Chapter 14 #6
“Great fucking Makers,” he chokes out against my lips, tangling his fingers into my hair. I tighten my grip around him, gliding my fist up and down his cock, spreading the moisture beading on the thick crown with my palm. “Don’t stop. For the love of all the Makers don’t fucking stop.”
“Never,” I whisper, echoing his own words before sucking his bottom lip between my own as I glide my fist up and down.
Faster. Harder. He rocks his hips in time with my movements, clutching at my waist with one hand, the other still tight in my hair holding me to him.
His beard tickles my skin and I smile against his lips.
“Fuck, you’re going to make me come, Tess.”
“Like this?” I pant, the idea making desire boil inside my veins.
“Just like this,” he growls. So I don’t stop.
I keep pumping my fist, kissing him hard and thrusting my tongue against his.
“Ah Makers…going to…FUCK!” His hips jerk forward again as he comes hard, his entire body going rigid, every muscle clenched as I keep pumping, gentler now.
Something about it is so arousing and heady.
Making this hardened, lethal warrior come with just my hand, trousers still on?
It sends power sizzling through my blood.
I grin as he finishes and he rests his forehead against mine, breathing hard.
“Well that didn’t take much,” I tease.
“Woman, you could look at me the right way and I’d come,” he says, completely unabashed. Warmth fills my chest, my cheeks flushing. Having power over this man is…intoxicating. Addicting.
“Think I’ll try that sometime,” I tease. He laughs lightly, forehead still resting against mine. I turn serious as my fingers drift over the new scar on his side. “I’m glad you’re ok,” I whisper.
“I saw your face.”
“What?” I pull back and look up at him.
“When the blade sank home and I felt that it could be a mortal wound if I couldn’t get to Copeland in time, your face flashed behind my eyes.
Yours, Tess. I knew that I had to get back to you, I had to kiss you, at least once.
I had to tell you…” He trails off and swallows hard.
“I vowed I would get back to you, and somehow, I did.” He cradles my face with both hands, thumbs tracing soft lines along my cheekbones in a gesture that seems far too tender for a warrior like him, one that breaks my heart into a million pieces in the best possible way.
I close my eyes and lean in, kissing him softly and conveying the words I can’t quite make myself say out loud yet through this touch.
I can’t tell him how I feel until I can tell him the truth about me, who I really am and how I came to be here, and I can’t do that until we reach Duskthorne.
“We should get back,” I whisper. He sighs but nods, stepping away and striding back into the water to clean himself up.
I hop off of the rock and nearly stumble, my legs still shaky from the things Killian did…
the things I’m dying to have him do again.
My mind runs wild with the other things I want to do, but it’s probably for the best that we didn’t take things much further tonight.
When we’re finally together, completely together, I want it to be my name that he’s yelling to the rafters and whispering into the night, my name that he says over and over like it’s a prayer. My name, forever, no one else’s.
I rinse my hands at the water’s edge and pull on my boots before grabbing my coat and tugging it back on.
Killian trudges out of the water, shaking his hair out like a dog and making me laugh.
He gathers his armor and cloak, leaving his ruined tunic on the ground near the pool.
He wraps his cloak around himself and leans down to kiss me once more before gathering up the lantern and leading the way back to camp.
It’s quiet as death when we approach, almost everyone deep in sleep at this late hour—everyone except my nosey familiar, apparently.
-Well, well, well…-
-I hear in Enola, they use feline entrails to make musical instruments.-
I can practically hear his answering smirk inside my head but roll my eyes and slam the pathway between us shut for the night. I shake my head and take a step towards my own tent, turning to tell Killian goodnight, only to find him right in front of me, one hand snaking around my waist.
“And where, exactly, do you think you’re going?” he whispers.
Heat floods through me and my pulse races with the promises hiding beneath his words.
“Killian, we should…” I clear my throat lightly.
Every cell in my body screeches in protest when I say the next words, but my heart and mind know it’s the right decision.
I need him to be with me when we’re together like that.
Not Tesni, the Flame of Lyanna. Not Tess, the prisoner of Blackheart.
Me. Thea. The girl who is tired of hiding.
“We should take things slowly. I want to wait before we…”
He gets that playful spark in his eyes, and I know he’s going to make me say the words.
“Before we…?”
I narrow my eyes, but if he wants to play, I’ll play.
“Before I ride you hard like a wild Northland stallion until your eyes roll back in that pretty little head of yours and you cry out my name so loudly that the very mountains shake around us.”
He curses and barks out a choking cough, and I grin, biting my lip.
“Makers, you’re going to be the death of me, Red,” he mutters, shaking his head before leaning down and kissing me softly.
“I just want to sleep beside you, Tess, that’s all. I’ll wait as long as you need me to for anything else, but I still want you to stay with me until then. Please.”
I study him for a few heartbeats, wondering what the rest of the camp might think if anyone finds out, what rumors might fly…but then I decide that I don’t fucking care. Let them talk. Let them think what they want.
“As long as you don’t snore, I suppose I could be persuaded…” I smother a yelp and subsequent giggle as he lifts me over his shoulder with one arm as if it’s nothing and stomps into his tent. “Killian!” I hiss, laughing and beating my fists uselessly on his back.
“Quiet, fire wench,” he rumbles, tossing me onto his bed. I laugh as I right myself, wondering not for the first time how we got here. Laughing and playing, well on our way to loving deeper than any two people have ever loved.
He puts his armor on the desk and tugs his cloak off, throwing it over the pile.
He stokes the fire, eyeing me for a heartbeat as if to say you could do this, you know.
I won’t stop you, before striding back to the bed.
He sits on the edge and unlaces his boots, and I can’t help but go to my knees behind him, pressing my chest against his back and wrapping my arms around him.
I kiss his neck and he groans quietly, tilting his head to give me better access.
I make mental notations of the spots that he seems to particularly like, like just below his ear and the spot where his shoulder meets his neck.
“Mmm, you keep that up and we won’t be getting any sleep, Red…”
I laugh, place one more kiss at his nape, and settle back as he tucks his boots beneath the edge of the wide cot.
“I have a very serious question to ask you,” he says, turning those stormy eyes on me. I gulp, suddenly worried about what this might be. “Do you think you can control yourself while I change my pants?”
I press my lips into a thin line and grab one of the pillows from behind me, smacking him in the shoulder with it.
He chuckles lightly and rises from the bed, crossing to his trunk.
I watch as he starts to unlace his pants, but suddenly his question doesn’t seem so ridiculous.
I’m honestly not sure if I can control myself if I see him completely unclothed right now.
He eyes me for a moment, but just as he starts to tug them off, I groan, flopping back and covering my face with the pillow I’d hit him with.
He laughs loudly and I flash him a single finger—a gesture that means something entirely unrefined throughout Hypathia.
“And where in the seven hells did a spoiled princess like you learn a gesture like that??”
“From your mother,” I snap, another retort I picked up being around all of the sailors down at the port that Tesni most certainly would never say. He laughs again, louder, the sound so easy and carefree that I truly wonder if I’m dreaming.
“Move, you feral, wanton little thing,” he says from just beside the bed.
I remove the pillow and my eyes immediately drift downward to confirm that he is actually wearing pants once more.
These are silk and loose, and hang indecently low on his waist, showing off those deep indentions beside his hips, the trail of dark hair leading down from his navel…
I clear my throat and meet his gaze again, and he gives me that crooked smirk that tells me he knows exactly what I was thinking.
I shift over in the bed and he settles in beside me, tucking his arm beneath me and pulling me to his chest. I lay my head just above his heart, my right arm thrown over his stomach, and I don’t think anyone has ever fit so perfectly beside another.
He holds me close, arm wrapped around me tightly, as if he’s afraid I’ll run away or disappear.
He pulls the fur blankets up around us and I exhale in utter contentment.
“Sleep well, Tess,” he whispers softly, kissing the top of my head. Sleep comes for me swiftly, far more swiftly than I would have thought possible, but before I’m dragged away, I need to tell him something.
“Killian?” I murmur.
“Mmmm?”
“Thank you for coming back to me.” He pulls me tighter against him, as if he needs to be sure that he truly did make it back, that this is real.
“Thank you for being my reason to.”
I snuggle deeper into his side, throwing my thigh over his, and smile as I drift off into the darkness.