Welcome to our first Lick, an excerpt from Dark Side of the Sun, posted today in celebration of book three’s cover reveal! (You can see it here!) Why is this excerpt not in Bites, you ask? Because Licks are NSFW excerpts, and it’s only polite to keep them separate! Look forward to a new Lick on the smutty seventeenth of every month!

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…Bran flushed, and Macsen reached out and drew him close again, nuzzled his cheek and kissed his jaw, the curve of his ear, then down again toward his mouth. This kiss was rougher, deeper, and Bran tasted blood without knowing whose lip he had bitten. One of Macsen’s hands ran through his hair, dragged sharp nails against his scalp, held his head still. Despite himself, Bran groaned and gave in to his own desire. The soft lips opened to Bran’s tongue. He felt cool, tingling hands reach up to touch his cheeks, felt them running through his hair, slip down around his shoulders.

Bran turned his head under the pressure of a nudge and another kiss, and Macsen pulled him into a closer embrace. Bran opened his eyes and the movement felt lazy. Was the Red King’s kiss a drug?

No. It’s just desire.

Bran licked his lips, a quick darting of his tongue. He felt Macsen’s eyes on the motion and knew then the inevitable end of this confrontation.

“You’re trying to distract me, but I want—”

“I don’t want to talk about your mother right now, Bran Fionnan. I don’t want to talk at all. Not now. Ask me anything you want, but later. Not now.”

He leaned close, breathed deeply. Bran felt Macsen’s breath against his lips and tried once more, but he was pressing up against Macsen even as he spoke, even as his words became a murmur that washed against Macsen’s lips.

“You’re sure no one—”

“No one will see us tonight. Not unless it’s someone with more power than me.” Macsen’s voice was breathless, his eyes shining and dark, the pupils dilated with lust. “Now, don’t struggle. I’d never hurt you, beautiful Bran—”

Macsen licked Bran’s lips, so soft, so teasing. Bran knew what was about to happen the moment before it did, but in that moment he found that he didn’t care. He had accepted Macsen’s nature for what it was—he enjoyed it, darkness and all. It was proof that Macsen was like him, proof that he was sidhe. Bran’s want flowed hot in him, spurring him onward, and beside his lust was the same welling of inexplicable trust that he had felt the night before. Trust. It was a promise with no words that was reinforced by Macsen’s aura, Macsen’s presence.

Macsen smirked, his lips stretching over white teeth, then bent to Bran’s throat. Bran felt Macsen’s tongue against his skin. Sharp teeth penetrated deep. A tickle like the brush of a feather became twin needles of sensation and fluttering heat. Bran gasped. The feeling was nothing like what he had imagined.

The theft of his blood was a delicate seduction that gave him promises instead of pain. For a moment it let him feel the rich, dark core of Macsen’s being—but that moment was very short. Macsen had taken barely a mouthful from Bran’s veins, but he was already stepping back.

“Delicious.”

Macsen’s hands roamed Bran’s skin through untied, unlaced clothes. Dazed, Bran wondered when that had happened. Macsen’s touch aroused, stimulated, tempted. His fingers teased Bran’s nipples into hard points and his other hand slipped between the tight press of their bodies and grasped the straining stiffness of Bran’s erection. Macsen lifted his lips from Bran’s throat and soothed the shallow wound there with his tongue. For a moment a haze hung across Macsen’s eyes. Bran saw it, heard Macsen’s voice thicken and slow and soften into a murmur that brushed heat against the tender place on his throat.

“Be my lover, beautiful Bran, my lover…”

Bran didn’t know why Macsen had stopped to ask. It felt like he had wanted this touch, this moment, forever. It didn’t matter that need and desire weren’t really the same thing, not right now. He surprised himself with the force of his answer. “Yes.”

That one word seemed like it was enough to awaken the bestial promise that slept in the Red King. Bran felt the shift in the hands that pulled his clothes from his body, hands that grasped his throbbing erection and pulled pleasure from his loins with smooth, slow strokes.

They stumbled together, and came up against the wall of Bran’s house. Macsen held Bran pinned there with the weight of his body, and Bran slipped his fingers against Macsen’s chest and down, down—he needed no encouragement to return the pleasure that Macsen’s stroking fingers gave him.

He could feel Macsen’s pulse beating in the heavy hardness that slid back and forth across his palm—then their gasps were equal and they panted together, gasping, moaning. Bran’s head fell forward against Macsen’s chest. He heard his own voice calling out, strangled and broken.

“Macsen…Macsen…Macsen…”

Macsen was quieter, but his whisper, “Bran,” was tender and sharp enough to send a new shudder rolling over Bran’s skin.