40. Maren
40
Maren
K ye stood, lifting me with him, then turned and deposited me on the bed as easily as a cushion he might have tossed away, though his body quickly trailed mine. His hands snatched the edge of my shirt—his shirt—out from under me, and with a powerful rip it was suddenly off. The tear charged the air between us as I sat there, suddenly bare in front of him.
He pressed a hand into my chest, pushing me down, and then followed, unwilling to allow distance between us. The numb ache of my healed back and the stab wound in my side became lost in the backwaters of my mind, forgotten under a raging current of want and need. I reached for his neck, sending the edges of my blanket to drop from my shoulders, but he pulled my hands over my head, pinning them to the bed as he captured my mouth with his. His heart beat against mine, so close his pulse throbbed somewhere inside me, setting glittering fire to my veins, sizzling across my skin.
Soft and dewy, Kye’s mouth floated to the curve of my jaw. A trail of kisses scorched my flesh, down the column of my throat where he licked and nibbled, inhaling the scent of me. I vibrated against him, igniting like wildfire, and he groaned into my collar bone, hips grinding mine hard enough to send wisps of sharp pleasure into my side.
I quivered under every wave of it. Then gasped when he found my breasts, his kiss alternating between soft and hard. He drew his mouth over one, the thrash and grip of his tongue alone enough to leave me drowning under a sea of decadent agony.
“Leihani,” Kye murmured, the rumble of his voice like a torch on my skin. He kissed all his way down my side—but stopped as he reached the flare of my hip. Warm hands wrapped firmly around my pelvis, lifting me into the air, yanking me suddenly further up the bed and placing my entrance directly under his chin. He laughed darkly, fingers drifting across me, leaving my head dizzy with only his touch.
“I don’t think you understand,” he said, guiding my legs slowly apart, “how I’ve dreamed of the feeling of you.” I panted, impatient at the brush of his warm breath against my thighs. He drew the backs of his knuckles up the inside of my leg, thumb poised at the top. “And that noise you make when you let yourself go.” His thumb tracked a cruelly idle curve around my center, and a whimper forced itself from my lungs.
He smiled, wrapping my right leg around his shoulder and anchoring the left flat with his hand. “That’s the one.”
And then he spread me wide, his tongue lashing into me before I could process his words. And every inch of me caught fire.
He lit me into flames, bright and feral, and watched me burn. And burn I did. In embers of wicked pleasure, I lay on a bed of coals as his ragged heat devoured me. And I reached for it, craving the cinders of him, the way he angled this way and that, his stubble rough but his tongue soft, his mouth viciously warm. He pulled back to let his hands take over, the edge of his teeth dragging so softly against my leg I nearly burst with urgency— until he slipped a finger inside my flesh, then two, working me into near madness.
I twisted my hands in the sheets, my head rocking backward from my neck, and wasn’t sure if my eyes were even open. He licked back down my thigh, swirling tongue and gentle nips, and my toes curled in wild ecstasy at the attack.
I had only enough time to moan as I suddenly fractured, legs weak and shuddering against his neck. The sound drove him further, massaging me inside and out, every crash of the tide inside my body breaking over and over as he devoured my climax and greedily demanded more.
“Kye,” I rasped, my voice ragged.
He only laughed, then drew away just enough to speak. “Maren.” The sound of his voice wrapped around my name cleaved into me, so beautiful and dark against my skin it sank beyond bone and marrow. To the heart of me, to my soul and whatever lies beyond. He dipped down again, tongue driving into me, sinful and ruining and exquisite with every stroke.
“Kye,” I said again, this time a weak cry.
He spread me softly with both hands, leaning in and pressing a kiss into the very crux of me. “Keep that up and I’ll never stop.”
“Come here,” I snarled, grappling for a hold of him between my fingers. Melted onto the bed, I could only reach the soft tips of his curls, but he laughed quietly again, rising on his palms to crawl over the top of me. He stopped when his forearms rooted on either side of my head, then lowered himself over me, snuffing the remainder of my fire.
His mouth found mine, the scent and taste of me still fresh on his lips. He kissed me, once, twice, a third time, then smiled against me, fingers finding mine and lacing together. “Tell me what you're thinking,” he murmured.
Thoughts were difficult to reach, so engulfed in the satisfying weight of him. “I’m thinking you’ve done that three times now,” I panted softly. “And I haven’t once.”
“Jealous?”
My mouth twitched. “Maybe.”
“Mmmm.” Kye nosed my cheek aside, planting a kiss in the hollow under my ear. “Maybe I like the way you say my name as you come undone. Maybe I’m vain enough to do it all night, playing your voice like my own personal harp, plucking your strings one at a time until you can no longer speak any word but my name. Maybe it drives me wild, to hear the song of you.”
He began to stray lower, lips wandering the cleft in my neck, the curve of my shoulder. “Sing for me, Leihani.” My lower half still somehow both tingling and deadened from the onslaught of his assault, I didn’t think I could withstand a second round. I clawed at his shoulder, pulling him back to me.
“Sadistic woman,” he purred. “Let me do it again.”
“No.” It was half growl and half laughter, though all of it threatening.
He sighed and drooped, dragging the tip of his tongue across my upper lip. “I won’t stand for this oppression.”
“You’ll have to,” I wheezed, mouth parting for him. He wrenched my chin slowly down with the soft push of his, opening my jaw wide, unrushed as he delved into my mouth. Still limp, I found the roots of his curls with my hands. Loose, lazy ringlets, as though they couldn’t decide between spirals or waves. I wrapped a finger around one as Kye drew back to kiss my nose, then slid off me and onto his side, leaning on a tattooed elbow.
He gathered me to him, my back to his chest, worming his arms around my waist and leaving not a breath between our skin. My eyes flickered over the walls. Wood hidden in the dark.
“I can’t sing,” I murmured.
He chuckled, burrowing himself into my hair. “I can’t either.”
“No, that’s not what I mean.” I swallowed silently. “That’s how we do it. That’s how we seduce. I can’t sing to you.”
My thoughts flickered back to Hadrian. Had he somehow eaten a bit of shield weed? It seemed unlikely; the aquatic plant was foreign to Calderian waters. Why hadn’t Thaan’s song worked on him?
“So…I’ll never hear you sing?” Kye asked.
“It means, if you do, you won’t remember it. Not unless you maintain a diet of shield weed. The market in Vranna was full of it, but I haven’t seen any since. But I keep some in Calder.”
“Ah,” he mumbled into my hair. “I suppose I’ll have to start eating it, then. I think it might break my heart a little if I never heard you sing.”