by Megan Crane
“Stop trying to protect me, little nun,” he said, and he sounded almost choked, his eyes dark and fierce. “Protect yourself. Or let me do it. In about one second, there’s never going to be another chance for you to be nun. Ever.”
She blinked at him. “I was only—”
“A novice.” She thought maybe he smiled, though it was so intense it looked as if it hurt. “I know.”
“But I never wanted to be a nun. I wanted to be normal.”
He groaned as if she’d hurt him. His sleek muscles tensed all around her, as if he was holding himself back, but barely.
“Listen to me,” he said, stern again, every inch of him the hard-ass, dominant raider she was thrilled she got to call master. “Two things. One, you can come whenever you like. In fact, the more the better. Impress me.”
She shuddered at that. She suspected he’d known full well she would.
“And second.” He settled between her thighs, lining his cock up against her entrance and pressing the head in. Just a little bit. Just enough to make her moan and thrash against the ropes around her wrists and his weight holding her thighs apart. “You will never be normal, little nun. My sweet Maud. But you will always be mine.”
And then he slammed himself home.
Hard. Hot. It was a searing pain and a bright, scalding scream of sensation, tearing through her body, making it impossible to breathe, making it impossible to think or move or—
He ground himself against her clit and the orgasm walloped her. It gripped her like a fist and then it tore her up. It rolled over her and flattened her, even as it made her buck against him, rocking every last bit of her innocence away on that steel hard cock Gunnar held there inside her.
And only then, only when she started to come down, did she realize that she’d only just begun to fly.
“Hold on,” he murmured against her neck. Against the collar she wore because of him. “We’re just getting started.” Because that was when he began to move.
Slick. Deep.
Forever.
His cock claimed her as surely as his mouth had. As surely as he’d done that night in the cabin, deep in her ass.
But this was different. This really was magic.
He set a rhythm, intense and relentless. Just that little bit more than she’d have imagined she could take. He kept her on that edge, sinking in deep, then pulling out slow, and grinding against her greedy clit with every hard thrust.
And Maud came apart.
Again and again, just as he’d ordered her to do.
She lost track of the times he threw her over into all that red, wild bliss. Of his dark laughter that wrapped her up and held her tight, keeping her whole as she shattered against him time and again, then again.
But finally, his strokes grew rougher. Harder. He came down over her and slid his hands beneath her ass, holding her up so he could pound himself into her.
It was extraordinary. It was impossible.
He hurtled her over that edge again, and this time he came with her, roaring out her name as he came apart.
As they both found their way home.
For good.
16.
The next day, when Gunnar glanced up from the tablet he was trying to reboot, he wasn’t entirely surprised to see Wulf standing half in and half out of the shadows surrounding his study.
Alone.
“My liege,” Gunnar murmured, only eighty percent mocking, which he thought was an improvement.
Wulf’s arctic gaze swept over the table, with its jumble of computer parts Gunnar had left in no particular order, to the empty pillow in the corner and the chain that hung from the wall.
“Well,” he said, in that lazy voice of his, as if he’d never tried to save a woman who hadn’t wanted to be saved. “No one can say she wasn’t warned.”
“Not that it’s your business,” Gunnar said. Grudgingly. “But she’s fine. A little tied up at the moment, but fine.”
He didn’t think Wulf really needed to know even that much information about his mate. And Wulf certainly didn’t need to know that Maud was currently paying for her indiscretions yesterday in what Gunnar felt was an appropriate manner, given he wasn’t really pissed about the things she’d told the king and his men about Krajic and her bishop. At all.
Gunnar felt … free.
As if she’d somehow shifted a giant boulder off of his chest with her soft, sweet little hands. Because she loved him and she trusted him and that meant he could do anything. Even find that honorable man, deep inside him, that Audra had all but crushed into dust.
That man was a proud warrior of the brotherhood, committed to his people and this life. That man was a credit to clan and the raiders’ preeminent tech head, who had always, always served his king.
That man was a perfect, crooked reflection of Maud in every dark and twisted way possible, and Gunnar figured that meant he was in love with her too, his dirty little nun. Who was always and forever his, amen.
But he thought she’d appreciate that sentiment more after spending some time with a red hot, freshly spanked ass, tied up high and tight to that big X in one of his favorite rooms in the basement.
He and Wulf studied each other from across the table. Gunnar took a proud inventory of his blood brother’s swollen jaw and the hint of a black eye. To say nothing of his battered knuckles. He thought that smug little twitch in the corner of Wulf’s mouth meant he was doing the same.
The silence stretched out. Thickened. Off in the distance, Gunnar heard the basement door open.
He eyed his king. “Council meeting?”
Wulf leaned back against a tall stool and looked suddenly boneless. “Shit is still happening, whether you deign to take part in it or not.”
Gunnar held his blood brother’s gaze. “Do you think I’m a traitor?”
“If I did,” Wulf said distinctly, not lazy at all, “you’d be dead.”
That hummed between them, hard and unvarnished. And beautiful in its own way.
Gunnar wanted to ask about their half-sister, who he regretted hurting just because he could. Just because she was there, doing her job. Some part of him wanted to explain what it had been like, torn up inside and yet certain he’d been standing on the wrong side of a wall he couldn’t climb. How the only thing that had made sense to him was going farther into all that darkness. Disappearing into it.
How he’d been careening straight for his own destruction until he’d found Maud, and she’d smiled, and the darkness hadn’t stood a chance.
But he thought he’d rather cut out his own tongue than say such things to anyone but her.
Especially his blood brother, who happened to also be his king.
He straightened his shoulders as the council started to trickle in, and he pretended he didn’t see the way they looked back and forth between Wulf and him, gauging the situation from their silence.
Good luck with that, he thought.
“Okay,” Gunnar said when they were ready. Because he was ready, finally. Because Maud had brought him back to life in every way that mattered, and if he could find a way out of the darkness, anyone could. Maybe everyone could. That was the point. “Let’s turn on the lights.”
Acknowledgments
Thank you to Monique Patterson, Alexandra Sehulster, and everyone at St. Martin’s for being such a pleasure to work with!
About the Author
USA Today bestselling, RITA nominated, and critically-acclaimed author Megan Crane has written a lot of books: from women’s fiction, chick lit, and work-for-hire young adult novels to Harlequin Presents, where she writes as Caitlin Crews. These days her focus is on contemporary romance, from small towns to international glamour, cowboys to bikers, and beyond. She sometimes teaches creative-writing classes both online at mediabistro.com and at UCLA Extension’s prestigious Writers’ Program, where she finally utilizes the M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature she received from the University of York in England. She currently lives in California
with a husband who draws comics and animation storyboards and their menagerie of ridiculous animals. Or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE EDGE OF TEMPTATION. Copyright © 2016 by Megan Crane. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover art © Patricia “Picky Me” Schmitt
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected]
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
e-ISBN 9781466885332
First Edition: April 2016
