and the words vibrated against my hot skin. "Just don't think."

Graysen reared back to sit once more against the bedhead with an expectant expression on his face.

Maybe it was being stoned, wrapped up in that cozy, hazy world that finally gave me courage, but I thought it was more him, his commanding authority over my body that had my fingers drifting to the neat row of buttons running down the bodice of my dress.

What the hells am I doing?

Don't think, don't think, don't think, just do it...

He tipped his head back, resting it against the soft leather bedhead. His eyes had gone half-mast and he gnawed on his lip, sucking on the plump flesh with teeth and tongue as he watched me slowly unbutton my dress.

It was mesmerizing watching him watch me. Not once did he glance up and meet my gaze. Everything was fixed on my fingers fumbling with the tiny pearl buttons. I went even slower, just to see what he'd do, and he let out the rawest, deepest groan I'd ever heard. "Fuuuck, little bird, you're killing me here. Put me out of my misery."

He lifted his hips up and eased his sweatpants down his thighs. I caught a glimpse of his erection stretching his boxer briefs taut—Holy Skalki, he really is massive—before he fisted his cock under the soft fabric.

All I could do was stare, wide-eyed, as his hand languidly moved up and down as he stroked himself.

"More...more little bird..." he growled.

The fourth button popped open, the fifth, then the sixth, before I tugged the material aside to reveal my bra. Nothing special, just a pure white cotton bra with a tiny pink bow right in the middle. A flush stole across my cheeks. Why hadn't I worn something silky or lacy? But I didn't own anything of the kind.

"Show me...I want to see just how perfect your tits are."

I bit my lip.

Should I?

Shouldn't I?

"Do. It. Now."

I peered at him beneath my eyelashes, because it felt safer to do that, shadows of lashes keeping him at a distance. My fingers worked on their own accord, following his curt demand, slipping beneath the straps, unhooking them from my shoulders. His fist pumped a little faster as I rounded forward to unsnap the bra and ease it off. With my breasts freed, I suddenly couldn't look at him.

I heard his breathing hitch.

No one had ever seen me naked, apart from my mother and sisters, our shapes similar in the fact we were all women, but so different from one another. What would he like in a woman? Curves, definitely. Smooth, silky bodies, polished and oiled and glistening. An ass he can grab. All defined by one word—sexy. It wouldn't matter how tall or short, or what kind of hair or eye color they had, or where they came from in the world. They'd all be sexy.

Not me—I knew nothing about seduction—which was glaringly obvious in the awkward way I lay with my hands clasped together, looking everywhere but at him.

This is crazy.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm not ready for this.

I should just... Fuck it... Run, run, run!

And I ran, like the coward I was.

I twisted around, accidentally kicking up and catching him under the chin—hearing the oomph, his startled curse—as I leaped off the bed and scrambled for the adjoining door. I was yanking it open when his voice boomed, "WYCHTHORN—GET YOUR ASS AGAINST THE WALL!"

I froze.

Shit, shit, shit—

"Wychthorn," he growled.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I inched around.

Graysen stood on the bed. He'd tugged his sweatpants back up, but they were slung low on his hips, and his obvious hard-on tented the fabric. He cocked his head to the side, a delicious smirk on his mouth that practically promised I was soon to be separated from my panties. He boomed again, "I SAID—ASS, WALL, NOW!"

And gods help me, I did. I jolted under that authority, pressed my ass up against the wall, and clutched my dress tightly to my chest. There was a reason why this man got away with his surliness, why even the Heads of Houses silently deferred in his presence.

He jumped from the bed—a heavy thud on the carpet—and he sauntered toward me at a slow, measured pace, practically burning the gathered fabric from my breasts with his heated gaze. Dark eyes shining with a wicked promise met mine, and crackling energy sparked a fiery line up and down my spine, making everything taut and loose all at once.

I was actually glad to be pressed up against the wall to have it support my quivering body.

Graysen leaned a forearm above my head and bent so we were eye to eye. Close enough that we shared breath. Close enough to hear the thunder of my heart. His gaze briefly dropped to where I squeezed my arm around my breasts, desperately holding the parted dress together. His smirk grew more wicked, and my panties pretty much incinerated.

Godsdammit!

Raising his other hand, he waved two fingers at me. "My two friends here, want to meet your G-spot," he said, winking.

My mouth fell open and my eyes flicked wide. My gaze darted to his fingers, back to him, back to his hand.

Oh...my...gods...

He pursed his lips together, tilting one corner up slightly. Then he cupped those two fingers, those two friends of his, beneath my chin, lifting upward to close my gaping mouth. His thumb brushed along the seam of my lips and his voice lowered to a rumble. "This is happening, Wychthorn. You will be coming all over my hand and screaming my name. We can do this here. Up against this wall. Or you can walk your pretty, sassy ass back to bed and get comfortable. Your choice."

My mouth was dry and my tongue sluggish, but I managed to push out, "I-I don't want you." I lied, horribly. It had stuttered from me and sounded more like a question than a declaration.

He smiled. "That scent of yours says differently."

Gods, that smile. That damn cocky smile!

I hissed out a breath of annoyance. How could anything be private any longer? He could scent my arousal. Taste my lies. But that annoyed hiss turned into a choked moan when his cheek, dusted with stubble, raked along my own and he gently nipped my earlobe. His hot breath teased, "You want me, little bird. You want me to sink into you and I will. Not tonight. But sometime soon, you can have your wicked way with me. Willingly. Gladly. I'll fuck you right into nirvana."

I laughed, a little brittle and too loud. The guy had a ridiculous ego.

But when his lips kissed a sensitive spot just below my ear my laughter sputtered out.

Holy hells, who knew that spot could make me moan and squirm? I threaded my fingers through his hair to pull him closer so he could kiss and lick and suck until I was a writhing mess, my hair mussed from being rubbed against the wall.

He pulled back to look at me, and his mouth leaving my body made me groan in frustration. I don't know what he saw—me probably a panting mess against the wall—but he liked seeing me this way. Satisfaction gleamed in his dark eyes.

His intense gaze trapped mine and as I stared back, mesmerized by the endless depth of his black eyes, I felt his fingertip blaze a trail of scorching heat down my throat, slip into the dip at my collarbone, before sliding along the valley between my breasts. "Tonight I want to kiss you here." And he drew his hand across my body, skimming from hip to hip, with his fingers spread wide and brushing so close to my clit that his intention was obvious.

Hells!