I was shocked at the sudden feeling of him filling me. Stretching my inner walls and rooting deeply into me. I stared at him stunned my blue eyes huge.

His green ones seemed equally as shocked. His fingers gripping my hips tightly now as if to still me. “Are you okay?”

“Would it matter?” I asked snidely.

“Would I ask if it didn’t?” He tilted his head, sliding it over his down pillow to give me a penetrating look with those piercing green eyes.

He’s despicable.

“Fine. Have it your way.” He withdrew his hands. Hovering them out near my hips in a big gesture of ceasing restraining me. “Do as you wish.”

He tucked his palms behind his head. “Have it your way, Mary Mage.”

“My way would be not at all.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t lose after you make a wager.”

“As if that was my intent!” My palms landed on his smooth chest, and I dug in my nails in aggravation.

He growled in his throat and flexed his chest muscles beneath my grip.

“Did you like that?” I asked. Eying him warily.

“Very much.” He swatted the back of one of my buttocks. “Do it again.”

***

In his chamber in the tower, Warlord, The Commander of the Mage’s Guild in this wing of the castle glanced at the slave girl in his bed. Bound to one bed post but fast asleep from her exertions.

Well warranted asleep.

But Warlord rarely slept. Instead, he sat in his chair near the window overlooking the training garden, he quietly stoppered and unstoppered a vial thoughtfully.

He’d felt the swell of magic that indicated Hawk was summoning the petite mage from the women’s ward further North in this wing of the castle.

“Good.” Warlord whispered. His blue eyes dark and intense in the shadows of the room.

“What are you so pleased with?” The girl in the bed asked perceptively. The rope binding her creaked as she rolled to her back. There was a tinge of bitterness in her voice, but he was aware she read him well.

“My Second in Command obeys me well.”

“The woman?”

Warlord’s head whipped to her. Wondering how she knew but disregarding the question he gave a slight nod.

“What will he do to her?”

“It’s what they’ll both do to each other that makes me satisfied.”

“What?” She asked hesitantly.

“Feed on each other’s magic until they’re both extremely powerful.”

“Why?”

“Because Mage Mating is an ancient method for tapping into each other’s power.”

“Like you said you drain mine?”

He gave a lopsided grin which revealed white teeth in the darkness. “Precisely.”

He rose from the chair and set the vial on the narrow table and began striding across the room back toward the bed.

The woman sunk into the bedding and looked at him crossing the room, fearfully.

***

“Forget it, Hawk. If I must do this, you’ll not enjoy it.”

“As you wish.” He grinned broadly and adjusted his head more deeply in his pillow. “Do make me suffer. I’ll try to endure it.”

I recalled how he’d stroked into me when he’d taken me that first time in my chamber. Mostly that was a blur, and I could hardly remember how it’d felt. But I recalled what he’d done to me against my door. Leaning me forward to arch my back.

I arched it now. Jutting my pale breasts forward.

Then he’d stroked in and out of me, gaining speed. And the faster it’d gone the more he’d seemed to enjoy it.

It’s not your way now, you bastard.

I purposefully rose up onto my knees at an agonizingly slow pace. Then sunk back down on him. But as I did he gave a guttural moan of pleasure.

His green eyes burning through me and his lips parting as his breathing grew ragged. His eyes watched my face and I registered I’d made a similar primal sound when I’d landed on him.

Stop responding to him! I hated myself for finding pleasure in his flesh embedded in me.

Damn him!

“Hawk! You’re a bloody bastard.”

He chuckled in a low tone. “Am I? Why don’t you show me just how much of a bastard I am.”

I’d slowly lifted again, and his hands caught my waist and drug me down and forward. Making him fill me abruptly. Straining against something deep behind my pelvis. I made another instinctive sound that rippled up my throat before I could stop it.

“You like that don’t you, Mary? The way I feel stuffed inside you.” He growled and as he watched me. His lips curling to bare his teeth as he moved me faster. “Stretching every part of you. Then withdrawing then filling you again.”

He simulated the movements to match his words and I gasped at the change of sensation. My head falling forward as he moved me down and back along his length. Making him tilt toward the front of me as he went in.

Before sliding out again.

“You can’t get enough, can you?” He grinned. “Like a cup that can never be filled. That’s fine, My Mary.”

As he said it his hands shot up to cup my breasts and he flexed his buttocks to jut up into me. Moving more forcefully. “I have no problem consuming you. Taking you. Possessing your flesh until all you can think about is when I’ll be inside you again.”