Chapter 36
Chapter
Thirty-Six
ALLIE
W ho even needed words when kissing was this good?
I might have been the one renowned for my sharp tongue, but the things this man could do with his should have had odes dedicated to it.
The way it licked my lips, as if asking and demanding access at the same time, making me tremble from my cheeks down to my toes.
How it danced against mine with unrestrained passion, like we both wanted to fight for command.
My palm melted against Ryker’s chest, his heartbeat a gallop against my skin, while my other arm coiled around the back of his neck.
His hands slid from the wall, tangling in my wild hair. But not like all the others who’d ever gotten this close to me. They’d wanted to tame it. Have it wrap around their unworthy fingers, bend it to their will.
Ryker’s fingers dug into the strands like he wanted to release them all wilder.
Unleashed.
Feral.
His strong body pressed against mine, making the flutters in my stomach turn into waves upon waves of desire.
A moan ripped from my throat as my nails dug into the back of his neck.
“You don’t even need to be talking to drive me mad,” he growled against my lips in one breath, before reclaiming them once more with an intensity that stole the air out of my lungs and made my knees tremble.
His right palm slid to the back of my skull, angling my head so he could savor me fully, while his other hand slid down my side, resting just above my hip.
He had me pinned and gasping in this sacred crypt and I didn’t care if the whole thing crumbled around us as long as he kept nipping at my lips like he was doing now.
Then, I did something everyone and their loud-mouthed uncle said The Huntress would never be able to in her lifetime–I let someone else take the lead while I stood there and took it.
And godsdamn, it felt good.
I melted between the wall and his body as he made my body sing.
Maybe I had been driving Ryker mad with this big mouth of mine, but he made me surrender with his.
Just for today.
Just for a few moments.
His hand slipped lower, grasping my thigh like he’d done it a thousand times before and pulling it over his hip.
I didn’t need any other sign.
Holding on tight to his shoulders, I propped myself up and curled my legs around his middle, and received a satisfied growl from him in return.
“Good girl,” he muttered.
Fuck.
Those two words, which nobody had the gall to even utter in my presence before, did something to me.
They scratched a craving I never knew I had.
They made my legs tense so that I drew him even closer into me.
And goddamn it, when he pressed himself between my thighs, my head rolled back and another moan escaped my lips.
His kisses turned softer as he peppered them down my neck. But these touches were soft. Almost reverent.
As if he remembered Orion had almost taken the pulse out of it, leaving behind his ugly mark, and wanted to erase it with gentleness.
But I didn’t want to think about the ugly past.
I wanted him to devour me.
I tilted his head up and captured his lips this time.
Ryker must have read my thoughts, because he kissed me back with a hunger that made me feel wanted as I’d never been in my life.
Not for my titles, or crown, or jewels.
Not for The Huntress.
Not for Allegra Vegheara.
For Allie. The woman who’d been betrayed and ignored for too long.
The one I’d locked away because she was too soft to survive. Ryker didn’t ignore her. He coaxed her out.
A whirlwind of desire rolled inside of me, hotter than any surge of power. I groaned, just like the feral animal he made me feel like.
“That’s it.” His mouth was done tormenting mine and slid down my neck again, more pressing and devious this time. “I want to hear every word, every sound, every growl this beautiful throat of yours can give me.”
“You won’t be satisfied until you hear me scream, will you?” I asked, voice breathless and lower than I’d ever heard it.
“Counting the days until you do. My name.”
“No Commander?”
“Let the rest call me that. I trusted you with my name,” he said fiercely. Then he narrowed his eyes playfully up at me. “Though we can negotiate that part if you’re into it.”
“Fuck,” I muttered as my nails dug harder into his skin.
The word hadn’t even finished echoing around us when his palm dug into my behind, rocking against me. “There you go again with that mouth of yours.”
He was going to ruin me.
Because the pressure was already building inside of me and I was powerless to stop it.
But The Huntress was still somewhere inside of me and she was dying to come out.
“Guess I need to be taught a lesson,” I whispered, voice more shaky than I’d meant it.
The growl that erupted from his chest was ungodly.
It made me want to sin.
Made me want him to make me do wicked things I’d only ever dreamed of.
“Depends.” He grabbed my chin, mouth so close to mine, I could almost taste him. But when I tried to claim another kiss, he leaned back slightly. Fucking tease , that’s what he was. “Are you a fast learner?”
“Oh, I’m just the best student.”
I didn’t know where this wanton creature had come from, but, right now, I loved her.
She was unrestrained in her passion.
Not timid, not worried she would do too much or too little.
She lived in the moment, tomorrow be damned.
Maybe that’s what that constantly-buzzing brain of mine needed.
To be fucked until I couldn’t think anymore.
But I couldn’t say that out loud.
Not yet.
I still had to get accustomed to this lustful, reckless part of me.
The one which Ryker had brought to the surface.
Because I didn’t have to be the leveled, steady one for once.
I could indulge in all the things I thought weren’t possible for someone like me and let loose.
Maybe because I knew Ryker could face it and not shy away. But encourage it.
And, oh, how he encouraged it, with each grip of my thighs and roll of his hips.
He kissed me like he wanted to drink my very essence, all that control of his cracking.
It scared me, how much I wanted to be consumed.
“Come here,” he rasped and pulled me away from the wall, carrying me in his arms like I weighed nothing.
“Don’t have a choice now, do I?” I teased.
“Pff, you should have told me, I don’t want to impose on your princely time.”
He loosened his grip on my thighs and, for the barest moment, gravity claimed me. He caught me instantly, just as my surprised giggle reverberated around us.
“Gods, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more beautiful sound,” he said, laughing.
I playfully smacked his shoulder. “Mean.”
Yes, I was definitely out of my mind.
After a lifetime of being called too tall and too loud, him holding me so easily and reveling in each of my sounds drove me wild.
My teeth grazed his neck, tongue swirling across his skin. It should have been a punishment for the joke, but from the way his chest vibrated, he didn’t mind one bit.
He laid me on the edge of the table gently, capturing my lips once more. The table was still hot, but it was nothing compared to this heat.
And I wanted all of it.
To burn and blaze through me.
His fingers began unbuttoning my coat quickly.
The fire crackled behind us, casting a golden glow on his face. I didn’t know what this Solkar of theirs looked like, but he couldn’t have been more beautiful than this man watching me with unrelenting desire.
“You look like you have a halo around you,” he whispered reverently. “You’re gorgeous.”
“I–” I’d never been called that. Beautiful, a few times. Peculiar, more than once. Never gorgeous. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome,” he said, voice hoarse and filled with a promise that made me tremble. He took my earlobe between his teeth, eliciting an ungodly sound from me.
Just as he popped open the last button and the coat began to slide from my shoulders, a tremor shot straight through me.
But it hadn’t come from me.
Ryker and I froze at the same time, twin shocked gazes blazing into each other.
The ground was shaking.
Then the hum began.