18. Clash of Stone and Steel #2
His voice was labored in her ear, and she felt him trying to get control. Her eyes widened. He really did want to fuck her, she realized. Badly.
Talyn swallowed against the hand still wrapped around her throat.
“If you were the kind of man who’d take a woman against her will, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to warn me about the consequences of teasing you. You’d have just fucked me already,” she said. “You may be dangerous and deadly, but you’re not the type of man to violate a woman.”
“Like you violated me?” he asked.
His voice had grown quiet, and Talyn went still against him.
“You came to me looking like another woman, someone I trusted,” he said. “You sat on my lap and kissed me, then pulled my cock out to take me into your mouth, all looking like her. You violated us both.”
His voice grew sharper as he spoke, and Talyn tried to swallow against the hand on her throat as it tightened, nearly cutting off her air.
“You’re right,” she gasped out. “What I did was wrong.”
In truth, she did regret what she’d done, insofar as it was an abuse of his trust. She didn’t necessarily regret kissing him or touching him, but she did regret that she’d done it looking like Cyra. She could see why he felt violated, and there was a part of her that wished she hadn’t done it.
Talyn had always lived her life as someone else.
It was common for her to appear to others as people they knew, for her to insert herself into their lives and pretend to be their friend or loved one so she could get close to them and kill them.
Gods, she’d even come to a man looking like his wife once and let him fuck her before she killed him.
She’d done a lot she wasn’t especially proud of, but what she’d done to Samhail made her feel truly ashamed for the first time in a while. She didn’t know why this time was different than all the others, but it was.
The pressure of his hand on her throat eased a little, and Talyn felt the breath Samhail pushed out against her cheek.
“This isn’t going to work,” he said finally. “I don’t trust you with your own horse, and I won’t last much longer with you grinding against me. I do have my limits. I have to take you back to Solandis.”
Talyn’s body turned to ice, and she tried to shake her head as best she could with the hold he had on her throat.
“No, please,” she croaked out. “Please. I’ll behave myself. I promise.”
Samhail
Threatening to take Talyn back to Solandis had been only partially a bluff. Samhail was prepared to do it if he needed to, but he suspected just the threat of going back to face Bressen and Revenmyer would be enough to set her straight.
She was testing her limits. She’d been living at Tide’s End long enough to observe them all and realize they weren’t bad people.
In particular, she’d watched him with Cyra and knew he was capable of caring for another person.
She’d seen a side of him no one outside of Bressen, Cyra, and perhaps Axenus had ever seen, and it made her think she could tease him with impunity.
She was right that he’d never take a woman unwillingly, but he had to convince her there’d still be consequences if she pushed him too far.
And he was damn near at his breaking point right now.
He was furious with his body for reacting to her the way it did.
He’d been semi-hard since they left that last village, and his cock grew harder every time she moved.
Having her tucked against him like this was agony, and part of him regretted making her ride with him, but he was too stubborn to put her on her own horse now.
He didn’t understand it. He should hate her.
Correction. He did hate her.
But he also wanted her. Apparently his body didn’t give a fuck that she was supposed to be his enemy. He fucking wanted her. He wanted to pull her off this horse, rip her clothes to shreds, and bury his cock inside her until she lost her voice screaming his name.
But he couldn’t.
She was his prisoner and a dangerous one at that. He didn’t think for one second the caronium cuff on her wrist made her any less so. She was fast and resourceful, and he knew if he gave her any slack whatsoever, she’d find a way to escape or kill him.
And gods damn him if that didn’t make him want her all the more.
Fucking hells. Why had he agreed to this? More importantly, what was wrong with him that he got hard thinking about how dangerous she was?
“I’m supposed to believe that? That you’ll behave yourself?” he asked her. “What kind of a fool do you take me for?”
“I swear,” she said. “You win. I can’t go to Revenmyer.”
He didn’t blame her for being terrified of Revenmyer. He’d been to the prison several times over the years, and the place made his skin crawl. The only thing that got him through those visits was knowing he could leave at any time. Unlike the inmates.
“You’ll sit still and stop trying to arouse me?” he pressed.
“Yes,” she said, nodding as best she could.
“And you promise not to try to escape?”
She went still, and he could almost hear her mind working furiously to see if there was a way to avoid promising him that.
“Promise me that and mean it, or I’ll turn this horse around and we’ll head back to Solandis. Better yet, I still have a message leaf. I can tell Bressen where we are, and Cyra can portal us back right now.”
She stiffened even more, but he didn’t say anything else as he let her weigh the options of promising not to escape versus finding herself back in a caronium-lined holding cell within the hour.
“Fine,” she said quietly. “I promise not to try to escape.”
Samhail pulled his hand back from her throat, and she sucked in a deep breath. He tried not to notice the way it pushed out her breasts.
Samhail urged the horse back into a walk, and she relaxed against him.
Getting her to stop fidgeting would help, but only a little.
In truth, just having her pressed up against him between his legs was driving him mad.
He had to fight the urge to nuzzle his face into her hair and inhale deeply.
Her scent was intoxicating, and Samhail tamped down the impulse to wrap an arm around her waist and pull her head to the side to bare her neck to him.
He longed to run his teeth down that long column of her throat and feel goosebumps rise on her skin.
Samhail mentally shook himself and urged the huge draft horse into a canter. The ride was far from smooth with a horse this big, but that was the point. The jolting made things less comfortable and kept him from thinking about how much he wanted to touch the woman in front of him.
Samhail
It was nearly dark when they finally stopped for the night. The next good-sized town was still several hours away, so they’d aim to get there tomorrow around lunchtime.
They’d had time to buy supplies while the leatherman in the last village was working on the extension for the girth, so they at least had food and blankets.
Samhail had also made sure to stop into the apothecary for turrow berries and a few other necessities.
When the dried berries were steeped in hot water, they made an effective contraceptive for both men and women, and one he normally took regardless of whether he was fucking someone at the time or not.
The berries worked best when taken regularly, and he’d need them again at some point.
Not right now, of course, but…eventually.