33. Galene
Chapter thirty-three
Galene
R ourk changes the bandages on my abdomen with a small smile on his face.
“That’s creepy,” I say to him.
He raises an eyebrow at me, but doesn’t take his eyes off my torso as he spreads a salve over the wound. “What is?”
“That weird grin you’ve got going on,” I say. “Like you’re getting some sick sort of pleasure out of this.”
Rourk laughs and shakes his head at me as he gently arches my back for me so he can wrap a fresh bandage around me. His hands are gentle—not the sort of thing you’d expect from a soldier of any position, though the callouses that scrape carefully against my soft skin are no surprise at all. It sends a wave of heat down my spine and my core tightens as I remember the other places those fingers have been. He says, “Not pleasure. I’m just recalling a time when it was me getting salve rubbed in my injuries.”
I can’t help my smile. “Yes, well, I’m a far better patient than you were. ”
Rourk is grinning now. “You’re just saying that because you couldn’t stand the sight of me then.”
“You say that as if I can stand the sight of you now ,” I tease.
He grins and gently squeezes my sides. “You haven’t stopped staring at me since I lifted your shirt to change your bandage. I’d say you like more than just the sight of me, Galene.”
“You’re the one who saved my life,” I retort, though my voice isn’t as strong as I’d like it to be. “I’d say that means you like me far more than I like you.”
“Oh, I wholeheartedly agree,” Rourk replies. “But that wasn’t the argument.” He winks and stands up, backing away. “You should rest.”
I’m protesting before I can stop myself. “Rourk.”
He pauses. “Yeah?”
I shake my head. “I don’t need rest. And—” I stop the words before they leave my mouth.
But his mouth quirks up, as if he has a good enough idea of what I was about to say. “And what?”
“Nothing.”
“Say it,” he urges. “Or I’m walking out that door.”
I lift my chin, even as I fight the blood that rises to my cheeks. “And I don’t want you to leave.”
He’s smiling again as he strides toward me. Sits down on the edge of the bed. “What do you want, Galene?”
The words are heavy in my throat, but they tumble from my lips like stones. With those depthless eyes boring into mine and the potent scent of him washing over me, I can’t bring myself to lie, or even tease with him a moment longer. “You. ”
Those eyes flicker with surprise, as if he didn’t expect such a truthful, simple answer. “Galene.”
“You’ve been saying my name a lot,” I murmur as I sit up, slowly sliding into his lap. “I can’t help but wonder if that means you want me, too.”
His words come out rough like gravel. Desire lights my blood. “Of course I want you. I always want you.” His hands bracket my waist as he stares up into my eyes. “But you’re wounded. I can’t—we can’t.”
I nod slowly. “Yes, we can. I know my limits, Rourk, and I know you’ll be gentle with me.”
I rake my hands through his hair as he buries his face in my neck and groans. I can feel his hardness growing beneath me. “We shouldn’t.”
“Of course we should.”
“It’s going to make things… far more complicated between us.”
“Impossible,” I murmur, tugging at the handful of strands between my fingers. I start to rock my hips slowly, creating just enough friction.
He sucks in a breath. “You’re a terrible influence.”
“I disagree. But we can talk about that later,” I whisper in his ear, pressing a kiss just beneath the lobe. I’m still rolling my hips as I tilt my mouth upward and say, voice sultry, “Please, Rourk. I want you to peel my clothes off layer by layer. I want you to lay me back and spread my legs and—”
“Fuck,” he groans, and then his mouth is on mine.
Rourk doesn’t waste a moment before slipping his tongue between my lips, tasting me, gliding his tongue against mine .
He pulls back just long enough to growl, “If I hurt you, you fucking say so.” Then his lips are pressed against mine once more, and one of his hands slides under my clothes and up against my core. I gasp when he pushes my underwear aside and slides his fingers through my folds, groaning against my lips at the wetness he finds there. “How long has your pussy been begging for me like this?”
Our mouths tear apart when my head falls back as his index finger finds my clit. “Since you first walked in,” I confide. I’d give him any truth he asked for if it meant he’d keep touching me like this.
He laughs roughly against my skin as he kisses and nips at the base of my neck. “Never say you hate me again, Galene. We’ll both know you’re lying.”
He rotates his hand so that he can slowly stretch at my entrance, and my hips are helping him with it, unable to keep from grinding down against his fingers. The hand that isn’t pressed against my most sensitive part slides under my shirt and lifts it off my body with little help from me. A noise leaves the back of Rourk’s throat when he sees that my bare breasts were the only thing beneath it.
Slowly, his mouth trails sucking, biting kisses down to my breasts. While that free hand takes my right breast and kneads it, flicks and pinches the nipple, his mouth descends on the other, leaving wet kisses on it. He blows cool air from between his lips that instantly hardens it even further, almost painfully so, before he goes back to his gentle licks and kisses.
Rourk thumbs my clit once before finally sinking a finger inside of me. I let out a high-pitched sigh, unable to keep the noise from escaping. He rolls his own hips to pitch us at a different angle and create friction between our bodies. I gasp, then, as the hot electricity that spears through me gets my hips moving again. I balance my arms on his shoulders, wrapping his hair in my hands again as I move my hips, gasping breaths falling from my lips.
“That’s it,” Rourk murmurs against my breast. “Take what you need, Galene. Use me to make yourself come.”
“Rourk,” I whimper, my movements becoming faster, shakier.
“What do you need, love?” he asks, and I look down to see him peering up at me from beneath his lashes, a look of pure desire in his eyes. He gives my breast a tender, open-mouthed kiss. “Tell me.”
“A second finger.” My breath hitches as I keep rolling my hips. “Please.”
Rourk bucks his hips once more, and I slide off his finger for just a moment before sinking back down. I instantly feel that he’s indeed added a second finger. “Yes,” I gasp.
I start pulling his shirt off through the haze of my pleasure and Rourk helps me, pulling away from my breasts just long enough to get it off and toss it on the floor before he’s descended again. And this time, when he bucks his hips, I sink back down just in time to feel him curl and angle his fingers deeper. Right against that spot that, as my walls clench and he flicks my clit, has my orgasm barreling through me, so heavy and full and deep that it feels never-ending, feels like I’ll never stop crying his name and writhing on his fingers as his teeth scrape my nipple and he lays me back against the bed .
Rourk slides his hand out from my underwear and licks his fingers while I watch, then slowly lays me back on the bed while I shake with the aftershocks of my climax. He tenderly peels the rest of my clothes off before removing his own.
Rourk lowers his mouth to mine as he hovers over me. I taste myself on his tongue when he slips it into my mouth once more. Then, against my lips, he whispers, “You can’t possibly understand how much you mean to me, Galene.” Then he’s kissing me again as he slowly guides himself inside of me.
I think I understand, as he slowly rolls his hips, arms flexing with his restraint as he does everything he can to not do something that will hurt me and my wound. As he groans with pleasure at even that slight movement.
I arch my hips and angle him inside of me deeper. My hands latch around the back of his neck and I watch as he pulls out and slides back in, listening to the delicate sighs that fall from me, waiting to hear an ounce of pain but slowly beginning to thrust harder and faster when he doesn’t hear it.
I meet his hips with mine, rolling and pushing and pulling as we find a rhythm between the two of us. Rourk slips his hand between our bodies and finds my clit, giving it lazy, teasing flicks each time he presses himself into the hilt. I gasp each time we meet and fight the urge to beg when we pull apart, feeling the release building within me once more.
And when he suddenly changes the angle and I clench on him, I find it, just as he does, too. We come together, limbs shaking, groans coming from him and whimpers from me.
When we’re both still, when Rourk pulls out of me and drops onto the bed beside me, immediately wrapping me in his arms and pressing a kiss to my sweat-slicked shoulder, he whispers, “I can’t leave you again, Galene.”
“You hardly left before,” I whisper.
“I know,” he says. “That was difficult enough.”
The words are almost a plea. “Then don’t leave me.”
Another gentle kiss. “I can’t. I won’t.”