Chapter 11 #3
“You are so... fucking... beautiful,” he praised as he traveled down her body.
Nakir shoved the contents of the desk away, papers and writing utensils falling uselessly to the floor.
His hands found her chest, brushing lightly along her breasts through the fabric of her dress as he pressed his hips against hers.
She could feel the evidence of his arousal, and it sent her spinning. “And so gods-damned brave.”
Alethea arched her back into him.
“You terrify me.” He pushed her dress off her shoulder, exposing her to him.
Any part of Alethea that might have been ashamed of her nakedness was banished the instant she saw his face.
Gone was the cold, emotionless mask, replaced entirely by reverence and pure desire.
He bent down, leaning her back and supporting her head while he brought his lips to the soft skin of her breast. Alethea gasped, drawing his gaze.
Nakir watched her like a hawk as he made circles around the peaked center before taking it into his mouth.
She whimpered, helpless, as he drew strangled noises from her throat.
His lips were glistening when he released her, watching the way her chest heaved with each panting breath.
His expression shifted to something unreadable then, as if his emotions were twisting him a dozen different ways.
“I thought you’d left,” he admitted. “That was what I was angry about. The idea that I would never see you again. I didn’t understand why I was so pissed, and at the same time, not angry enough.
I didn’t care that you’d cast a Sending.
You could have told them exactly where we were and I wouldn’t have given a damn. Fuck, Thea. I... I can’t explain this.”
He was frustrated with his own feelings and desires, mirroring her own concerns about what was growing between them. She was meant to leave when this was all over. What were they even doing?
“I wanted to save you,” Alethea confessed breathlessly. “From seeing what I saw.”
Nakir buried his face in her neck, hiding his expression from view.
He gently lowered her to lie back on the cleared desk and placed a hand by her side to hold himself up.
His touch slid up her legs while he continued to watch her, pausing where the days of riding had left their marks—soft bruises that bloomed along her inner thighs—his eyes lifting to hers as if to ask the question his lips didn’t.
He waited, as if searching for any sign she wasn’t burning for more.
“Nakir,” she moaned, finally remembering that she, too, had hands that could explore. They moved up his firm chest, his neck, until she buried them in his soft raven hair, finally daring to run them along the length of his horns.
He shuddered.
“Can you feel that?” Alethea asked in a whisper.
His response was a low growl, rumbling against her skin. “Yes.”
His own fingers arrived at the apex between her thighs, where he was confronted with her dripping arousal. Alethea writhed against him, desperate to feel him closer. Nakir swore again, lowering his head to bite her shoulder with a groan.
“Gods save me.”
The gods may not be able to save him. But Alethea wondered if perhaps she could.
He tantalized her with his touch, and she clung to him desperately, riding the waves of pleasure he brought to her with deft fingers.
She moaned his name as quietly as she could, which only made his ministrations grow in intensity.
Nakir gave another low growl, bringing his glistening fingers to his own lips.
She watched in astonishment as his tongue lapped at the taste of her.
The taste of her. She blushed down her entire body with the embarrassment and eroticism of it all, heat pooling in her center.
His eyes fluttered closed before he withdrew from her and kneeled between her legs.
He took his time pressing the fabric of her dress up and over her hips, spreading her legs to bare her before him.
Alethea’s breath hitched, but all nervousness was banished the moment he looked up into her eyes.
Those amber pools burned. She’d never seen such unbridled desire—certainly never directed at her.
“Tell me you don’t want me to stop,” he growled, his grip tightening on her hips as he kissed his way up her thigh. Each place his lips touched sent her deeper into her own desire.
“I don’t want you to stop,” she begged, despite her own embarrassment.
“Good. Because I need more than just a taste.” And he dove into her, the warmth and the pressure and the stimulation drawing a sharp gasp from her lips.
She brought a hand to her mouth to quiet herself—these tents were far from soundproof—but she couldn’t help the sounds he drew from her, nor the way her back arched and her fingers scratched at the wooden surface beneath her.
A voice at the tent opening interrupted them.
“Nakir.” It was Dawes.
Nakir stiffened with a growl. “Someone had better be dying,” he shot back darkly.
Dawes’s tone was urgent from the other side of the tent fabric. “The camp is under attack.”