Total pages in book: 200
Estimated words: 189930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 950(@200wpm)___ 760(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 189930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 950(@200wpm)___ 760(@250wpm)___ 633(@300wpm)
My chest suddenly ached and became heavy, but it wasn’t from pain, lack of air, or coldness. No. It was like when Hawke had touched me, when he’d stripped me bare and kissed me—kissed me everywhere. I felt loose. My insides tingled, just as my skin hummed. Razor-sharp lust pulsed straight through me, a dark desire that burned.
Hawke’s nostrils flared as he inhaled, and then his chest seemed to stop moving. His features were still hazy, but the longer I stared at him, the hotter I felt.
“Poppy,” he bit out.
“What?” My voice sounded full of honey.
“Stop thinking what you’re thinking.”
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
His chin lowered, and his stare was a caress. “I know.”
Shivering, I shifted my hips, and Hawke’s arm tightened around me. “You don’t know.”
He didn’t respond, and I wondered if he could feel the liquid fire in my veins, and the damp heat of my core.
Biting down on my lip, I tasted his blood and moaned, closing my eyes. “Hawke?”
He made a sound, and maybe he said something, but it was indecipherable.
I stretched, taking quick, shallow breaths. The coarse shirt and breeches scraped my skin and the sensitive, hardened tips of my breasts. “Hawke,” I breathed.
“Don’t,” he said, stiffening. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t.”
There were a lot of things I shouldn’t do or say, but everything in me was focused on the way my entire body burned and throbbed with need. My hand moved, sliding up my stomach, over the ruined, clawed shirt, to my breast. Guided only by instinct and need, I closed my fingers over the shivery flesh, molding it to my palm. An aching shudder worked its way through me.
“Poppy,” Hawke ground out. “What are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, back arching as I stroked myself through the thin, worn shirt. “I’m on fire.”
“It’s just the blood,” he said thickly, and instinct told me he was watching me, and that made me all the hotter. “It’ll pass, but you should…you need to stop doing that.”
I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. My thumb rolled over the pebbled hardness, and I sucked in air. It reminded me of what Hawke had done, but he’d used more than just his hands. I wanted him to do that again. An intense, pulsing ache between my legs twisted my insides. Hips shifting, I pressed my thighs together, but that didn’t help. The pressure only made it worse. “Hawke?”
“Poppy, for the love of the gods.”
Heart thrumming, I opened my eyes, and I’d been right. His gaze was fixed on me—on my other hand, the one that had a mind of its own and was slipping down my stomach.
“Kiss me?”
Taut lines formed around his mouth. “You don’t want that.”
“I do.” My fingers reached my waist, where the breeches gaped. “I need it.”
“You only think that right now.” His face cleared, and there was no mistaking the way his features had sharpened. “It’s the blood.”
“I don’t care.” The tips of my fingers brushed the bare skin below my navel. “Touch me? Please?”
Hawke made a low sound in the back of his throat. “You think you hate me now? If I do what you’re asking, you’ll want to murder me.” He paused, and his lips curved upward. “Well, you’ll want to murder me more than you already do. You don’t have control of yourself right now.”
What he was saying made sense, but it also didn’t. “No.”
“No?” His brows lifted, but he didn’t look away from my hand.
“I don’t hate you,” I told him, and there was a pained twist of the heart that told me that was the truth. I should be upset by that.
He made that sound again, and when his hand closed over my wrist, I almost wept with joy. He was going to touch me.
Except he did nothing more than hold my hand in place.
“Hawke?”
“I plotted to take you from everything you knew, and I did, but that is nowhere near the worst of my crimes. I’ve killed people, Poppy. There is so much blood on my hands that they will never be clean. I will overthrow the Queen who cared for you, and many more will die in the process. I am not a good man.” He swallowed hard. “But I am trying to be right now.”
A nervous flutter filled my stomach. His words…they should infuriate me, but I…I wanted him, and thinking was…well, it was all I ever did. I didn’t want to do it anymore.
“I don’t want you to be good.” Without even realizing it, I had lifted my other hand, fisting the front of his shirt. “I want you.”
Hawke shook his head, but when I tugged on the hand he held, he bent over me. My grip on his shirt tightened when he stopped with his mouth mere inches from mine. “In a few minutes, when this storm passes, you’ll return to loathing my very existence, and for good reason. You’re going to hate that you begged me to kiss you, to do more. But even without my blood in you, I know you’ve never stopped wanting me. But when I’m deep inside you again, and I will be, you won’t be able to blame the influence of blood or anything else.”