Savage Need (Temple of Luna, #2) Read Online Free

bring him to the Temple and assign him to a senior priestess, one trained in handling feral men.
    And none of it explained how he'd ended up curled around Zahra, a healer whose skills were rarely plied in the bedchamber. But he had, and she was the only memory he had of the past few days. Her scent, her skin, the way she tasted and the way she came for him...
    His cock stirred, and he swore and closed his eyes. No.
    The bed moved, and she spoke, her voice husky from sleep. "Jarek?"
    He hardened so fast he had to bite back a groan. "Yes?"
    One soft hand skimmed over his back, and he felt her lips on the back of his shoulder. "Do you need anything?"
    She'd be able to see him in the mirror, everything from his clenched jaw to his closed eyes to the erection that probably wouldn't subside as long as she was in the room with him. "My beast isn't in control anymore, but it's not quiet yet."
    Satin rustled as Zahra climbed from the bed. He heard her kneel in front of him even before she rested her hands on his thighs. "I trust your beast more than most men. You were very gentle."
    He'd seen the marks of his teeth along her shoulders and back. He'd seen the bruises on his hand, the ones that meant he'd closed his hand around her wrist or ankle hard enough to grind the jeweled cuffs into his skin. He opened his eyes and touched her cheek. "Didn't seem that way to me."
    She looked debauched. Her dark hair fell in disheveled waves around her bare shoulders, and an amused smile curved lush lips still swollen from his kisses. "Don't I get to be the judge of your relative tenderness?"
    He moved his fingers to her lips because he couldn't stop himself. "I hate the idea of hurting you. And I'm scared that I could have. Why did you take that risk, Zahra?"
    Doubt flashed in her eyes, and she looked away. "When they told me you were here, I went to see you. They were ready to send you to another priestess, one with silver robes, but you said you wanted me."
    "Of course I did." No point pretending surprise, not when his hazy memories included marking her with words as well as his body. He smoothed his fingers over the loose strands of her hair and sighed. "I wanted you. I still want you. But it would have killed me to hurt you by mistake."
    "I think you might have hurt another priestess. You--" She bit her lip. "You attacked a Temple guard who tried to get between us. He's fine, but you were...insistent."
    Another memory blessedly out of reach. Jarek reached for her. "Come up here so I can hold you. Please."
    "Is that what you need?" Her fingertips feathered over his erection as she spoke.
    Jarek fisted the blankets in his free hand as his body tensed. With Zahra on her knees in front of him, it was impossible to banish the fantasy, the image of her lips around his cock. But in his fantasy she hadn't been a priestess tending to a warrior, just a woman who needed him as desperately as he needed her.
    He slid his fingers through her hair again, this time wrapping the strands around his hand. "Who's asking? A priestess or a woman?"
    She stared up at him, desire etched on her delicate features. "A woman," she whispered, her hand closing around his shaft, "finishing what began a long time ago."
    Jarek moaned and grasped her wrist, holding her hand still. "A long time ago, I was a man with fifteen years of service ahead of me. And you were too precious to become one of the brides of silence."
    "I would have taken that chance." Her eyes grew bright with tears. "I could easily have loved you then. Maybe I did."
    And the king wouldn't have been pleased to find his niece had promised to wait for a healer of no lineage--one who might not ever return--when every rich warrior freshly released from the army dreamt of wooing her. It hadn't stopped him from wanting her, or from kissing her the week before he'd been sent to the front lines. It had been a foolish, reckless decision, one that had branded the taste of her lips on his god damn psyche and left him