Page 73 of When Ashes Fall

Our gazes locked, and as they did, sanity started to return. Somehow sensing this, Knox wrapped his hand around the back of my head and pulled me down to reclaim my mouth.

I should stop this—I still had enough sanity left to know that—but I didn’t want it to stop. For ten endless years, I’d yearned for him. While he wasn’t the man I remembered, I still saw glimpses of his kind heart, and there was no denying he retained a very possessive nature when it came to me.

Even if we never grew to love each other again, I wanted what could be my last time with this man.

It was I who turned the kiss savage and demanding again. When his erection rubbed between my legs, I ground against it. I couldn’t give him everything, and neither could he, but we could give each other this.

Knox tugged at my pants, pushing them down my hips. Wiggling on his lap, we managed to get them off before he stripped the remnants of my sweater.

The crackling fire was warm against my back, but it had nothing on the heat he created within me. Breaking the kiss, Knox’s eyes met mine; his pupils were slitted as he wrestled to restrain the beast.

“Get on your knees,” he commanded.

Unsure of where this was going and reluctant to leave his lap, I didn’t move. He twirled a strand of my hair around his finger while watching me.

He lifted a claw and traced my bottom lip with it. “You’re going to wrap that pretty little mouth around my cock and take it deep, even if you choke on it.”

Something in me rebelled against his command while something else reveled in it as his eyes burned into me. Was he daring me? Trying to see if I would do it or back away?

“You’ll do as I say, Briar.”

And then I understood. For years, he had no control over what happened to him; he demanded that control now.

Refusing to break his gaze, I climbed off his lap and went slowly to my knees. He kept my hair twined around his finger as I knelt before him.

His shaft stood proudly from his body. Like the man himself, it was larger than I remembered, thicker and longer.

It took me some time to adjust to his size when I was younger, it would do so again now, but I also couldn’t wait to have it inside me again. I ran a finger up his dick, tracing the thick vein pulsing there.

He didn’t move, and while I couldn’t see his eyes, I felt them burning into me as I ran my thumb around his head, spreading my wetness and his precum around it. Lifting my eyes, I held his gaze as I lowered my head and ran my tongue around the head of his cock.

A slight stiffening of his muscles was the only response he gave as I licked away the salty taste of him. Slowly, I took him deeper into my mouth, licking and teasing as I hollowed my cheeks and sucked along his thick length.

When he released my hair, his claws clicked against the chair arms as he gripped them and his legs spread further. I’d missed his taste and the strength of his rigid cock as my hand stroked his shaft and my mouth ran down the length of him. I managed to suppress my gag reflex when his erection hit the back of my throat.

I couldn’t take him all the way in, but when I sucked on him, his hips lifted toward me. He used to like it when I played with his balls while doing this, and I did so now.

He inhaled sharply, and one of his hands rested on the back of my head as he guided me down. “That’s it, take me deeper.” The last word came out as a groan when I nearly went to the base of his shaft. “Fuck, Briar, you feel so good. I’d almost forgotten…”

His words trailed off as his hips bucked toward me. Unable to stop myself, my eyes lifted to the big, beautiful man before me. With his head tipped back, the corded muscles in his neck stood starkly out, his biceps and forearms bulged as he gripped the chair and the back of my head.

He craved being the one in control, but I held him in the palm of my hand, literally and figuratively. I reveled in it as his hips rose and fell, and my eyes closed while he guided the back of my head faster.

When wood cracked, my eyes flew back open. Orange fur raced up his arms, and his jaw cracked as it started to shift. Keeping hold of his cock, I pulled it free of my mouth when it started to swell impossibly larger.

“No, not the beast. Only the man,” I said.

I was taking a huge risk by denying him; he was on the verge of giving himself over to the beast, but I would not be with the beast. Knox’s slitted pupils met mine as his jaw stopped lengthening.

“Only the man,” I whispered.

Before I could say or do anything more, he lunged forward and grasped my waist. I gasped when he pulled me onto his lap. My ass connected with his rigid shaft; it nestled against my cheeks as he locked his arm around my waist.

“Only the man,” he breathed in my ear as he trailed his hand down my spine. “But the man is more dangerous than the beast.”

“I know he is.”

The man was far more lethal to my heart.