Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
ALLERIA
I’ve lost count of how many times he’s put me on the ground.
I try everything to stop him—roll the way he showed me, tuck my shoulder, turn the fall into something controlled.
That stopped working around the sixth or seventh impact, when my muscles started refusing to cooperate and my reactions slowed to useless.
Now I just fall.
My back hits the dirt again, and I lie there, staring up at the sky. My lungs burn, my ribs ache. There’s dirt ground into my palms, my elbows, the side of my face. I’m sure a bruise is forming across my hip where his knee caught me during a sweep he claims I should have seen coming.
“Up.”
I don’t move. The sky is very blue and peaceful. If I just stay here—
His hand closes around my arm and hauls me to my feet. I groan.
“Again.”
“I need a moment.”
“Your enemies won’t give you a moment.” He’s already circling, a predator’s prowl that does things to me I shouldn’t be thinking about right now. “They’ll gut you while you’re catching your breath and asking nicely for a rest.”
“I’m not asking nicely. I’m telling you I need—”
Too late. He’s coming at me again. At least this time I see the way his shoulders shift and his weight transfers. I move, sidestepping just like he showed me. And for half a second, I think I’ve done it right.
Then he adjusts, faster than I can track, and my back slams into the ground. The impact drives the air out of my lungs, and stars burst across my vision.
“Well, at least you moved that time.” His voice comes from somewhere above me.
I lie there, wheezing.
“Up.”
I drag myself upright. I don’t know how. Maybe my body has stopped consulting me on these decisions, and just obeys him now.
“Let’s try this again.” He’s behind me, close enough that I can feel the heat of him. “You’re still crossing your feet, and throwing off your balance.”
“I know.”
“Then stop doing it.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
I grind my teeth, swallowing my response.
His hands settle on my hips again. The touch shouldn’t affect me. He’s adjusted my stance a thousand times already today. This is more of the same.
But I can feel the warmth of his palms through my pants, and I’m acutely aware of exactly how close he’s standing. The heat of him behind me. The brush of his breath against my hair.
“Step left.”
I step.
“Now right.”
I step right. His hands move with me, fingers curled slightly against my hips, adjusting my stance.
“Relax!”
“I can’t relax when you keep snapping at me.” That’s not why I can’t relax. It’s hard to focus on anything when I can feel every point where his body almost touches mine.
“You’re distracted.”
“I’m not.”
“Liar.” His lips brush against my ear. “You’re not thinking about your balance. You’re thinking about my hands.”
My face heats. I don’t answer, because he’s right and we both know it.
“Again. Left.”
As I step, his thumb brushes over my hip—I’m sure he does it on purpose—and the touch sends a spark straight down my spine. My foot comes down wrong. I stumble, trying to correct, and his foot hooks my ankle. The world spins—sky, trees, his face—and then I’m on the ground.
Before I can get my breath back, he’s on me.
He straddles my thighs with his knees pressing into the ground on either side of my hips, and his hands close around my wrists and pin them to the earth above my head.
I can feel him everywhere. The pressure of his thighs against mine, the strength of his grip, the heat of his body. He’s barely breathing while I’m gasping beneath him, chest heaving, heart slamming against my ribs.
His face is inches from mine, close enough that I can see the different shades of gold in his eyes.
“Get out of this.”
I try. I really do. I twist my wrists against his grip, testing for any give. There isn’t any. His fingers might as well be made of iron. I buck my hips, trying to throw him off balance. His weight holds me pinned flat. I try to move my body, seeking to create space, leverage, anything.
I’m not sure he even notices my struggles.
I try again, twisting harder, throwing everything I have into it, every bit of strength my exhausted body can muster. My muscles scream and sweat slides down the back of my neck. It doesn’t matter. He holds me there while I wear myself out.
I let my head drop back against the ground with a sigh. I have nothing left. Every muscle is shaking, my lungs are burning, and I can’t find the strength to fight against his hold anymore. Panting, I stare up at him. That golden gaze is fixed on my face, tracking every flicker, every ragged breath.
“This brings back memories.”
I frown, wondering what he’s talking about … and then I understand.
The forest. My birthday. The day I was supposed to hunt him, and he caught me instead. I’d been so stupid, so arrogant, thinking I was the hunter. I’d tried to run from him, scrambling through the forest, and he’d stepped out of the shadows and hit me so hard I’d left the ground.
My ribs twitch with remembered pain from where his foot connected with them. Then his fingers had closed around my ankle and he’d dragged me backward across the forest floor. And then …
Then he flipped me onto my back and straddled me.
Exactly. Like. This.
I remember the moment I realized the body pinning me down wasn’t an animal’s, wasn’t an it, and was unmistakably and terrifyingly male.
I’d felt him pressed against my hip, and I’d screamed until my voice broke.
I thrashed and clawed at him. And he’d sat astride me, watching, waiting, patient as death, while I exhausted myself. Just like he’s doing now.
Then he’d leaned down, close enough that I could see the cold emptiness in his eyes, and called me weak.
“Last time you had me pinned this way, I thought you were going to kill me.” The words come out before I consider how they sound.
He doesn’t blink or move, staring down at me.
“Who says I’m not thinking that now?”
The breath stills in my lungs, and I search his face for some hint of whether he’s serious or not. There’s nothing to be seen. That impassive mask gives away nothing at all. I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.
I wet my lips. “Are you?”
He doesn’t answer. He’s looking at me the same way he looked at me that day, assessing and calculating.
Tension thickens the air between us, tightening with every breath.
My pulse is racing, but not from fear. Or, at least, not entirely from fear.
I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, about to fall, and I don’t care.
One moment he’s watching me, and the next his mouth is on mine. His tongue forces my lips apart, pushing inside my mouth to slide against mine with a hunger that steals what’s left of my breath.
My brain shorts out.
I’m still pinned beneath him, trapped, completely at his mercy, and all I can think about is the taste of him. The pressure of his mouth. The way he’s kissing me like he wants to consume me. As though the taste of me is the only thing that matters.
And all I want is more.
His mouth moves against mine, demanding, taking, and I open for him without any hesitation at all.
His teeth catch my bottom lip and bite down. Not quite hard enough to draw blood, but close. The sharp sting of it sends a jolt of heat flooding through me. I gasp against his mouth, and he presses harder, deeper, his tongue stroking against mine.
I make a sound, desperate and wanting. The kind of sound I’d be ashamed of if I could think clearly, but I can’t think at all. My wrists strain against his grip. I need to touch him. I need my hands on him.
His fingers tighten around my wrists, and the reminder that I can’t move, can’t touch, can’t do anything except take what he gives me, makes me burn hotter.
I arch up against him, straining to get closer, and he groans into my mouth.
The sound is low and rough, and vibrates through my chest. Then he pulls back.
His pupils are blown wide, his breathing ragged, and his lips wet.
He’s looking at me like he can’t decide whether to devour me or destroy me.
I don’t give him time to choose.
I lift my head and catch his mouth again, kissing him with all the hunger I’ve been pretending I don’t feel. He makes another sound—half growl, half groan—and releases my wrists.
My hands are in his hair immediately, and I drag him down against me, my fingers twisting in the dark strands. His weight settles fully onto me, and when he shifts his hips, his erection presses into me, and I moan into his mouth.
His hand slides under my tunic, palm flat against my stomach, fingers splayed wide. I shudder at the contact, the way he doesn’t ask for permission. He touches me like he owns me, like he has every right to put his hands wherever he wants.
I should hate that. I should fight it.
I arch into his touch instead, chasing his fingers as they move higher.
His mouth leaves me to kiss a path down my jaw in wet, open-mouthed kisses that leave my skin burning.
He finds the curve of my throat and sucks at the skin there, hard enough that I know it will bruise, adding another mark to the ones he’s already left, and I don’t care.
I want him to mark me. I want to wear the evidence of this on my skin.
“Cairn—”
His teeth drag over my pulse point, and whatever I was going to say dissolves into a gasp. My hips roll up against him, seeking friction, pressure, anything to ease the ache building between my thighs. He presses down in answer, hard, and the intensity of it rips a cry from my throat.
“Again. Please!”
He does it again, and again, setting a rhythm that has me writhing beneath him, my fingers clawing at his back, my breath coming in sharp, desperate pants.
His hand slides higher under my tunic, over my ribs, until he finds the curve of my breast and cups it. His thumb drags across my nipple.
“Please.”
“I like it when you beg,” he whispers.