Chapter 69 Ahnna
Ahnna
“You can put me down if I’m getting heavy,” Ahnna said, despite very much enjoying the feel of James’s hand on her bare thigh as he carried her down the path to the Midwatch house.
“You aren’t heavy.” He turned his head to look at her. “Even if you were, it’s bad luck not to carry your bride to your wedding bed. I need to prove my worth to you.”
“It’s a very long walk.” She tightened her arm around his neck to take some of the burden off his arms.
James frowned at her. “If you’re going to question my capacity to carry my own woman, at least soften the blow by putting those legs around me, Princess.”
Not a princess, if this plan works. A queen.
The thought made her heart clench with a sudden twist of trepidation, but it disappeared from her head as James turned her in his arms so that her legs were around his waist. He ran his hands up her thighs, then gripped her ass, a soft groan escaping his lips.
“Stars, woman, you’re not wearing anything beneath this, are you? ”
She tightened her grip on his neck with one hand and then hooked her heels together behind his back. With her free hand, she slowly unbuttoned his white shirt, then pulled it loose from his trousers so that the apex of her thighs pressed against the bare skin of his stomach.
James’s boot slid in the mud and as he cursed, she gave him a dark smile, rubbing herself against him. “Are you sure you’re going to make it to the house?”
“I have to.” His grip on her ass tightened. “The stars would judge me weak if I broke and fucked you in the mud, although you’re making me question whether I care what they think.”
“Do you care?” She was curious, but she also felt the hardness of his cock pressing against her as her heels pushed his trousers lower on his hips and it made it so hard to focus on words.
“The only thing I care about is you, Ahnna.” He said the words between panted breaths, his eyes dark as he bent his head to nip at her throat. “You’re my wife, and that means you must be treated with respect.”
“What if I don’t want to be treated with respect right now? What if I want you to lose control and put me on my knees so you can make me yours?”
The response she got was a growl that made her heart skip, and then her back was against a tree trunk. He caught hold of her wrists with one hand and pinned them above her head as she tightened her thighs above his hips.
“I never have any control around you.” His mouth claimed hers, tongue delving deep, the demand in it making her body respond in kind.
“Just looking at you from across the room undoes the man in me and leaves behind a feral beast driven by impulse and instinct. When you say things like that, what do you think it does to me?”
His free hand caught hold of the bodice of her dress and tore.
Beads scattered all around them, scraps of silk dangling from her shoulders as he kissed a line of fire down her throat.
Her nipples peaked as wind blew across them, and Ahnna whimpered as he caught hold of her right breast, thumb and forefinger working her sensitive flesh to the point that pleasure bordered on pain.
But she needed that. Needed an intensity that matched the life she lived, needed sensation that pushed her to the limit and beyond.
“I need you in me.” It was hard to get the words out, hard to remember what words were as his teeth scraped over her collarbone. “I need you. I need everything.”
With her heel, she shoved his trousers down over his ass and released his cock from the confines of the fabric. She forced her hips down, and the feel of the thick tip of him pressing into her made her whole body shudder. “Please.”
His body trembled, and she ground her hips against him, trying to overwhelm his willpower so that he’d give her what she so desperately needed. Instead, his hand moved from her breast to her ass, lifting her off him. Amber eyes met hers, and it was like looking into the eyes of a wolf. “Not yet.”
The tone demanded she obey, but that was not her nature. So Ahnna dug in her heels, the muscles of her legs flexing as she fought against him, trying to force her body down upon him.
James only stepped back from the tree and lifted her, flipping her over his shoulder.
Her skirt was tangled around her waist, and his hand came down firmly on her backside.
The sting turned her body liquid with need, and she parted her thighs to feel the kiss of the wind against her sex as he continued down the path.
His left hand dug into her thigh, holding her in place against his shoulder, but his other hand traced up on the back of her leg. The feel of it drove her wild, and she dragged her nails up his back, tearing at his shirt.
“No one touches you but me,” he said, fingers climbing higher on her thigh and giving her ass a squeeze where he’d spanked her. “Promise me that.”
“I promise.” How could she not when he was all she wanted?
He turned his face to kiss her hip, then slid his hand higher, his thumb finding her clit even as his index finger slipped inside her.
Ahnna sobbed, nearly climaxing—but if she did, he might stop.
If she did, he might not give her what she wanted, so she ground her teeth to keep from falling over the cliff of pleasure.
James worked her body as he walked down the path through the jungle, and it began to rain, cold droplets splashing against her bare skin in sharp contrast with the heat of his hand as he rubbed and stroked her, robbing her of control.
“Open the door.”
“What?” She opened her eyes, the world shifting in and out of focus as she fought the climax that was threatening to overwhelm her. Bracing her hand on James’s hip, she lifted her face to see the door to the house.
“My hands are occupied.” He slipped another finger inside her, angling it in such a way that her body shook. Then his fingers paused. “Open the door.”
Ahnna squirmed, trying to renew the friction, but his other hand held her still. “You’re cruel.”
“So I’ve been told. Open the door.”
She caught hold of the handle and lifted it, then heaved open the heavy door, rewarded as his thumb returned its attention to her clit.
She moaned, gripping his sides as he walked inside.
The house was lit with lamps, but the light seemed to pulse in time with his fingers as he strode through the corridors to her room.
Their room.
“Another door.”
Ahnna reached for the handle, desperate to get inside so that he would finally give her what she wanted, but James shifted so that her fingertips could just brush the handle. She stretched her body, trying to get her hand on the door, gasps tearing from her lips as he mercilessly pleasured her.
“Open the door, Princess.”
Ahnna stretched her body as far as she could, desperate with need as she clung to the edge of oblivion. Her hand closed on the latch right as he added a third finger, stroking her soaked core and shattering her will.
Ahnna felt her back bow as she wordlessly cried out, her whole body consumed by the pulsing rhythm of her climax. It would not let her go, rolling over her with endless waves until she collapsed against his back, entirely spent.
“Good girl, Princess.”
The latch opened, and James carried her into the room, shutting the door behind them.
Though it should have been impossible, desire surged through her again with the promise of what was to come. James set her on her feet and Ahnna met his gaze, lifting her chin in challenge.
The corner of his mouth turned up as he said, “Don’t look at me like you’re not perfectly capable of getting me to do exactly what you want.”
His face softened, and he reached up and began unraveling her hair. “No more games, Ahnna. Not tonight.”
The curling tendrils of her hair brushed against the small of her back as she nodded, a sudden swell of emotion challenging desire for supremacy.
She reached up a hand, tracing her fingers gently across his bruised cheek, his eye still swollen from where Aren had hit him.
The cut on his throat with its stitches was a stark reminder of how close she’d come to losing him. “No games.”
She pushed his shirt off his shoulders, the fabric falling to the ground.
His muscular torso was marked with yet more bruises and scrapes, the scar from where she’d struck him with her knife in the cabin red against his pale skin.
All markers of what he’d endured to get to this moment, and Ahnna knew her body bore the same.
She pressed her lips to his shoulder, then looked up at him. “I love you, James.”
His fingers tangled in her hair, the expression on his face making her breath catch. “For a time, I felt consumed with regret for the choices I have made. But standing here, I realize I cannot lament a single choice—for each one was a step along the path that brought me to you.”
Her eyes prickled with tears, and Ahnna blinked rapidly to dispel them before lifting on her toes to kiss him.
She lost herself in the taste of him as James pushed the remains of her bodice to the floor, then unfastened her belt, his fingers trailing over her ass as he let her skirt spill to the floor around her ankles.
She untied the laces of the silver sandals, then kicked them away so she stood before him in only her bare skin.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured, running a hand up her side and cupping her breast, his thumb pressing against the scar where Carlo had cut her. “Every time I look at you, it’s hard to breathe.”
For someone who could be so taciturn, when he chose to speak, James seemed to know exactly what to say, whereas Ahnna was at a loss using language to express how she felt for him.
It spooled into frustration in her heart, because she needed him to know how she burned for him.
How not a second passed when she didn’t think of him.
How the sight of him before her was very nearly her undoing.
So she resolved to show him instead.