Chapter 29
Allie
Only he did.
Before I slammed the massive doors shut hard enough to make them vibrate off their hinges, Ryker’s arm snapped out and I was suddenly pulled back inside. In a blink, I found myself pressed between the door and his chest, exit gone.
I jutted my chin up at him, the fire in my eyes blazing harder than the one crackling in the fireplace.
But he was control incarnate, bracing his hands on either side of my face, completely nonplussed by my glare.
“What are we doing, Allie?” he asked so calmly, like asking about the constant menacing weather.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m on the verge of cursing your name.”
“Careful.” A grin twisted his lips. “You should know better than anyone how deadly name curses can be.”
I narrowed my eyes up at him, trying my best to disregard the way our chests touched for the briefest moments with each inhale, like our bodies wanted so badly to betray the distance I wanted to keep.
“Of course I know,” I bit out. “How do you?”
Protectorate name curses were feared for a reason, but one hadn’t been cast in our generation.
Ryker’s grin simply widened. His eyes no longer sparked, turning darker the longer he stared at me.
My heart began to gallop as the angles of his face sharpened with each one of my breaths he inhaled.
His fingers twined the ends of my hair, like he had before. But while he’d been patient and soothing on that morning, his energy now came loose at the edges.
He looked at me like he wanted to devour me–and if I didn’t move, I might have let him.
With more effort than it should have taken me, I slipped under his arm, moving a safe enough distance away that I couldn’t do something stupid. Like slide my hands up his chest.
“So, what, I can’t leave now?” I asked, throat parched.
“I told from the first day. You are no prisoner.” He opened one of the doors wide, leaning against it. Daring me. “Run, if you must.”
“I am not running.” I bared my teeth.
“Aren’t you?” He tilted his head to the side, gaze turning possessive as he drank me in. “And you want me to keep coming after you.”
That was the problem with the shadows one kept hidden.
Light always seemed to find them.
The comment slashed through me, pricking the exact impulses I barely acknowledge, let alone voice.
How could I even begin to explain–to myself, to him, to the gods above who surely must have been frowning down at me–that the big, bad Huntress didn’t run away from a battle, but herself?
And that yes, I did want him to keep up with me.
Because maybe, just maybe, if he cared enough to want to see me, the whole me, I could bear to face myself.
“No?” He chuckled low in his throat. “Very well.”
Eyes locked to mine, he closed the door slowly, sliver by sliver, allowing me every chance to slip away. I didn’t take any.
Instead, I stood there, a dangerous, twisted curiosity pulling at my senses.
No matter how I tried to explain it away, I’d wanted to stay.
Here, alone with him, surrounded by the chaos I’d brought down into the room.
Ryker’s grin didn’t leave his face as he stepped toward me.
I stepped back. All of my previous courage vanished in one gulp that echoed in the stillness of the room.
“Why should things be so complicated?” he drawled, prowling closer. The heat from the fireplace was nothing compared to the spark between us.
“Because you make them so,” I said, voice wavering.
One step.
Another retreat.
“Do I?” His voice dropped, promising sins I shouldn’t have wanted.
He closed the gap.
I lost ground.
Just as my foot fell toward the floor, he became a blur once more.
He caught my leg right before my sole stepped on the remains of a broken glass, raising it up around his waist. His other hand snaked around my waist to rest on the small of my back–a part of me that seemed to fascinate him almost as much as my hair–and pulled me closer.
Slowly.
Giving me every opportunity to leave.
I should have shoved him.
I didn’t even pretend to try. Instead, I leaned into him.
“We should stop,” I whispered.
“Do you want to?”
I stuttered a breath. “No.”
“Then why should we?”
Because I was still enraged.
Because this didn’t change anything.
Because I did not want to stop and that scared me.
“There must be some rules against this,” I muttered before I could stop myself.
It should have been, this spell he’d bound me under by just being himself. His infuriating self that I couldn’t pull myself away from.
We stared at each other, daring, defiant, and much too close to making another mistake.
He leaned in, words ghosting across my lips. “You and me, we make the rules.”
“You’re the one who keeps bending them,” I whispered.
In a flash, he turned me around, still holding on tightly, so that I wouldn’t step on the shards I’d smashed in my pain.
“You’re the one who loves breaking them,” he whispered hotly in my ear, sending shivers down my spine. “And my things. My calm. Me.”
If only I could have so much power over him to ripple his thoughts as he did with mine.
“You do,” he said.
Had I–had I said that out loud?
Before I could ask, his tongue darted out and circled the edge of my ear, stealing my words and my breath in one line heating up my skin.
“You walk through my mind constantly, like you own it.” He whispered fervently and tilted my face toward him. “And I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
My lips parted a breath away from his. I should have backed down. Instead, my hand snaked around his neck, holding on tighter.
“Still want to run away?” he breathed into me.
I bit my lower lip. I should have. I really, really should have. “No.”
We stood there, entangled and defiant, daring the other to first.
The air around us burned and cracked with tension, hands gripping tighter on the other, bodies pressing closer together.
A dark chuckle vibrated from his chest into my back.
“Driving me wild must be your favorite pastime,” he said at last and finally captured my lips with his.
I smiled against them.
I’d won.
The fire was unstoppable, our lips were locked and everything felt right in the world once more.
It was maddening, the kind of kiss that didn’t feel like a decision, but the inevitable.
The room blurred around us in the shades of the flames dancing on the walls.
All that mattered was the two of us.
Nothing else made sense about this connection, but the heat burning between us felt like the most natural thing in the world.
No.
Like a necessity.
His hand coiled tighter around my waist, as if it had always been meant to and we’d just been delaying the inevitable, steady and unyielding.
My fingers dug harder into the back of his neck, because I wasn’t letting go for anything in the world.
I wanted to anchor myself to him in this maelstrom of what our lives were, threatened at every turn, having to stand tall against the onslaught.
The world wormed itself into every aspect of our existence.
But this…this was just for us.
Almost sacred–if not for the decidedly unsanctified way he was gripping my dress and I yanked on his crimson robe.
Caught in each other, we collided into the edge of the enormous dining table, the few plates and forks which had escaped my wrath clattering on top of it.
He steadied me with one hand, before it slid up my back. Not demanding. Not gentle, either. Just completely and utterly certain.
We didn’t break the kiss, as if we were both afraid the other would vanish if we lost contact, even for a moment.
Not breaking contact, I steadied one hand on the table I’d marched on. My thumb barely grazed the edge of a plate I’d spared. I could have left it alone to live out its days gathering dust. Instead, I inched it toward the edge, the porcelain scraping against the wood.
Ryker tilted his head back, breathing haggard, lips now reddened.
“Don’t,” he warned with the voice of a man who knew exactly what match we were playing and who was controlling it.
I narrowed my eyes up at him defiantly, a grin twisting my lips, which he’d left puffy and bereft of his warmth.
The plate smashed to the floor.
My jagged grin widened.
He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, savoring the moment. The second he popped them back open, they’d darken beyond recognition.
Anticipation fluttered in my chest as he swooped down upon me once more, one hand resting at the base of my neck, thumb circling my pulse point, just where I wanted it.
“That wasn't very nice of you.” His hot lips trailed down my neck, latching onto my pulse point. “What’s mine is yours, but no need to destroy my entire fortress to get my attention. You always have it. In waking, in sleep, in battle, and in peace. You’re my only true constant.”
His hand slid up my chin, finger resting against my bottom lip, as his other palm drew soothing circles on my leg, so at odds with the sinful attention he was lavishing on the top of my body.
The contrast seared my nerve endings, making me more pliable in his embrace.
More reckless.
As his lips did wicked things to my self control, my own wrapped around his thumb. He shuddered behind me, body covering mine and trapping me in his warmth.
“You enjoy breaking my calm, don’t you?” He muttered and added a second finger. My tongue swirled around them both, eliciting another groan from him. “This is a game to you. And you love winning.”
I moaned past his fingers as his hand fisted my dress, drawing it up until the slit opened at my hips, exposing my backside. Tempting fate–and, yes, his calm–I leaned my elbows on the table, arching my back, eliciting a stuttered, growled inhale from him that stroked my pride.
My lips let go of his fingers with a pop as I looked back at him over my shoulder with a challenging tilt to my brows, as he played with my control, and I played with his. He was right, we did make our own rules–at least when it came to this blazing desire between us.
The rest of the world could halt for one damn moment and let us just be. We’d closed the door on the Commander and Huntress, who were probably listening and judging. Knowing this would change everything.
Damn them both right now.
“You’re such a brat.” He fisted the hem of my dress, now pooled around my waist, as his large palm slid up my leg, resting on my left cheek. “My brat. You know what happens to brats?”
I arched my back, licking my lips. “They face the consequences.”
“Such a smart woman. That’s what I love about you.” He kissed my temple, hand kneading my sensitive flesh. “You worked really hard for these consequences, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” I dug my nails into the table, my entire body on fire.
“Not rewarding such an effort would be rude of me.”
“Very rude.” I stretched further on the table, veins flooded with excitement.
“Far be it from me to disappoint. And you won’t disappoint me either, will you?” He sucked on my pulse point, drawing out a mewl from me I’d never heard and definitely wasn’t aware I was capable of producing. “You’ll count each stroke, yes?”
“Yes,” I moaned.
He kissed my temple once more. “Good girl.”
His palm lifted off my heated flesh. My entire body tensed in anticipation as I felt the air rush against my skin and–
The moan ripping at my throat startled me awake as the dream fractured.
I sat up with a flinch, sweat pooling at the base of my collarbone. The sheets tangled my legs, pressing along my skin in the same line Ryker had caressed in my dream.
I’d finally managed to fall asleep, only to lock myself back in that dining room with him. My eyes jumped to the closed door between our beds.
Had he heard me?
More heat rose in my cheeks.
Gods, if he’d known what I’d imagined him doing to me–
I placed my hand on the base of my neck, in a poor imitation of where his had pressed against me. I tried to quiet my heart, to no use. It still raced, as if still trapped between the table and his body
Only a dream, Vegheara. Nobody needs to know.
But I did–and I could swear I felt the ghost of his hand on my ass, as if he’d been right there with me.