She let out a watery laugh, and her body trembled against him.
The pearl thief, having put down his weapon, kept casting wary eyes at Tor. A fact he had not overlooked. Tor didn’t even bother turning to look at Merona or anyone else in the room, his eyes were all for Klym, but the fucker had to know, and Klym needed her pearls back. “That Vaniiya-damned guard of yours stole your daughter’s pearls.”
Klym’s eyes widened on his. Her lip trembled. “You got them back?”
“You sold your mother’s pearls?” Merona whispered, and for that, Tor did look back, because he wanted to see the look on his face. It was ashen. He looked like he’d taken a grazer hoof to the solar plexus.
Klym didn’t look at Merona. She just stared at Tor. “You got them back for me?”
“Of course.”
He rested his head on her sternum, got his nose between her perfect breasts and rubbed back and forth. She smelled like home.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Why did you really leave?” he asked, trailing his nose up her neck to press a kiss there. “If it was just about Pijuan, you could have hidden.”
Her throat moved against his cheek. “You took me for peace. And you used me as a side perk.”
How had she found out? He pulled back to see her eyes. Wet and warm and gray. “The other way around. Peace was the side perk.”
Her hands tightened in his hair, and she brought her lips to his. He groaned. The last time they’d kissed felt like it was a few centuries ago. She tasted way better than the ball-gag. Her lips were worth crossing a few galaxies and risking a little torture. He groaned against her and felt her lips curve against his.
Why the Premier had to choose that precise moment to walk up, Tor couldn’t have said. But he stood over them, tall and skinny with hair the color of a carrot, and cleared his throat.
Klym didn’t even acknowledge him. Her thumbs stroked along the corners of Tor’s lips.
“Come home with me.” He finally said the thing he’d come here to say.
“Yes,” she whispered.
The Premier cleared his throat.
The hollow feeling in Tor’s chest, the one that had been gnawing and sucking and tearing at him since the minute she’d disappeared in the riot, dissolved. He dropped his face back between her breasts and shut his eyes.
47
Freedom is overrated
“DONE.” TOR GLANCED over at Klym and dropped his hands from the console in the front of his ship.
She slid the buckle on her harness and pulled off the straps, trying desperately not to think about what that meant. They were headed home. They were in love. They were going to spend their lives together. They were finally going to answer the question of what happened when a Vestige Prime and an Argenti woman… you know.
She smoothed the fabric of her dress and caught his eye.
He was watching her, and for once there was no trace of amusement or anger or anything else. He was just looking at her. It was a look that made her heart pound and her face spread in a smile. It was a look that said he was thinking the exact same thing.
Her hands itched to touch him. It felt like it had been forever since they’d touched him. They’d been surrounded by Argenti officials ever since the awful showdown with her father. Stopped for questioning until finally they got clearance to leave. She’d declined the offer to stay in Argentus to witness the trial, when it finally happened.
They’d had to go pick up Staria, who’d still been at the ball, having the time of her life, surrounded by Argenti. She’d agreed—reluctantly—to leave, but only because Tor swore there’d be an Argenti base built on Vesta in the next six months.
Staria had sent Spiro, who’d still been groggy and grumpy after taking a second sharp object to the neck, a look that had sent his blond eyebrows high, and his bold blue eyes burning.
If Klym had to guess, Spiro would find a way to be the commander of that base.
And finally, she and Tor were alone. Well, almost.
Staria pulled off her harness. “I’m not going to Lasserone,” she said, tilting her chin back, and glaring at Tor, all spit and defiance.
“That’s fine,” he said quietly. “You can stay at the Roq as long as you want.”
She rose slowly. “I’ll stay until that Argenti base is built.”
Tor lifted his shoulder.
Staria chewed on her thumb nail. “How long until we get to Vesta?”
“Nine days.”
Staria pulled one side of her mouth down. “I think a heat is coming on.”
Tor’s jaw dropped. It might be the first time she’d ever seen him truly surprised.
A heat meant that Staria would go insane with lust, it meant she’d become almost violently aroused and release pheromones in the air that would make any male irrational with lust. A quick flash of Staria’s long skinny arms and legs wrapped around Tor had Klym rising to her feet.
Someone would die before that happened.
She would not share him. She traced her fingertips along each ridge of her pearls. “Maybe we should go back to Argentus, then. Find someone to…”
Tor’s dimples went positively murderous. “Why didn’t you say something soone—”
“Just kidding.” Staria clapped her hands together and guffawed. “But you should see your faces.”
Klym’s heart resumed its beat. Tor’s mouth twitched.
“I’m going to go lock myself in the other bunk. Let me know when we get there. You kids have fun.” Staria sauntered down the hall.
And like that, they were alone.
Just Klym and Tor, on the spaceship they’d fallen in love in, barreling through space at two hundred meters per second, passing from portal to portal, toward a fiery-amber planet full of people who were her enemy no longer, where they would make war on the Alliance, and peace with Argentus.
“So, what’s going on back in Tamminia?”
“Gaspart is handling things until we’re back.”
“And Pijuan?”
“He’ll come back.”
Klym spread her hands over her thighs. Pijuan would come back, and he would find a united regio and selissa. He’d find her accepted because, if nothing else, the gift Janna’s video had given her was proof of acceptance like she’d never known before in her whole life. They accepted her despite who she was born to, not just because of it.
She licked her lips. “And there will be a war?”
His dark eyes glittered in the dark. “Not if I can help it.”
She shook her shoe, and the bell on the tip jangled. She didn’t need to know anything more. “Then I’m ready.”
“Ready?” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and steepled his palms.
She nodded. “Ready.”
“For?” He traced his thumbs against each other. The ship’s low orange lights played on his sharp collar bones, and shadows pooled behind his jaw. His hair shone darkly in its bun.
“You,” she breathed, staring at his thumbs in their slow rhythm. “Whatever happens.”
He trailed his tongue along his teeth, a little smile playing around his lips. “Whatever happens,” he repeated slowly. The dimple glimmered with carnal promise, but he didn’t move.
She tapped the bells together. “Maybe you’ll become addicted to me.”
“I already am.”
Warmth spread through her whole body. “Maybe your pheromones will induce some sort of weird hybridized heat.”
The sly smile stretched into a wide grin, and his knee bounced up and down a few times.
“Or maybe we’ll end up in a haze.”
He looked down at his hands. “You’ve spent some time thinking about this?”
“I’ve thought about it a lot,” she admitted.
“Me too.” He looked up at her, the tip of his tongue between his teeth. “In great detail.”
“And? What did you decide?”
“Doesn’t matter. If you go into a Vestige
-style heat, I’ll gladly fuck you through it until we are both dehydrated, starving, and shaking from the effort. And if it goes the other way, Argenti style, and I end up being addicted to your pussy?” He spread his hands. “Well, that isn’t much of a change. Can’t say I’d mind having you addicted to my cock, though.” He lifted a shoulder. “I just hope I don’t hurt you.”
She blew out a long breath. She was ready. She’d imagined this moment a hundred different ways.
Holding his gaze, she walked to him. “Says the man who’s always threatening to spank me.”
He shifted his legs, and she stepped between his spread thighs. “It’ll happen.”
She took his face between her palms. “Come with me.”
His hands closed around the backs of her knees, those thumbs tracing along the sensitive skin there, making her shiver. He pulled her closer, until their lips hovered over one another.
“I missed you, amiera,” he breathed into her mouth, and they’d kissed hundreds of times, maybe thousands, but it had never been like this, because there’d always been doubt and fear and confusion all twisted with a soupcon of mistrust.
There was none of that now. There was nothing but hunger and need coiling low inside her body, because even though she had a thousand questions about what was about to happen, she didn’t really care.
This would end with him inside her, claiming her, making her his, and all that mattered was that they were going to be together for the rest of their lives.
He kept trying to slow her down, but she didn’t want slow. He kept trying to be gentle. But she didn’t want gentle. She climbed into his lap, pulling her skirts up so she could straddle him, and get all that hard, long Prime length of him near the hot, needy part of herself that called to him.
Her hips bucked at the press of his pants against her bare, wet skin.
His body jerked, and he let out a long, low growl, pressing up against her. It wasn’t anything they hadn’t done before, but it was different this time, because there’d be no holding back. Not this time. Not ever again.
And because there were no manners in bed with Tor, she let the wild part of herself take over, and she growled back.
His face registered brief surprise before his tongue tangled with hers, and then his hands were everywhere, moving and pulling and tugging her until they were both breathless.
“I need you, Tor.”
He growled at that, his hands gripping her bottom, his tongue still deep in her mouth, and he stood up and walked them to his chamber.
Her shoulders hit the bed, and she scrambled her way backward while he crawled up over her, their noses bumping as they tried to keep their mouths together. She realized she was smiling, and so was he.
He pulled away for a second and yanked his shirt over his head, and the scars and the tattoos and the rippling, beautiful, perfect abs with the mesmerizing veins that spread lower. Later, she’d spend hours reacquainting herself with all of them, the scars and tattoos and each of those abs and the veins, she’d drag her tongue along every single one, but not now.
Now she just needed him. Because he smelled so good. Her head was spinning, and she didn’t feel entirely in control of her own senses. She felt dizzy and desperate, like she’d been starving forever and he offered everything she’d ever wanted.
A stab of need drifted through her lower abdomen.
His hands drifted to her laces, tugging at them impatiently. The bodice opened. He cursed at the dress and, after a second, sank his finger into the top and yanked. The fabric ripped down to her navel, and she shivered when her hard nipples were exposed to the cold air.
He tilted his head back as if in prayer. “Vaniiya, I love these tits.”
He would use the word love for the first time in person when referring to her breasts. And then his hands and his mouth were back, at her neck, on her chest, roving over her breasts, tugging the rest of the dress away, and she was naked, and somehow so was he. He’d managed to kick off his boots and get his pants down around his ankles. She reached her hand down between them, groping, desperate to feel him.
It bumped against her thighs, hard and long, and her mouth went dry. She reached for it, closing her fist around its thickness, feeling the silky-soft skin.
“Vaniiya,” she said, trying out the word. “I love this cock.”
He froze, the muscles of his chest tightening, and his mouth released her nipple and the pearly orbs of his eyes found hers. She’d expected him to growl something about promising her that she’d say that again soon, or that he’d make her say that every day of her life, but he didn’t. He stared at her with a look of such intense longing it twisted her heart. “And the rest of me?”
She didn’t even hesitate. “So much it’s scary. So much I don’t even trust myself. I considered killing Staria earlier because no way was I going to let you see her through a heat. I don’t think I’d have done it—not really, but I’d have locked her in the brig and let her suffer through it alone. Tie you to the bed if you even considered going to her. I wouldn’t have even felt bad about it.”
He kicked his pants off one ankle. “I’d have killed her for sure. She’s annoying.”
Klym laughed. “She’s not annoying. But I’m not sharing.”
He stroked his thumb along the corner of her lips. “I’m all yours.”
He found her lips again with his, and of all the kisses she’d known from him—and there had been so many—this was the softest, the kindest, the gentlest.
He touched her everywhere, as if it was the first time he’d seen her body, moving so slowly she bucked and growled with frustration, but every time she reached for him, he batted her hands away. When he slid a finger inside her, she pulled on his hair and clutching at him, rocking against him, trying to get the angle right. She was so close.
“Don’t come yet,” he breathed in her ear. “This time, you’ll do it with me inside you.”
She nodded frantically, her body shuddering. “Hurry, then.”
When he rose up, his weight on his elbows over her, panting, and fitted himself between her thighs, it just felt so right. Like he was answering a question her body had been asking her whole life.
He stroked the broad head through her wetness, and pushed inside.
He pulled her legs around his waist. And it barely hurt. He slid inside so slowly, rocking back and forth, pressing kisses and whispering words at her. Maybe it was Vestigi, or maybe they were old gods—she barely heard them. All she knew was that she wasn’t alone, because he was inside her, and she’d never be alone again, because he’d always be there.
This was Tor being tender and sweet.
And then he wasn’t tender anymore, and he wasn’t sweet. He was rough and hard, and that was exactly what she loved most about him. He didn’t treat her like she’d break.
His hands were everywhere, in her hair, at her neck, roving up her back, down to her bottom, pulling her closer. And hers were worse, pulling at his hair and shoulders, thrust back to meet him.
Her throat was dry, her vision was dark, her breaths came too fast, and he was all she could see or hear or feel. He blocked out the light. It was as if some demon had invaded her body, everything tightening and coiling and building up.
The Argenti spoke of the red haze, a frenetic, riotous frenzy of sex and desperation, and this was all of that, as if something had changed deep down inside her and only one thing mattered. The beast within that surged to the surface.
“Oh, gods, I’m so close.” Her eyes drifted shut, and she let fly a long stream of incoherent ramblings.
Tor’s hand dragged up to seize her by the throat, face hard and dark above hers. “Stop calling on gods. Who’s inside you?”
“You.”
He kept on thrusting. “Who do you belong to?”
“You.”
“That’s right. Me. Tor. You call my name when I fuck you.”
She’d have laughed, but he was thrusting and his cock found just the right place
inside her, that the dam broke and an orgasm tore through her body so intense she screamed, and this time, it was his name she cried out. Tor.
His body moved in hard, jagged thrusts, his open mouth panting against her neck, his teeth there, pressing against the skin, a silent threat and a promise, his hands clenching on her body, his weight pressing her down, and the sounds he made. Low, beast-growls that called to something deep inside, that pulled her unstoppably toward another peak. “Abysmos,” he grunted against her neck.
“Who are you inside?” she said, surprised because it came out like a snarl.
He pulled up, eyes slightly out of focus, and looked at her. “What?”
She sank her nails into the firm curves of his bottom. “If I have to call your name when you fuck me, you can bloody well call my name back when you come.”
His lips curved, his eyes registering shock and surprise, and then his lips were on hers, and he was groaning her name into her mouth, thrust in deep, bottoming out inside her, and she felt the searing hot rush of him spurting inside her, all the way at her core, pulling at her chest, taking root and blooming.
His eyes flared, and she knew he felt it too. Maybe not a soul-bond, but something that connected them, let her feel his emotions, the sadness for Dillan and Jasto was there, the frustration at having to be regio, and a deep and boundless awe whenever he thought of her, a determination to keep her safe and make her happy, and what truly slayed her was the promise that he’d be the man she wanted him to be.
“You already are,” she told him. “So much more.”
Whatever it was he saw, he made a face she’d never seen him make before. “I love you,” he whispered.
He moved again, and the slippery, hot slide melted away her thoughts. This time, when she came, he was inside her, thick and hard and strong.
He traced his nose behind her ear. “You smell like me now.”
“I imagine I do. No more markings.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and another to her nose.
“So now we know that answer,” she said into his neck. “To that appalling joke.”
The Taming Page 29