52. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Talyn
Talyn debated not answering her door when a knock sounded several hours later, since there was only one person it was likely to be. She was surprised he hadn’t just broken the door down, though, so it was that courtesy alone that made her open it.
“Yes? What can-,” Talyn started to say, but the words caught in her throat as she took in the giant figure filling the threshold.
Nemesis take him, the man wasn’t fighting fair.
Samhail leaned against the doorframe with his chest bare and the top two buttons of his pants undone, giving her a tantalizing peek into what lay below.
His skin looked smooth, and she ached to run her fingers over the ridges of muscle that created a rolling landscape over his torso.
It took every ounce of her willpower not to reach for that broad chest and run her hands down his stomach to explore what those open buttons at his waist promised.
“Is there a problem?” Samhail drawled when she didn’t finish.
“You’re half naked,” was all she could say.
“And that’s a problem?” he asked, a smile quirking his lips.
Talyn sighed and dragged her eyes back up to his face. “I see you escaped your meeting with Lord Bressen unscathed. Is there something I can help you with?”
Surprisingly enough, she’d escaped her own meeting with Lord Bressen unharmed. He’d called her in to see him after he was done with Samhail, and their conversation hadn’t gone at all as she’d expected. For one, he hadn’t invaded her mind.
Samhail shrugged and pushed past her into the room. “Bressen is mostly bluster. As for what you can help me with, you can help me understand what made you think we wouldn’t be sharing a room tonight.”
Talyn begged to differ about Lord Bressen, but she didn’t say so. Instead, she bit her lip as she caught sight of the nail marks that still streaked red and jagged down Samhail’s back from the top of one shoulder. She must’ve been frenzied with lust to have made such marks.
She still didn’t understand his decision to let the marks scar over.
If he didn’t want Cyra to see them, he could find another healer before it was too late.
If they scarred, he’d forever have to explain the marks to anyone who saw him shirtless, including future lovers.
She wasn’t sure the next woman who saw them would find them quite so intriguing.
Talyn herself was torn about the marks. On one hand, they were evidence of how fully and completely she’d allowed herself to let go with him, and part of her was ashamed to have left such blatant evidence of her lack of control on his skin.
Another darker part of her was proud of them and wickedly delighted that any woman who had him after her would see she’d marked him.
She’d learned he was more than a hundred years old, and he’d likely taken dozens – hundreds?
– of women to bed during that time, yet she alone had marked him.
Or at least, she was the only one whose mark he allowed to remain etched on his skin.
What that said about who they were to each other wasn’t something she was willing to consider at this time.
“I was thinking we both needed a good night’s sleep for tomorrow,” Talyn said, meeting his eyes when he turned around. “And you snore.”
“I don’t snore,” he said firmly, “and I have hundreds of witnesses who will swear to that.”
Jealousy welled in Talyn as her mind went straight to thoughts of his bed partners, but then she remembered he’d been a soldier and had probably slept near hundreds or even thousands of other men at some point. At least, that’s who she hoped he was talking about.
“Well, of course. No one else is going to have the balls to tell someone like you that you snore,” she said, crossing her arms.
He quirked a brow in amusement. “But you do?”
“I can grow a pair if you like.”
She was rewarded with the look of shock on his face as he remembered she could do exactly that.
“Snoring or no,” she went on, “you should sleep in your own room.”
“I can do that if you insist,” he said, and she was both surprised and annoyingly disappointed at his easy acceptance.
Until his next words.
“Right after I fuck you in all the ways I’ve been imagining since this afternoon.”
Talyn swallowed. “I never agreed to anything after the tent,” she said.
She’d given in to her desire for him then, and she didn’t regret it, but now that she’d had a little time and space to think about it, the idea of doing more with him seemed unwise. She could see how it would be all-too-easy to get attached to him, and that could have dire consequences.
“Maybe not, but you still want me,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes. I knew it the minute you opened the door.”
Talyn’s chin went up. “It’s perfectly rational to be rendered speechless when a half-naked man knocks on your door. It doesn’t mean I want you.”
“Fair point, but you do want me. That much I know.”
“Do you?” Her hackles rose at his arrogance.
“I do, and I’m happy to prove it to you.”
“And how exactly do you plan to do that?”
“Let me kiss you,” he said, “and if you can still tell me you don’t want me, I’ll go back to my room and won’t bother you again.”
“And if I can’t?” she felt compelled to ask.
“If you can’t, then I’m going to throw you down on that bed and fuck you until you scream my name so loud the guards break down the door,” he said, his voice wicked with promise.
Talyn pressed her thighs together at the liquid heat that pooled in her core. She shouldn’t have asked. She definitely shouldn’t have asked.
She reached out to grab something and steady herself, but there was nothing near her, and the gesture didn’t go unnoticed by Samhail.
“Do we have a deal?” he asked, smirking.
She could refuse and just make him leave, but her pride wouldn’t let her. Refusing his challenge was as much as admitting he was right, that she did want him. She’d accept it and simply resist him enough to say the words. At least that way she’d get to kiss him one more time.
“Fine,” she said. “If you’re going to make me prove it to you, then go ahead and kiss me.”
She turned her face up to his in stubborn challenge, and his expression said he was beyond amused.
Samhail stepped forward, and every muscle in Talyn’s body tensed.
For once, it wasn’t because she expected him to attack, but because she was already coiled with a different kind of anticipation.
She refused to move, though. She’d stand there, let him kiss her, and then she’d lie through her teeth about wanting him and show him the door.
His smile as he approached was downright predatory, and Talyn had the sinking feeling she’d made a huge mistake in agreeing to his terms.
Samhail’s hands curled around her upper arms as he pushed her backwards, and Talyn gripped his biceps.
“What are you-,” she asked in alarm, but her question was cut off when her back hit the door.
His lips came down on hers a heartbeat later, and Talyn let out an involuntary whimper as his mouth claimed hers.
His tongue delved in deeply, and her whimper was followed by a muffled squeal of surprise when he pressed one of his legs between hers and pulled her onto it so she was straddling his thigh.
“What are you-,” she tried to ask again, more desperately this time, but his mouth once again cut off the question.
Talyn couldn’t move as Samhail’s muscled body pinned her in place against the door, his mouth ravishing hers.
He slipped one hand around her back, and his other hand gripped her hip to rock her back and forth along his thigh so the sensitive bud between her legs began to twist with exquisite sensation.
She managed to wrench her mouth away from his long enough to gasp out, “That’s not fair.
” Then his lips were on hers again, and she couldn’t summon the will to do anything more than dig her fingers into his biceps even harder.
Not that it did any good. The muscles didn’t give at all under her grip.
His body was so remarkably solid and unyielding.
As the pressure between Talyn’s legs built, her hips started to undulate of their own accord so she was riding Samhail’s leg all on her own.
Somewhere she found the will to turn her head from his again and stop her hips, although she couldn’t do more than catch her breath.
“Say it,” Samhail breathed into her ear as Talyn panted against him. “Tell me truthfully you don’t want me, and I’ll leave.”
Talyn swallowed hard. “I…I…don’t want...”
Samhail pulled her harder against his thigh, and Talyn gasped as she now sat on his hip.
“You don’t want what?” Samhail asked as his lips and tongue traced a path down her neck.
“I don’t want…,” Talyn said again, trying to force the words to come out. “I don’t want…to want you,” she finished finally.
It was the best she could do, and Samhail pulled back to look at her.
“That wasn’t what I was expecting,” he said.
“You wanted the truth. It’s the truth.”
“I don’t doubt it, but it’s not what you needed to say to get me to leave. If anything, it’s an admission you do in fact want me.”
“Nemesis take you. You knew that already,” she said, frustration at both him and herself infusing her words.
“Then why are you trying to deny it?”
“It…It’s too complicated to want you,” she said, shaking her head.
His eyebrows shot up. “You’ll need to explain that to me later, but right now I’m way too aroused to make sense of it. I just need to know one thing. Do you want me to fuck you, or do you want me to leave?”
Talyn closed her eyes. Letting herself give in to him again was going to make it that much harder later on to let him go – and she did need to let him go – but in this moment, she couldn’t bring herself to tell him anything but the truth.
“I want…I want you to fuck me.”
“Thank the gods,” Samhail growled as he pulled her away from the door and carried her to the bed, one arm anchoring her against his hip.