Free Immortal Warrior by Lisa Hendrix

her shock, he tasted good, like Bôte’s spices but better. And astonishingly male.
    How had she missed that earlier?
    Her blood began to stir despite her intentions, and as she sought to bring herself back in hand, he changed his attack, shifting off her mouth to kiss his way down her neck and back up to her ear, where he proceeded to do things with his teeth and his tongue that sent shivers down her spine. Waves of shivers, which continued to wash over her even after he finally returned to her lips. And what he did to her then was even worse.
    Or better. Alaida suddenly wasn’t certain. She tried to separate herself again, but couldn’t find the place where his lips left off and hers began.
    It was the posset, she thought. Bôte’s spices. That must be why her body was behaving so traitorously, why it was turning all warm and liquid when she didn’t wish it to.
    Or perhaps it was the kissing. She liked kissing, what she knew of it, and he did it well, nipping and sucking at her lower lip and then soothing away the ache he created with yet more kisses. Her May Day knight had not used that particular trick, nor had he made her knees go so weak. If he would just keep to kissing . . .
    But of course he didn’t. He began to explore her body, his hands moving over her with confidence but also with a gentleness she hadn’t expected. Slowly, she realized she hadn’t lied to Bôte. She wasn’t afraid of him. Nervous about what would happen once he took her into the bed, but not afraid of the man himself. So when he stepped back a half pace and reached for the opening of her chainse and said, “Time to be rid of this,” she blushed, but she nodded.
    “Yes, my lord.”
    “Ivo,” he said. Carefully, he spread the opening. It parted to reveal a wide wedge of neck and shoulder but would go no further. He placed a kiss at each edge. “You have yet to say my name, except in your vows. I would hear it from your lips.”
    “The neck is too narrow, my lord ,” she said softly, defiant even as she told him how to undress her. “It will not go that way.”
    “No?” He dipped his fingers in and brushed his knuckles over her breasts, smiling as her eyelids fluttered, then took the cloth in both hands and gave a sturdy tug. It tore to her navel. “I think it will.”
    She blushed more deeply, but stood fast. “Perhaps you are right, my lord.”
    “Ivo.” He dipped a hand into the tear and flattened it against her belly. Awareness quivered through her as he slid it lower. She tensed, waiting for that touch, there , but he switched directions, slowly tracing a line up her belly with his fingertips, trailing fire between her breasts and up over the soft skin of her throat. Carefully, he tipped the chainse off her shoulders. It slid to her hips and hung, barely. Letting it be, he took his fill with his eyes, then slowly slid his hands up to cup her breasts. She gasped as his thumbs circled the peaks, and his eyes darkened with desire.
    He bent to taste her, and that was when she discovered that kissing could be more than lip to lip, that a tongue could do things to her body she’d never imagined in her most sinful daydreams. Sensation spiraled out from where he suckled, joining with the spices to make her giddy with want. Such want. With a harsh, almost unwilling sigh, she curled her fingers into his hair.
    He had her. Ivo would have crowed his victory, except his mouth was full of her summer-sweet flesh and he had no wish to give her up. He tongued over her again and shifted to the other breast, working both until her breath came in uneven gasps.
    By Freyja, it was going to be hard to go slow, with his body already screaming to be buried in her. There was a hunger on him he hadn’t expected, keen as the edge of his sword and growing sharper with every breath. He could slake it easily enough, carry her down onto the bed and simply have her, but he wanted more than simple release. The memory of women long ago, women like Ingigerd, who had lain with him not