Chapter 27
At that first brush of Raker’s callused fingers beneath my shirt, my nerves catch fire.
I don’t know if it’s this demon’s heat, or maybe I’m just this touch-starved, but my skin prickles everywhere, and it’s like a new sense awakening. Raker’s gone very still in front of me. I wonder if he feels it too, this fire in his veins, this deep, pulsing ache.
The quest is a distant thought. The fact that he’s been my enemy for years doesn’t seem important.
No, right now, I feel raw and needy, and when he finally drags his rough knuckles up my spine, slowly, like he has all the time in the world to discover me in the dark, the flames behind my back expand, strengthening, unleashing a toe-curling, blood-smoldering desire that nearly brings me to my knees.
His name spills from my lips again, in a shameful whimper. “Raker—”
“Don’t speak,” he bites out.
He’s trying to fight it. His hand flexes against my skin, fingers going still as if he’s using all his restraint to keep from touching me. I hear him swallow hard.
The pause clears my head a bit. I hate him. We shouldn’t be doing this. I fall to my heels, then try to pull back, put some space between us … but he doesn’t let go. His hold is light. I could easily slip out of it.
But I don’t want to.
Fuck it.
I lift to my toes again, slide my hands up his armor with a possessiveness that doesn’t make sense at all, the silver spotless and smooth, not a single mark marring it, until the metal ends, then I slip my fingers beneath it, feeling the strong muscles of his upper chest, touching as much as I can and—
Fuck.
That’s the word Raker growls, right before his other hand dives below my shirt.
He strokes up my sides, calluses scraping my sensitive skin, and my blood turns molten. He’s the head of the knights I’ve feared my entire life, given what they hunt. Right now, he’s touching silver and he doesn’t even know it.
Who he is should smother this flame in me, but it doesn’t.
I lean into him, desperate for him to touch more, to go higher, and when his rough knuckles gently trace the heavy underside of my chest, I tense, readying myself for a flash of pleasure.
But before he reaches where I’m aching, his hands retreat, settling on my waist. His grip is loose, his fingers trembling, almost like he’s afraid to touch me. Like he thinks he might break me.
But I need more.
And I’m done waiting.
Consumed by this flaming want, I lift even higher on my toes, loop my arms around his neck, then drag my chest against his hard armor, desperate for friction, my nipples tight with need. He groans, a rough tortured sound in the back of his throat, and his hands drop away.
He’s going to finally put a stop to this madness, I think. It’s probably for the best.
But then he grips the hems of my shirts.
And tears them both over my head.
Shit.
I gasp, flooded with panic, heat kissing my bare skin. My markings.
But his eyes are closed. I know that, because opening them would seal his fate. The fabric falls to our feet, and any doubt falls with it. All that’s left is this blazing desire that’s growing by the second.
His hesitance is gone too. I know that for certain when he roughly pulls down the fabric band I wear around my chest—and palms my breast.
Fire explodes behind my eyelids, nerves tightening and effervescing.
Fuck.
We both inhale sharply at the same time.
I don’t even try to pretend it doesn’t feel good, and when he drags his thumb over my nipple, I moan, the sound echoing through this tunnel.
Raker growls in response, then does it again.
He makes circles, kneading, as if trying to make me unravel just by this alone.
It fucking feels like I could. My thighs are clenched tight against this growing heat, and he can tell. I know, because his other hand slides down my side, until his thumb hooks the waist of my pants and underwear.
I don’t think I’m breathing.
He makes a low sound of need as he feels the material, a scrap of silk from the castle’s wardrobe.
Then, in a desperate flash, he pulls them both down my hip.
Heat floods through me in a fiery wave as he strokes the sensitive skin there with his knuckle, back and forth, so close to where I need him, and he seems a second away from taking it all off, maybe just ripping the fabric to shreds, and I want him to.
I want him to give me everything I’ve never experienced right against this wall.
Just when I think he might, he lets go of the band of my pants.
Then, before I can feel a hint of disappointment, he curls his hands beneath my ass, and lifts me to his height, holding me up like I weigh absolutely nothing, and—
He’s right there. For the first time, we’re level, and I can hear his breaths coming out hot and labored beneath that mask.
Now more than ever, I’m tempted to open my eyes, pull that silver layer away, and see everything he hides beneath, but that’s something he’ll have to show me himself.
I don’t know what I’m doing, just that I need to be as close to him as he’ll allow.
So, heart racing, blood pounding, I lean forward blindly—
And press my lips against the cold metal.
Harlan Raker has single-handedly slayed entire battalions. He’s the greatest warrior in Stormside’s existence. But that one move makes him shiver.
Our lips are so close, separated by just a thin sheet of silver. I need to feel him. My fingers dive into his hood, and he lets me, and they rake through hair and—
It’s soft. His hair is so soft, and not too long, and he groans as I run my hands through it, the sound rumbling beneath my lips, and I wish he wasn’t wearing a mask, I wish he wasn’t wearing armor, because I need him.
It seems like he needs me too. Hands still curled under my ass, he pins my hips to his, and I suck in a sharp breath.
Closer. I want us closer. I wrap my arms around his neck, crushing my lips to his mask harder and then my bare chest is pressed against his cold armor, in complete contrast to the roaring flames behind me.
I’ve almost forgotten about this demon crafted of towering fire, trying to get us to open our eyes, but I don’t feel afraid, not at all.
There isn’t room for anything else, beyond knee-buckling want.
And I want him.
My lips slip down the curve of his mask, toward his bare skin, and when my nose brushes against it, I tense.
He smells like his soap.
His fucking amazing soap.
I groan, and I can’t help it. I kiss up the side of his neck, needing to taste him, and he shudders, a tortured sound leaves his lips. I would think he hated it, I would stop, if his hand didn’t immediately lift to curl around the back of my head—and pin me to him.
He wants this. I do too. He tastes so fucking good, and I stroke him with my tongue, then suck against his pulse and—
“Aris,” he growls, my name like a curse and a prayer.
“Raker,” I gasp against his neck, and that’s the word that snaps any sense of self-control.
The hand still gripping my ass and holding me up starts to move me on him, knowing what I need, rubbing me against him, and—“Oh my god,” I moan as liquid fire rushes through me, pooling between my legs, right where he’s working me against his metal.
He goes harder, and I don’t think, I just roll my hips against him, helping, trying to get more of this delicious friction, my sensitive chest dragging against his armor with every movement.
Nothing else matters. Only this. A ruinous pleasure racing down my spine that’s all-consuming, blazing, awakening a primal need only he can satiate.
My nails sink into the back of his neck, using him to move faster, and he just threads his other hand through my hair, keeping my lips against his skin.
He’s burning up, pulse racing, and when my teeth graze his throat, he chokes out my name, and the sound nearly does me in.
I’m burning from the inside out, nerves gleaming, pressure building inside me as I hurtle toward the edge of this cliff.
This feels so fucking good. But it’s not enough. I don’t want to feel metal; I want to feel him.
“Please. Take this off,” I beg, clawing at his armor, wondering if I’m leaving marks. He doesn’t seem to care. He nods. He’s going to do it. But first—
I reach up to his mask. My fingers skim its edge. I give him plenty of time to stop me, but he doesn’t. So slowly, slowly, I grip both sides. Lift it.
That’s when he drops me.
Before my feet even hit the ground, he unsheathes his blade in a flash, and blindly slashes right above my head, so close, I feel its whisper against my hair. If he didn’t know my exact height, I would be missing the top of my skull.
The fire dies. The cave is plunged back into cold darkness.
I open my eyes—
And gasp as Raker shoves me against the opposite wall, his boots sliding through the ashes of the demon he just slayed.
I groan, still trembling with the remnants of this desire, as his hands find my hips. As he pins them to the wall. I part my lips, wanting his hands to slide up and down my body in the darkness, across all the places I’m still aching.
But his voice is a growl. “This was nothing. You are nothing. Don’t get close to me again,” he snarls.
I open my mouth in shock, not even knowing what to say, but he doesn’t give me the chance. Before I can speak a single word, he turns and leaves me panting against the wall. Flushed with want.
The moment he’s gone, all that desire falls away. It turns cold.
It was the demon, then.
He doesn’t want me at all. Not really.
I know that now. He made himself very clear. But he doesn’t have to pretend like I was the only one influenced by this desire. We both acted on it. And I saved him. I’m the one who sensed the demon, who pulled him out of the path.
All that’s left now is sinking shame. My cheeks burn with it and fury as I struggle to find my shirts in the dark, and blindly pull them on, eyes stinging.
Of course I don’t want him. Of course he doesn’t want me. That fire demon would have made me want anyone.
I keep telling myself that as I stumble through the darkness, in the direction of Raker’s heavy steps. Fuck. Him.
I’d wanted to. A lot.
And that’s the fucking problem.
I stay far away, trying to erase those last few moments from my mind, letting that hatred of him build up again, like a wall between us.