83. Clash of Stone and Steel #2
Talyn’s mouth fell open, and she couldn’t help glancing at his groin, which only made Samhail smile.
“Get on with what exactly?” she asked, dragging her gaze back up.
“Fighting,” he said. He held his arm out to the side, and one of the spare daggers she’d left on the side desk flew into his hand.
Why did she always forget he could do that?
She still had a dagger strapped to each of her thighs, but she didn’t move, even as Samhail stepped toward her.
“We’re not fighting,” she said. “Or at least, I’m not fighting you. If you think I fight to keep you interested, then I’ll have to stop doing it.”
Samhail stepped forward, forcing her to look up, and he grazed the dagger lightly down her cheek. “That strategy probably isn’t going to end well for you,” he said huskily.
Talyn swallowed and tried not to think about why the feel of him running a dagger down her cheek excited her. There was clearly something wrong with her as well.
“You won’t hurt me,” she said. “You may be an arrogant prick, but I know that much about you.”
He raised a brow and grinned. “Oh?”
Samhail struck fast, and the dagger sliced across her arm to draw a cry from her.
Luckily, Talyn’s body acted on reflex before she knew what she was doing, and she ported back from him, pulling her own daggers as soon as she materialized.
She looked down to see a thin scratch about three inches long that was beading a tiny bit of blood along her forearm.
“Nemesis take you!” she yelled, looking up at Samhail. “What in the three hells are you doing?”
“You’re right that I won’t hurt you…badly,” he said, “but I can give you enough of those scratches that it will feel like your skin is on fire. Fortunately, they’ll heal quickly.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You wouldn’t.”
His answer was to slash at her again, but this time she was ready, and she crossed her daggers in front of her to catch his own blade in the crook where they met.
“You’re insane,” she said, meeting his eyes. They were so dark she couldn’t tell where his irises ended and his pupils began, but there was nevertheless an eager shine to them.
“No, I’m aroused,” he said, his voice rough with need.
She understood then. He needed to fight her right now. She’d gotten to kill Morland. She’d gotten a sense of closure, but he’d had to wait and watch and do nothing. He needed a release, but not a sexual one. Or not just a sexual one. He needed blood.
Talyn shoved his blade back with her own and spun away from him to regroup. She leaned forward, ready to move as she held her daggers out, and they circled each other.
“You’re right about one thing, hummingbird,” he said, his eyes wicked with amusement.
“And what’s that?” she asked, forgetting to care about the nickname.
He slashed again and Talyn whirled out of the way, but he was on her before she could attack. He grabbed her wrists and spun her so her arms were crossed in front of her and her back was pressed to his chest.
“I do love it when you fight me,” he growled into her ear.
“It makes me so hard I can barely walk.” He pressed his cock into her back, and Talyn tried not to moan as she thought about what that rock-solid length of him could do to her.
As it was, she let herself savor his arms around her half a second too long, and she felt the sting of his dagger again as he sliced her leg through her pants.
She ported away from him again with a cry of outrage, and Samhail snarled at finding his arms suddenly empty.
Talyn slashed out with her daggers, and Samhail blocked both blows before swiping toward her stomach.
Talyn lurched back just in time to miss the blade, and she countered with a swing of her own as Samhail’s arm was still across his body on his follow-through.
Her blade cut the top of his arm near his shoulder, barely scratching him as he’d done to her.
He pulled his arm back, but before he could recover, she slashed her other dagger at his chest, and another red scratch appeared across one thick pectoral muscle.
Samhail grunted and stepped back. He looked down at his chest where a thin trickle of blood was making its way over the ripples of muscle toward his stomach. Then he eyed the cut beading blood on his arm. He inclined his head to Talyn. “Nicely done.”
“Is this really what you want to do all night?” Talyn asked, trying to catch her breath. “Slash each other until we’re each a bloody mess?”
“Of course not,” he said. “I want to throw you down on that bed and fuck you. You’re the one making it more complicated than it needs to be.”
“You were the one who picked up a dagger first and slashed me!”
“I’m trying to get us through this dance you insist on as quickly as possible.
As I said, you’re resisting me because you feel you need to.
So far we’ve covered the fighting, the bleeding, and part of the heavy breathing.
The only thing left for me to do is fuck you until you scream my name, so do you want to cooperate and get on the bed now, or are you going to make me throw you down onto it? ”
Gods damn him. He needed to stop saying things like that. Or she needed to find a way to keep her stomach from flipflopping when he did. Thankfully, his comment about cooperating pissed her off enough that she wasn’t ready to give in to him just yet.
“What’s your hurry?” she asked, grinning wickedly. “I don’t think you’ve bled enough yet.”
She attacked, feinting one way before shifting back the other to swing out with both blades.
Samhail was ready for her, though, and he defended the attempts by first deflecting one of her daggers to the side, then swinging his own dagger around to knock her other blow down toward the floor.
Talyn barely managed to hold onto both of her daggers, but the force of his deflections sent reverberations up her arms. She saw his muscles tense to lunge at her again, and she did a backflip out of the way, her foot missing Samhail’s chin as he jerked back just in time.
“The only thing you’re doing by fighting me is making my cock harder,” he said as he shifted his weight back to a resting position.
Talyn didn’t take the bait, either to look at his groin or to attack him while he was seemingly relaxed.
“There is definitely something wrong with you,” she said.