Free Kisri: ... and the Beast, Book 2 by Moira Rogers

take her deeply.
    Deep, and every thrust hit a spot that made her clench around him. Ennon gritted his teeth and slowed to a careful, intense rocking grind. “Every time, love.”
    Her pleasure spilled free and he felt it, her giddy joy and her sharp relief, emotions that flashed through him in the moment of total acceptance. The ache inside him vanished, replaced with her , prickly and warm, then wild as her muffled cries filled his ears.
    His self-control couldn’t stand against such an onslaught of ecstasy. One more thrust and his body tightened, spilled with a pulsing, helpless pleasure that made his head pound with the echoes of both their hearts.
    He pressed his forehead to the back of her shoulder and panted for breath. “Kisri?”
    Turning her head, she rested her cheek against the rumpled blankets on her cot. “Is that what it felt like for you the first time?”
    “Yes.” There were no words for it, no way to describe the completion of it.
    She didn’t try. Instead, she made him a promise that warmed his heart and brought peace to his soul. “When the army has disbanded, come to the palace. I’ll marry you.”
    He said it because the words felt good on his tongue. “You’ll be my wife?”
    “Until you cannot stand another moment in my presence.”
    He laughed. “That will never happen.”
    “So confident.” Smiling, she twisted up to press her lips to his. “We’ll talk again in fifty years or so.”
    “A hundred?”
    “So you plan to chase me into the next life as well?”
    “I’ve been chasing you from the beginning, Kisri. It’s become something of a habit by now.”
    “Then perhaps I’ll let you catch me from time to time.” She arched lazily and all but purred, the satisfied rumble of a lioness who had been tamed…for now.
    He would never tame her completely, and that suited Ennon just fine. She suited him, perhaps more than she knew, and he would gladly use every one of the hundred years she’d promised him showing her how much.

Epilogue
    Sweat stung her eyes. Her arm ached, fingers very nearly numb from their desperate grip on her practice sword.
    Across from her, Mal held his own weapon easily. “Your fingers are going to fall off if you keep clutching the hilt like that.”
    If she admitted that it was the only way she could keep it in her grasp, he might call a stop to their sparring. Not that there would be shame in that—she’d lasted several rounds against the High Lord himself, for all that he’d pulled his more punishing blows. But the nervousness twisting in her belly would only be relieved by physical exhaustion.
    So she eased her grip—just a little—and launched her attack.
    Mal met it easily. “If you’re too tired to spar, we should stop. You could injure yourself.”
    “I’m not going to injure myself,” she ground out between clenched teeth. But after he parried her next three swings with equal laziness, she had to admit that being too tired to spar and being too tired to spar with a warrior trained from birth might be two entirely different things.
    Besides, her pride was beginning to sting as wickedly as her eyes. “Very well,” she panted finally, lowering her sword to the dirt. “I admit defeat.”
    He plucked the dull blade from her hand and shook his head. “Never. This was practice, you know. No one loses here.”
    “I always lose,” she countered as she began to pace, stretching her legs out so they wouldn’t grow stiff. “But I don’t mind so much. There’s no shame in losing to someone of your skill.”
    “You flatter me, cousin.” But his tone made it clear he had no doubt her words were truth.
    Arrogant ass. Even as she thought it, she knew the words as a lie. The only man who could hope to best Malrion in single combat was Ennon. And he was the reason butterflies had taken up residence in her midsection, tormenting her with their wild, giddy dance.
    Tomorrow. Tomorrow, he would reach the palace and put an end to the tedious month