Blood Warrior

by Lindsey Piper

  There was penetration, and there was being consumed.

  They were devouring each other.

  She rubbed a drop of slick fluid around his throbbing head. He hissed. He shifted his grip. “Do it, Kavya.”

  “I could tease you all night,” she said against the hollow behind his ear. She licked there, then applied a test of teeth to his lobe. His reply was a thrust and a squeeze. She loved that call-and-response.

  “No teasing.” His voice was suddenly brittle. She heard bitterness and emotional pain. “Kavya . . .”

  “You’re right. No teasing. That’s not what I want. I’ve been curious since those first moments in your tent. I’ve been hungry since you stripped for me. I’ve been half-mad since you tasted me in the sunlight. It’s been long enough. More than that, it’s been more than enough since meeting you.”

  With a shift of her pelvis, she angled so that the head of his cock nudged between her slick lips. She took a breath. Looked him in the eyes. Smiled.

  She kissed him when he slid home.

  Pain bolted through what had been perfect pleasure, leaving aftershocks of surprise and a gasp that he swallowed with a deeper kiss.

  “So full,” she gasped again, barely able to connect words. “So . . . Tallis, oh, Dragon damn.”

  “Big.” He thrust up, deep. She’d thought once was spectacular enough. “Right now you can’t believe it’s possible. How I’m filling you.” Dipping his head, he licked the tops of her breasts. “You’re greedy to learn how much more you can take.”

  With her temple pressed down against his, she laughed. “Now you can talk.”

  “Only one of us at a time.” He caught her gaze. The animal—his great gift—was staring out from Tallis’s deep blue eyes. “But we’ve started now, Kavya.”

  “Yes. I don’t know what I need. You do. Please.”

  A feral smile replaced his crooked tease. “Hold tight around my neck. I won’t let you fall.”

  He started by drawing back from her, until his ass must’ve touched the wall. The entire time, he held her hips with his big, widespread hands. His surging return shook her thoughts into scattered puzzle pieces. Kavya threw her chin toward the ceiling and shuddered. He withdrew and returned. Withdrew . . . and slammed back. Each time, the feeling came as a surprise—being stretched and filled, as if she’d always been missing this questing pulse.

  She tightened the insides of her knees against his arms and began to work her hips in a matching rhythm. They parted. Their eyes caught. They joined. The intimacy was breathtaking. This was feeling. Feeling. She’d never been closer to another living soul, in ways that had nothing to do with thought and little to do with the flesh. The flesh was the inspiration for something far deeper.

  Her heart fluttered in her chest, out of time with the rest of her body. She shoved aside confusing emotional reactions in favor of ones that made sense. Tallis had bared his teeth. Each thrust freed another glimpse of the raging violence he kept leashed for her. A growl followed. His eyes were hazy and intense and burning and lost.

  Kavya used his body. She hadn’t known that was possible either, but it was so simple. She trusted his strength and his solid hold. When the pressure of pleasure began to build—almost baffling, in that it could be so much more intense—she pinched the caps of his shoulders. He took her aggression and fed it back. He drove into her with such speed and force. Sweat shimmered over his gold-flushed flesh and dampened his chest hair. She bowed her head and licked. Tallis lifted his hand, holding her mouth against his skin. He bucked up, up, up as she dropped her hips to meet him.

  With her face held firmly against his chest, and her legs spread, and the whole of her stability—her satisfaction—dependent on Tallis, she finally gave up on thought. She was being penetrated and consumed. There was nothing of hers that he didn’t master. Taking. Giving, until Kavya held nothing back. The beautiful pleasure became the pounding of drums. Bright. Sharp. Loud. She cried out against his chest, then bit into firm muscle.

  And burst apart.

  She shook and gasped as distilled pleasure bathed her nerve endings. Sugar and wine and rain. Behind her lids was only white upon white.

  Tallis grounded her.

  Until it was his turn.

  He slapped both hands back on her ass and immobilized her pelvis. She hadn’t realized how much freedom he’d given her to move. This was for him. He took. Head lifted, Kavya watched him hurtle toward release. She could sympathize now, envy now, appreciate now—how the tendons on his neck were tight cables and how his bared teeth gave him the appearance of a man in pain rather than on the cusp of pleasure.

  “Kavya,” he breathed—a whispered growl. “You’re real.”

  She crossed her arms behind his neck and pulled their upper bodies close. She was coming again, slower this time, but with a stronger power, diffuse, slamming her from all sides. Finding one of those tight tendons, she bit his neck as the shocks and aftershocks, ripples and undertow sucked her down again. In a beautiful fog, she realized what he needed.

  “I’m real, Tallis. I’m Kavya of Indranan. You’ve just made your goddess into a woman.”

  He growled, tensed, drove deep one last time, until his breath became her name in a shuddering chant.

  —

  Tallis slowly eased free and lowered Kavya to the ground. Her knees buckled as she took her own weight. He was exhausted, his mind blown, his body sated, but he pulled her to his chest in a protective, solid hold. The wall at his back was steady, just as he was steady for her. They stood that way, naked and vulnerable. He traced the length of her drying hair. She made a contented sound and nuzzled deeper. Her cheek pressed into the hollow between his pectorals. She’d be able to hear his heart, which was only beginning to return to a normal pace.

  She shivered.

  The room was cold, but only with that delicate shake of her shoulders did Tallis realize it. He stooped to grab one of the towels and threaded it around her back. She hugged into it, then returned to his embrace.

  “Thank you,” she whispered against his skin.

  He was humbled. He was definitely speechless. Few events in his life had affected him with such power. To have pleased her while being given the gift of her trust was miraculous. This wasn’t something he could smile about while walking away.

  Especially when she shifted her weight and winced.

  He glanced down. “Oh, fuck. Your feet.”

  Blood smeared the concrete where she’d rested the weight of one foot.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks. You know it’ll be healed by morning.”

  Tallis was unmoved by protest. “Come here.”

  “Another go? So soon? I guess I never thought to wonder if Dragon King men possessed yet another gift—one human men would envy.”

  Returning her arch smile, Tallis scooped her into his arms. “And here I’d thought I was just a special case.”

  “You are a special case,” she said, swirling her fingertips through his chest hair.

  “Now you’re just being a flirt.” But her words were enough to still his heart—before sending it speeding to double time. “Sit here. I’ve got your back.”

  “That’s the sexiest thing a man can say to me.”

  He nuzzled the hollow beneath her jaw. “I’ve got better. You just caught me out in a laundry room.”

  “Took you by surprise, did I?”

  “Very much so.”

  “Good. I wanted to.”

  Tallis turned on the warm water, still supporting her so that she perched on the edge of the deep utility sink with her feet dangling inside. “Why was that important?”

  “I was at a disadvantage. You’d given me a preview, but I didn’t know what to expect. I’m not used to going into a situation where I can’t get a read on it. I liked that you didn’t know what was going to happen either.”

  “With you, Kavya, I never know what’s going to happen.”

  She turned to kiss his shoulder. “I’ll take that
as a compliment.”

  Because he was again at a loss for words, Tallis set about tending her injured soles. “Lean forward and grip the faucet. Hold your balance while I grab more towels.”

  She did so, naked and glowing with clean skin, vibrant energy, and the sexual authority of a woman who’d been thoroughly satisfied, and who apparently knew what it was to level a man with her creativity and responsiveness. Tallis had been leveled. She peeked sideways through her draped hair, watching him as he gathered a trio of towels. Her smile was soft and private, yet invited him to return.

  He draped the towels all over her. “As much as I’d want warm water for you, it has to be cold.”

  “To help stop the bleeding. Yes.”

  Taking each calf in hand, with his chest pressed against her graceful back, Tallis realized that no matter how satisfied he’d been by their first encounter—that was the catch. He wanted to think of it as their first, not their only. The first of many. Because her calves were beautifully sculpted with soft muscle and elegant bones. Her feet were dainty. Her ribs were narrow but told him that her breathing was picking up speed again. Those details were innumerable.

  He’d never learn them all in the span of a few days. That realization stabbed regret behind his sternum and choked off his next breath.

  A quick fuck against a laundry room wall wasn’t enough. He was a greedy ass for wanting more than what had just blown reality onto another plane, but there it was. He wouldn’t be satisfied with one taste of this woman. His deeper, animalistic soul wouldn’t be either. There was tenderness to be had, and there was blood-stirring aggression—the kind he hadn’t been able to indulge for her first time.

  Kavya hissed when the cold water sluiced over her feet. “Oh, Dragon be. That’s just mean.”

  “At least it’s not the mountains?”

  “I’ll never be warm when thinking about that day. Not ever.”

  She began to shiver in earnest. Tallis held her closer, sharing his warmth. He rubbed her upper arms and the tops of her thighs. A gentle moan worked out of her throat.

  “I guess that’s not so terrible,” she said.

  “But we don’t need you frozen either.” He used one of the towels to pat dry her soles. The terry cloth came away tinged with watery pink. “Not perfect, but better.”

  He hoisted her from the sink and sat her on the pile of white he’d tossed down from the wire shelf. She still huddled into one towel, but it didn’t cover beautiful glimpses of her body. Copper skin poked out everywhere. The backs of her hands, the slope of her throat, the tops of her knees. He shook his head and focused on his task. He couldn’t get them up to a room without looking the part of a guest.

  The hotel room was the goal. He wanted her there, in bed, in his arms.

  Then they’d talk about Scotland. He had a plan, finally. She needed to know why he was contemplating the unthinkable.

  Going home.

  Tallis pulled on his new clothes.

  “That’s hardly fair,” she said with a smile.

  “You’re the invalid. Get better, then you can make the rules. I’m not playing nurse while kneeling naked.”

  “You just don’t want me to see you when you’re not so Dragon-damned impressive.”

  He wiggled his eyebrows above a smirking smile. “Doesn’t matter. You know what’s waiting for you when you want it.”

  “I want it.”

  She didn’t look away or blush like a girl, nor did laughter tickle behind her words. It was a blunt, assured statement that unmoored him again. Tallis knew how things ought to have been. This wasn’t it.

  Only, he couldn’t find it in himself to wish for anything else. Just him. Kavya. A cold cement floor. And a magnet-strong attraction between them that neither could deny.

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “Not any more than I wanted.” She trailed her fingertip up down his forearm. “It was . . . There aren’t words.”

  With his gaze riveted to hers, he said evenly, “You’ll have it. Me. My prick. At your beck and call.” He paused, but realized he had one more promise to make—for him, a man who didn’t make promises. “And I’ll have your back.”

  She stilled her petting caress on a soft, “Oh.”

  Tallis had to look away. She infected him with a complete loss of perspective. He’d experienced that same feeling before, when under the spell of his dream version of the Sun, and swore he’d never again fall for that spinning, twirling sense of losing his way.

  Being with Kavya was being lost and found.

  He used the point of his seax to shred pieces of a towel, then fashioned them into neat bandages that looked a little like socks. Not the most traditional of Indian garments to be worn with a sari, but he only needed to fake their way upstairs. Carefully, he smoothed her new slippers over the wrapped cloth. He helped her stand and retrieved the simple blue sari from their collection of new purchases.

  One look at the yards of fabric and he simply handed it over. “Can’t help you there.”

  “Oh, but you help getting it off just fine.”

  She pleated and twisted intricate folds until she was swathed in blue. The color didn’t bring out her eyes so much as create an undeniable contrast. The purest sunrise blue against amber-brown mountains. With a few deft moves, she braided her hair and tied it off with a piece of the ruined maroon sari. Up and around, she curled it into a dark, lustrous crown, then wrapped the last swatch of blue cloth over her head, around her throat, and down one shoulder.

  Tallis stared, blinking only when she asked, “Respectable enough?”

  “Just enough.”

  While packing their things and setting the laundry room to rights, he shivered. Only once, but it penetrated into his marrow and every cell. The basement cold wasn’t to blame, but the realization that with regard to Kavya of Indranan, he was in very deep trouble.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  Tallis escorted Kavya up the rear steps and toward the check-in desk. A young clerk sat on a narrow stool reading a celebrity tabloid. Through the use of her gift and an extra bump, bump of her hips, Kavya seduced the clerk within moments.

  “Key to the top floor.” Her voice was the essence of sweet innocence.

  His reaction was as predictable as phases of the moon: the clerk nodded and retrieved the key. His eyes were unfocused, his jaw a little slack.

  Kavya placed a finger on her lips. “Shhh. Don’t tell.”

  Only when they were up the stairs and out of sight did Tallis level her with a questioning glare. “And if he does tell?”

  She shook her head and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “He won’t remember us in a few moments. We’ll be nothing more substantial than a story he read in that paper.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you could do that in the first place?”

  “You seemed so heroic in trying to find a back way in.”

  “You’re teasing me. What’s the real reason?”

  “I told you,” she said with quiet sobriety. “I don’t use it for personal gain. Two times now, both for a roof over our heads. It feels as wrong as prostitution.”

  He gripped her shoulders until they stood face to face. “Then I won’t ask you to do it again. Promise.”

  “You can do that?”

  “I’ve made more promises in the last hour than I have in a decade.”

  After a quiet intake of air, her eyes wide, Kavya keyed the lock. Tallis was equally taken aback by his words, but that didn’t make them less true. He followed her into a long room with narrow walls and a low ceiling. The bed would accommodate two people, and the sink had faucets. There was a mirror and a small padded chair, the upholstery of which was worn but serviceable. In all, he was pleased with his choice of hotel.

  “How many guests?” he asked.

  “Nine people in the building,” she said, her concentration plain. He liked the reassurance of being able to recognize when she used her gift. “That will probably change come evening.”
>
  Tallis shut the door, caught her by the waist, and pressed her against the white-painted wood. Her sensual mouth was within inches of his. “You will sleep tonight, even if I have to stay awake until dawn with both seaxes in hand. We have a long way to go. And you’ll need it. I have plans for us.”

  “Plans? Do tell.”

  “Later. Right now we have better things to do.”

  Tallis kissed her with a degree of feeling he’d never experienced. There was passion, the mating of mouths and the struggle to taste, feel, explore even more. There was tenderness, so that his gift didn’t overpower his higher-level thinking. He wanted to make love to Kavya with both halves of his nature.

  Always in the past, that balance had been a struggle to maintain. He’d stay too cloistered in the logic of a thinking man, or he’d leave rationality behind in favor of easy, beastly impulses. Only upon emerging from one of his rages did he feel anything other than bloodlust—or in this case, the lust between a woman and a man. He compared himself to a junkie who lived for the high, when nothing else mattered, but who suffered the regret of again having given in.

  This was no struggle. Two halves blended in harmony, kissing Kavya.

  He braced his palms flat against the door, on either side of her head. She had the freedom to touch him. He refrained. For now. Her touch was enough, as she skimmed her hands beneath the layers of his shirt and new coat. She was the most intriguing mix of eager and tentative, as if even now, after her wild initiation, she remained unsure of what to do next and how to get what she wanted. He was tempted to show her more, but not yet. How would she go about tackling the puzzle of her sexual inexperience?

  This was . . . novel. Sweet. Intriguing.

  Kavya pushed her tongue into his mouth, then made a frustrated noise. She pulled away, met his gaze. “I liked your teeth.”