Chapter 32 #3
I wanted to taste it, too. I wanted to lick the blood from his lips and the sweat from his skin. I wanted my hand around his throat as he cried out my name.
“Kenna,” he said, demand and plea. “Don’t stop. Take what you need.”
The sigh that left me was half moan. This was madness.
I leapt at him again, aiming a punch towards his throat that he blocked with his forearm.
Undeterred, I swung my leg up, trying to hit him in the crotch with my shin.
He was ready, though, his hips angled to deny me the target, and he slapped my leg aside as he dodged.
So fast. Always so, so fast. He punched me in the side again, finding his way beneath my guard in a way he would probably lecture me about later.
I danced back, biting my lip to hold in a startled cry.
Not of pain—or if there was pain, it was a pain I wanted.
Kallen’s control was precise. He knew exactly how hard to hit to make his point without causing actual damage.
But he wasn’t treating me like I was helpless or breakable, either.
He was treating me like a real and worthy opponent.
The feeling was addictive.
I pressed my hand against the exquisite ache that bloomed over my ribs, curving my shoulders and grimacing as if he’d actually injured me. His expression shifted into a look of alarm, and he stepped towards me with his hand outstretched. “Are you—”
I backhanded him so hard his head snapped to the side.
He grunted, cupping his face, then laughed. “Fuck,” he said, working his jaw back and forth. “Should have known. You always fight dirty.”
We grinned at each other, and the same madness that filled me was echoed in his exultant expression.
He retaliated for my trick, moving faster than it seemed possible to grab my shoulders.
He shoved me, and I realized too late that he’d hooked my ankle.
My balance gone, I fell, landing on my back on the mats.
The impact rattled my rib cage, and I sucked in a greedy breath as I tried to roll to the side.
Kallen was there, though. He landed on top of me, grabbing my wrists to pin them over my head, one thigh pressed between my legs.
He’d done this once before, but this time the way he pinned me wasn’t anywhere near a true grappling hold.
He lay half sprawled over me, our bodies hovering inches apart.
He was breathing hard, and it wasn’t from the exertion.
No limits.
The air tore out of my lungs, too. I felt every place we touched, from his fingers gripping my wrists to the hard press of his thigh against my sex to my bare foot sliding against his calf.
His face was so close to mine, and his eyes were so very dark, the blue just a sliver around the swell of his pupils.
This was always going to happen. I knew it then, the way religious devotees knew scripture. It was written somewhere beyond time.
I surged up and kissed him.
The first touch of our lips sent heat racing over my skin. He tasted like blood, like night, like no one else in the world possibly could.
Like mine .
Kallen made a raw, desperate sound. Then he was kissing me back, furious and frantic. The blood in his kiss, coppery and electric, only made me wilder. I moaned and pressed up against him, tugging at my trapped wrists. When he let go, I wrapped my arms around him, trying to bring him even closer.
I pulled his lower lip between my teeth and bit down. He bit me back, matching my aggression. Our mouths parted and merged, and the breaths that passed between us were ragged with want.
Finally.
I shoved his shoulder in an attempt to flip him over.
He went willingly, and then it was his back against the mats, his body laid out beneath mine.
As I straddled him, he gripped my hips and looked up at me with a lust so potent I felt it against every inch of skin.
I wrapped my hand around his throat and leaned down to kiss him again, rejoicing in the needy noise that vibrated against my palm and spilled into my mouth.
I rocked over his lap, rubbing myself against his erection. His pulse hammered beneath my fingers as he ground up against me in rhythmic surges, taking my movements and giving them structure. When I licked into his mouth, hungry for the taste, he met me just as fervently.
This was more than lust. It was filthy, desperate greed.
I squeezed his throat harder. Bit him again. Snapped my hips like the friction between us was a punishment.
Kallen groaned. He grabbed my ass with one hand as the other slid up my back to tunnel into my hair.
Then he made a fist, pulling tightly enough to sting my scalp.
He used that grip to angle my head to the side, baring the line of my neck.
His lips stroked over my pulse, and the swipe of his tongue made me moan.
“Yes,” I said, the word breaking on the way out.
Kallen snarled against my skin, then flipped me over again.
He settled fully between my thighs, and I gasped, raising my knees around his hips as his cock pressed hard against my core.
Then we were kissing again, bodies moving in desperate tandem.
His hair was soft and slightly damp at the roots from the fight, and when I made fists in those silky strands, giving him exactly what he’d given me, he made a guttural sound that reverberated down to my toes.
He pulled back, panting, and I caught a glimpse of his wild eyes before he pressed his mouth to the line of my jaw.
“You…” he exhaled against my skin. The movement of his lips when he spoke was soft, like the brush of butterfly wings, but then he moved lower and sucked hard on a sensitive spot that made me jerk against him. “You’re the end of me, Kenna.”
I didn’t understand what he meant, but there was no room to think about it as he strung hot open-mouthed kisses down my throat. One of his hands dropped to my breast, squeezing roughly.
This wasn’t the practiced touch of a seducer. This was raw, overwhelming passion. Kallen was coming undone.
I seized the pleasure hungrily, gasping as he sank his teeth into the spot between my neck and shoulder, crying out when he ground against me. My hips surged in response, and I grabbed his hair and forced his face up so I could taste his lips again.
You , I thought deliriously as his tongue slid into my mouth. It’s you, it’s you . It was always you.
Maybe he would be the end of me, too.
“Tell me what you want,” I said against his lips.
He groaned. “Everything.” He took my ragged whimper into his mouth. “Every inch of skin, every touch, every sound you make.”
He slid his hand under my shirt, and his calloused fingers coasted up my quivering belly to my bound breast. He made a dissatisfied noise, then worked his fingers under that fabric, too, shoving it up until his palm met my nipple.
A spark of pleasure shot between my legs, and I moaned loudly, spine curving.
Kallen matched the sound with one of his own.
He rolled his palm, kneading my breast in time with the flex of his hips.
His cock was a hard bar between my legs, pressing insistently against my clitoris, and my feet slid over the floor as the sensations overwhelmed me.
My body wasn’t big enough to contain this want.
“I’ve imagined this,” he gasped, resting his forehead against mine as his hand and hips worked me into a delirious state.
“So much. So many nights alone, dreaming of the impossible. Hating myself, and hating everyone you’ve ever smiled at and everyone who’s ever hurt you.
You’ll never understand the depth of it. ”
There was a faint buzzing in my ears. “The depth of what?” I panted, squirming against him.
“The need.” He pulled back enough to look at me, and there was more than just desire in his eyes. The only word I could think of to describe it was torment . “I would tear the world apart for you, Kenna. And I don’t deserve this, not a second of it, but I’m too greedy to stop.”
“I—I—” I couldn’t think. The pressure between my legs was making my stomach tighten and shivers race up and down my limbs. I clenched internally, imagining him filling me. An orgasm was building so quickly it was almost frightening.
The buzzing was back, louder this time. Something gold flashed in my peripheral vision.
Kallen abruptly swore and scrambled off me.
“Wait—” I pushed myself up clumsily. My legs were still sprawled, the space between them far too empty.
He ran to grab the discarded spear off the floor, then threw it. The tip clattered into the wall—right below a golden bird that had darted out of the way. The bird released a metallic chirp, then flew into the ventilation shaft.
My entire body was shaking. “What was that?”
“Someone’s spy,” he said grimly. He ran a trembling hand over his kiss-reddened mouth. I’d made a mess of him—his hair was tangled, his cheeks were flushed, and his chest heaved with desperate breaths, like he’d been running for miles.
My own breathing was just as uneven, and my head spun with lust and confusion. I stood, legs quivering and anxiety tightening my chest. “What do you mean, a spy?”
“It was metal. Which means enchanted.”
All at once, I remembered something he’d told me. Caedo wasn’t the only Fae artifact with unusual powers. There were fiddles that could raise the dead…and metal animals that repeated anything said in front of them.
My stomach dropped, and mortification swept through me. “Who would have sent it?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll find out.” Kallen paced to the spear, then picked it up. His jaw clenched as he looked at it. “Fuck!” he snapped.
I wanted to scream the expletive. Our first kiss, the first step over that invisible line, and someone had ripped the moment away. It would have been another first if we hadn’t been interrupted, because now that I knew I could touch Kallen, I didn’t want to stop.
No. I refused to let anyone take this from us. I smoothed my shaking hands over my thighs. “Who cares if someone finds out? We can do what we want.”
I knew better, though. I was the undecided princess, and he was the heir to Void House. Everything we did became political.
There was the strangest look on Kallen’s face, like he was only half in the room. “They’ll know how I feel about you,” he said, voice hollow.
“Kallen,” I said, worry rising. I stepped forward. “Are you—”
He stumbled back.
I broke off mid-sentence. He was still breathing too fast, but something had changed. His shoulders were stiff, his posture too rigid. His eyes darted, and I saw the whites around them.
“What is it?” I whispered. Kallen was always strategic, always pragmatic about turning a disadvantage into a strength, but right now he looked like his world was ending.
“I—” He made a broken sound, then shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”
He turned, scooped up his coat and shoes, and nearly ran out of the room. His body was already starting to wisp into shadow when he crossed the threshold.
And then I was alone, with no idea what had just happened.