I surrendered to the acute torture urging me to take what I wanted. I had no fear of pregnancy since I was still under the effects of the contraceptive tonic my mother had given me a few weeks back. I hitched a leg around his back, and my hand curled around one of his broad shoulders for support as I lowered myself, pushing him inside my core, soaking wet with lust.

He grunted and his hips jerked, pushing his cock in further. I gave a shocked whimper at his girth, the stinging pain that came with him stretching me wide as I sank down slowly. I inched lower, bringing my other leg around to hook around his waist and an arm under his to clutch the back of his shoulder for leverage, letting our mutual arousal ease him deeper until I was fully seated and he filled me. Completed me. Both of us shuddered and panted, our heads bowing under the sensation of him buried to the hilt. I sighed, dropping my head further, fingernails digging into firm muscle, when his cock flexed inside, pushing and stretching, and he hissed my name, "Nelle," as if in agony. His breath heated the crown of my head before I felt the warmth of his lips pressing a kiss there.

I stilled for a moment to allow myself to adjust to his size before giving an experimental swivel of my hips. A cracking spark of might charged along my bones at his loud gasp.

It was time to tame the Tamer.

I lifted my gaze to his. It was unbearably intimate, our bodies clasped together, staring deeply into one another's eyes. His blacks were glassy and hooded, his mouth parted slightly. There was tension in his features, color rising on his cheeks.

Pure need for him ran riot all over my body.

I took him how I wanted. I took him the only way this position allowed—not with fast, furious thrusts, but a languid circling of hips, rocking up against him. The rasp of friction as I worked his cock strung my body taut, tightening my sensitive, heavy breasts. The hardness of his body grinding against my clit, strumming it with every pivot, had hot waves of pleasure washing through me from the top of my head to the tips of my curled toes. I swiveled again and again. Perspiration coated our skin and I arched my spine, our skin stickily gliding against one another. Our world became breathless gasps and gentle movements.

The sweetly salty taste of his skin danced across my tongue as I dragged an open-mouthed kiss along his collarbone. My free hand glided over the contour of his upper chest, and I swept my fingers over his nipple, rolling it, pinching it. He moaned. Kept moaning as I teased him ruthlessly. Long waves of hair dripped forward, flicking sideways across his forehead as he rolled his neck. A sharp look slid toward mine and pierced through the blissful haze. "Let me touch you," he begged.

The ends of my hair wisped against my shoulders and back as I shook my head, no.

But gods, how I wanted it.

Him not touching me heightened every sensation I denied myself. I burned with a dark craving for him to possess every inch of my body. I longed for his lush lips to suck on my nipples. Calloused fingers to knead my ass. His thumb to circle my swollen clit.

I ran a hand around his ribcage, the ruined skin on his back bumping against my fingertips. My lips brushed to his ear, breath feathering the shell, teeth nipping on the soft lobe. "This time it's my turn to tell you what to do."

"You're so fucking bossy."

I huffed a surprised, joyous laugh. "You can talk."

His breathless chuckle joined mine, then cut into a helpless moan when I dug my heels into his back for leverage and raised myself up to bear down fast. His cock surged in hard and he burrowed so deep a keening wail of delight tore from my throat.

"Oh fuck, Nelle," His body spasmed, and I watched his eyes roll back in his head when I rocked my hips with a taunting clench around his iron length, boldly taking control and fucking him.

No, not fucking, it was far too intimate for that.

He was gorgeous under my bewitchment, lost in a rapturous haze. My fingers sifted through the black locks fallen across his glazed eyes and I pushed the sheaves of hair aside. As my hand drifted down his flushed cheek, he turned his head into my palm and brushed his lips along my fingertips, and the gentle touch set every inch of my body to glow in sunshine. A devious glint sparked in his dark eyes a moment before his tongue darted out to lick the tip of my forefinger. Then he clamped his teeth down, enveloping my finger within his hot, wet mouth, and sucked. Gods, the feeling of his tongue caressing and sucking it in and out of his mouth, mirroring the drive of his hips, was a whiplashing of intense craving that had my core quivering around him. "Wicked Crowther," I groaned throatily, my jaw slackening.

He screwed his eyes shut as I purposely ground down, my sex rippling and pulsing. My finger was pushed out of his mouth when he hoarsely whispered, "So cruel, little bird."

Graysen suddenly lifted up on his knees and I clapped my hand on his shoulder to steady myself. My eyes flared wide at the same time his did, the keen edge of a hunter gleaming in their endless depth. He bit down on a sinful grin, and then he bounced me up to slam his cock into me. My hair flailed, sweeping over my shoulders with strands trickling into the valley of my sweat-damp breasts. And my mind collapsed at the glorious friction as his thick shaft penetrated deeply.

"Again," I cried, and then whimpered, clutching him tight, when he obeyed.

When he settled back on his heels, I rode him, tilting my hips from side to side with a new angle, bearing down on his throbbing erection to drive him crazy. His head lolled back, mouth falling open, with ridgelines of strain on his throat. His breathing became ragged pants and tortured grunts. I wanted Graysen at my mercy. I needed his focus narrowed on the taste and touch and feel of my body embracing him.

I moved slowly, so slowly, so he felt everything, everywhere. My hips rolled in delicious circles, a melodic hum crawling up my throat as my clit pulsated and an aching pressure built with an oncoming climax, threatening to incinerate me from within.

But I needed to be aware.

This wasn't about my pleasure—but, gods, how it was—it was about his.

I wanted him to be focused on how I was making him feel. I wanted his mind to melt and be so caught up in exquisite sensation, he wouldn't realize what I was really doing.

My hands smoothed along his shoulders, up his arms, the veins of his forearms skittering against my palms as I reached up to cuff his wrists, the leather and silver pressing into my fingers as I gently tugged: a silent request for him to let go of the bird cage bed. He did, and I threaded our hands together. Mine appeared delicate and tiny compared to his rough blunt-tipped fingers.

I kept touching him with my lips and tongue, scraping my teeth against his flesh, nibbling and licking his jawline until he was gone, blissfully adrift in a world of us. I placed our joined hands around the back of my neck, right on top of the rope that collared my throat. I kissed him until he forgot himself. Kept rolling my hips. Kept grinding up and down his rigid length to give him everything he wanted from my body. The strip of flesh between my legs that completely owned him.

Maybe it would have been better if I'd let him fuck me from behind, hard and savage, but I'd never be able to do what I needed to do. I needed to be close enough to manipulate him into undoing the rope snagged around my throat.

Graysen didn't notice when I aligned my fingers on top of his and moved them to the knot in the Hangman's Noose.

I needed him to save me even if he wasn't aware he was doing it.

His lips and tongue were under my spell, kissing me back, plunging into my mouth, his hips thrusting up to meet me as I pushed down.

It was awkward trying to manipulate his fingers to dig around the knot, to try easing the cords apart.

My cheek slid along his and I whispered into his ear with words as soft as a summer breeze, balmy and barely there. "It's so easy to do, just undo the knot..."

I fumbled with his slack fingers. Pure panic seized me. It wasn't working. It was impossible. I couldn't get the angle right, couldn't get the tips of them to work the rope. Anxiety rose up like a gray cloud staining a clear blue sky.

"You want to save me... You want me to live..."

Tears of desperation dewed on my lashes and shimmered in my vision.

"Untie Zrenyth's rope and let me go..."

I couldn't hold the tears back any longer and they slipped a hot, stinging path down my cheeks.

"Save me, save me, save me..."

Graysen jerked his head away from mine. Awareness sharpened his gaze as he realized what I was trying to do. I tried to distract him with a desperate kiss, slamming my lips against his, but he managed to pull away from my tear-damp face.

His shoulders stiffened and his throat bobbed with an uneasy swallow. There was something akin to sorrow tarnishing the gold in his eyes. "I need to want to do it for it to happen," he explained.

My hands pushed frantically at his, pawing at the knot, trying to force his fingers around the entwined rope. "Save me," I choked out, salty teardrops slipping between my lips.

Graysen untangled his fingers from mine. A hand slid up around the back of my head and he grasped a handful of my hair at the roots, arching my neck back to angle my face so he could gently kiss the tears from my lashes and lick the briney moisture from my cheeks and lips. The words were harsh but softly spoken. "Don't let that fire of yours go out. Don't cry, Nelle. Don't you fucking dare break."

"It's too late," I sobbed.

He rose up on his knees and I clung to him, my arms wrapping around his neck. He tipped forward, lowering us to the floor. My legs and arms cradled his body as the soft carpet met my back. His weight pressed upon me as he rolled his pelvis in slow, seductive waves, with languid thrusts that drove a pleasured whimper to cut through the wretchedness. Despite the misery my body responded and sunshine sang through my blood.

I reached up and cupped his strong jawline, sweeping my thumb across his lips. My bottom lip wobbled. "Save me."

Graysen braced a hand beside my head to peel his upper body away. Cool air prickled my hot sweaty skin. He latched his free hand around my throat and over top of the noose. He squeezed with enough pressure to get my attention. His voice was dark and almost angry. "Listen to me, little bird."

My eyes widened and locked on his, but he didn't stop moving, didn't stop plunging in with long, deep strokes. His thick length slid slowly in and out, in and out, and every time the fat crown grazed that inner spot beneath my clit, it pulsed with sensuality, like lightning striking the same spot, over and over again. Building. Intensifying. The sound of our lust was softly hummed notes that twined and vibrated between us, rising and falling as each hitched breath and gasp and moan came quicker.

Graysen's thumb grazed the vulnerable hollow at my throat. "You're strong. Stronger than me." His gaze burned fiercely. "You don't need me to save you. You don't need anyone else to save you. You're going to save yourself, little bird. Understand?"

He lowered his body back on top of mine. One hand framed the side of my face while his other ran soothing strokes up and down my side, so we touched everywhere as if he couldn't get close enough to me. He continued that mind-bending slow pace, thrusting in and out, sharp and sweet all at once.

I sighed. I moaned. I cried out for more.

"Let me go..." I gasped, my spine bowing.

"Say it," he hissed.

His pace picked up and he fucked in hard and fast between every word. The sound of our sweat-slick skin slapping cut through the dimly lit room. "Say you're strong enough to save yourself."

I couldn't do anything but nod. The friction of my spine rubbing against the carpet inflamed my skin with every punishing thrust.

"Say it out loud," he demanded, his expression furious.

"I'm strong enough to save myself." And this time I believed it with every fiber of my being. I believed in myself. Fire reforged my broken spirit and vanquished despair.

"You're going to fight me and win, understand?"

"I will," I moaned, my breasts bouncing at the ferocious surge of his cock. "I'll win."

And then he hit deep. His pelvic bones slammed against mine, grinding to hit that sensitive spot, igniting a heady rush of a climax in a storm of fire. I submitted to the command of his cock and his will and surrendered to insatiable pleasure that swept outward on flames drenched in bliss. My intimate walls gripped him hard, milking him in hot, quivering pulses. One hand was spread against his throat, pushing his chin up, the other I pressed above his heart. And in a room carved for moonlight, the stars shining bright in the velvet night, I came apart with his name silently branded on my lips.

I was barely aware that he'd joined me in his own climax with lusty jerks and loud, gruff grunts, his cock kicking and warmth spilling inside.

Both of us were abandoned in a sensual world, gasping for air and sharing breath. When I came slowly to, I discovered he was still on top of me, his hands buried in my hair.

Graysen softened enough to pull free from my body, his slippery seed seeping between my thighs. He kissed my temple, rolling onto his side and dragging me into him, banding an arm and leg around my body so I couldn't wiggle free.

I sighed, then inhaled, soaking up a lungful of his masculine scent edged with cedar. I sank into his embrace, snuggling closer. Right now, truthfully, a small part of me didn't want to be anywhere else.

I pushed the sweaty hair away from my face and angled my head to find him propped up by a forearm and staring down at me. His eyelids lowered lazily, and he yawned, blinking blearily with a lopsided smile.

"You won't free me or can't?" Because there was a marked difference between the two.

His smile faded. "I can't," he replied with a bleak undertone to his voice.

I studied his face, the unease skittering across his features. The worry that I might fall back into despair that he'd yet again chosen his mother over me. Deep down I knew that's what I'd do too. I'd strap him to a chopping block and hand over a meat cleaver to the Butcher if it meant that I'd save my mother and sisters.

An itchy feeling tickled the back of my mind, and I absentmindedly drummed my fingers across his chest as I thought about it further. If his brothers knew what I was up to in the library, then it would stand to reason he did too. He knew that the escape tunnel was blocked by a massive wall, and he'd have felt me break down there in absolute darkness. "Did you let Sage in beneath the Keep? Did you send him down there to find me?"

His mouth tipped up on one side. "You needed a friend."

I took a deep breath. "I don't want to die," I told him honestly, but I was too bone-tired and sated to feel anything else but a soothing comfort from being in his arms. The tamer aspect, I expect.

When he next replied, his words drifted apart and were strangely slurred. Respect shone in his cunning gaze. "You're the girl who bows to none. You're going to destroy us all to save yourself."

I tilted my head, perplexed, but I couldn't stop the small smile as silvery moonlight glowed inside my soul. He believed I would find freedom and burn the lot of them on my way out. "And you're okay with that?"

He nodded sluggishly, once, twice, his mouth parting to say something before his features slackened and his eyelids fell shut. His head dropped heavily into the crook of my neck just as he collapsed bodily onto me, and I was pinned beneath his dead weight.

My eyes widened in surprise as I stared up at the ceiling in confusion.

And then I realized what had happened.

He'd fallen asleep right on top of me.