Free Forged in Darkfire: An Amber Lee Novella (Amber Lee Mysteries Book 5) by Katerina Martinez Page A

there—in the heart of the tempest—he thought he could hear it at the edge of his senses, but his focus wasn’t on the noises around him; it was on Natalie and her delicate skin. In that moment, lost as he was in the deepest kiss of his life, he didn’t know why he had ever resisted her.
    The feel of her soft skin on his excited him in a way no one had ever done before. Her lips, wandering away from his mouth and finding the line of his jaw, his neck, his collar, sent electricity rushing through him. And as they swirled and danced in the air, carried by the power of this evil storm, Damien wanted nothing more than to taste her, to hold her, to bind himself to her forever.
    So he took her face and kissed her again, then he pulled her legs up to his waist and pressed her close to him. In his mind he thought of a silken ribbon, wrapping around their bodies, joining them together as the wind carried them, tossed and tumbled them like rag dolls. But in their bubble of Magick they were protected, undisturbed, and the ribbon was able to work.
    Heat was rising from their entwined bodies, sweat starting to form on Damien’s chest, and soon the kissing had become too much for him to bear. He slid his arms beneath hers, explored the landscape of her body with his fingers while she ran her hands through his hair, and slowly reached for the empty space between them, finding himself and… suddenly he was awake.
    The windows in the bedroom were already steamed up. Lily was gone, Damien could see, and the door was closed. But he was only aware of that by virtue of being possessed with peripheral vision. More immediate was Natalie. She was naked, tucked into his body like a perfectly fitting S shape, and sweating almost as much as he was.
    Together they lay on their sides, Natalie facing away from Damien, her bare back pressed against his naked skin. She was searching for him blindly, and when she found him—hard—she guided him into her. Damien’s heart exploded into a rapid frenzy at the moment of contact, beating hard and fast as, for the first time, he entered a woman.
    Damien lost his virginity in that moment, surrendered to Natalie as a sacrifice to allow the binding to take hold. Only it wasn’t enough to simply enter her. This was only the beginning, he knew.
    Around them, a soft, cold wind was blowing. But the heat between them was palpable, and it seemed to Damien like he could still hear the roar of the Dark Fire in the back of his mind. Receding, but present. It was not over yet. But Natalie’s loud, euphoric moan snapped him out of the dread, and he slipped his arms under and around her body… and pushed.
    The motion was gentle at first, and awkward, but they found their rhythm soon enough, their bodies slowly starting to move as one; away and together in a slow, tender dance of skin and sweat and heat. Natalie reached around the back of her head to search for Damien’s hair and pulled him toward her neck, which he kissed without any more need for encouragement.
    He could feel the pressure building inside of him. The rocking of their bodies, the steady, rapid breaths leaving Natalie’s lips, the feel of being inside her, her breast beneath his hand, hard nipples between his fingers; this was all new to him. It was carnal and natural and primal, and he had never felt it before.
    “Damien,” she whispered, finding his hand and squeezing it.
    It’s working , he thought. But the fight wasn’t over yet. No ritual was done until it reached its end, and they had yet to get there still. Inexperienced as he may have been, Damien needed to finish. And if he failed, if for some reason he couldn’t finish, he feared Natalie would fall back into a death-sleep from which he would not be able to save her.
    He slipped out of her, against his urge to be inside her, and gently pushed her to her back. Then he crawled over her slippery, sweaty, naked body, between her legs. She opened herself to receive him, wrapping herself