Chapter 6
The moment Silla kicked the door to her bedchambers closed, Rey’s lips crashed down on hers.
Anger and jealousy and raw lust churned through her veins, and Silla tugged at Rey’s thick curls as she urged him on.
They collided with the wall and sent a tapestry tumbling to the floor.
Silla pulled back with a laugh, but Rey’s lips quickly recaptured hers.
His mouth was soft, but his kiss was hard and domineering.
And Silla understood that the morning spent sparring had been the most torturous form of foreplay for Rey as well.
With Rey’s eyes on her the entire time, it had been impossible to forget their morning routine in Kalasgarde—those large hands landing on her hips, tilting them just so; the press of his warm chest against her back as he’d restrained her lightly.
She’d thrown herself into her practice, but her body had only grown tighter with need.
Now those hands landed possessively on her hips as Rey walked her backward.
Her legs hit the bed, and Silla was falling, pulling Rey down with her.
Though he braced himself carefully on his forearms, the sheer weight of him pressing her into the feather mattress was utterly delicious.
But it also made her acutely aware of just how many layers of clothing separated them.
Silla fumbled with the fastenings of Rey’s lébrynja armor, desperate to feel his bare skin against hers.
Anger from the sparring grounds lingered in her bones, exacerbated by thoughts of that woman who’d not only tried to humiliate her, but also clearly marked herself as Rey’s past lover.
The very thought of the woman’s hands on him made Silla’s anger flare hotter.
Well. The woman hadn’t gotten the best of her in the sparring yard, and she certainly wouldn’t get the best of her in the bedchamber.
Hooking her leg around Rey’s hip, Silla took advantage of his surprise, heaving them both to the side.
She twisted on top of him, then settled on his hips.
Gods, he was hard as stone beneath her. Rolling against him, she tried to satisfy her cravings, but it wasn’t enough.
Her heart pumped at an alarming rate as she shimmied down his thighs and tugged at his breeches.
“Silla.” Rey’s voice was a living thing, skimming along her skin but catching on every notch of her spine.
Silla raked her curls over one shoulder, looking deep into Rey’s eyes as she pulled him out, hot and firm and wholly enticing. “Did you enjoy it?” she asked, stroking him slowly. “Watching me spar?”
Rey’s hips gave an involuntary jerk. “Gods above, woman,” he growled, sounding half pained.
Silla’s lips curved into a smile. She did not know what Rey’s history was with that woman, but she did know she’d make him forget her.
“I think you did.”
Lowering her head, Silla licked the tip of him and felt Rey’s low groan all the way to her toes.
A whimper escaped her, but she tried to cover it by taking him as deep as she could.
Her eyes watered, but the flex of his hips only encouraged her.
Silla began to move, noting the strain of his stomach muscles, the smoldering intensity of his gaze.
His eyes fell shut on a curse, and inwardly she smiled.
“Silla,” hissed Rey, his fingers threading into her curls and pulling her up. “Wait.”
Silla wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, scowling at him. “I don’t want to wait.”
His passion-glazed eyes seemed to darken further. “Ever impatient.” Sitting up, Rey cupped her jaw, one thumb caressing her cheek. But Silla turned her head, capturing his thumb with a gentle suck. “Gods, woman. I won’t last if you keep this up.”
Having control over such a large, powerful warrior sent warmth unfurling low in her belly.
Releasing his thumb, Silla leaned downward, but Rey moved with preternatural speed.
Before Silla knew what had happened, she’d been flipped onto her back, Rey looming over her.
Scowling, she reached for the length of him, but he caught her wrist and pinned it above her head.
“Trouble,” he muttered, forcing her other arm up and securing both wrists with one hand.
For a long, measured breath, he stared down at her reverently.
Then, Rey slowly worked his breeches off before reaching for his tunic.
As he shifted hands on her wrists to pull the garment over his head, Silla’s legs hooked around his hips, and she shoved against the weight of him.
She rolled him easily—too easily. And when she tried to clamber atop him, she cried out in surprise as momentum kept them rolling.
Rey landed atop her, a victorious look in his eyes.
“Are you trying to spar with me, Silla?”
She was too distracted by the expanse of tattooed skin above her to answer. Inky-black scales against warm, brown skin. A barbed tail twisting down one arm, a burst of flames twisting down the other…
As the scent of smoke met Silla’s nostrils, she blinked out of her stupor. Rey had expressed a thin ribbon of smoke and was now looping it around her wrists.
“What—” Before she could finish the thought, the smoke tightened, pinning her hands on either side of her head. A shiver rolled through her at the feel of the smoke—hot and prickly, yet not to the point of discomfort.
Rey sat back, both hands now freed. The man was beyond pleased with himself. “Better.”
“Unfair,” complained Silla, writhing against her smoky binds. “You know I cannot use my own galdur!”
But Rey was unfazed. He reached for her lébrynja jacket and unfastened it with excruciating slowness before pulling it free around her restraints. Rey repeated the move with her undertunic, her boots, her breeches. When at last Silla was bare, Rey’s gaze raked over her form.
“Do you enjoy it,” he rasped, a large, warm hand sliding up her rib cage, “when I tease you?”
“No!”
But he only chuckled. “Liar.”
“Your liar,” she breathed.
“My liar,” Rey agreed, and then his mouth was back on hers.
This kiss was slow and deep, so decadent it made Silla’s head spin.
Callused fingertips scraped along the curve of her hip, the flat of her stomach, then lower.
As they slid through her center, Silla knew he would find her ready.
Gods, she’d been craving this for hours now; she was half wild with need.
He dipped two fingers in, working rhythmically until she writhed beneath him.
Her muscles flexed as she tried to urge him faster, harder, but Rey’s smoke held her firm.
With slow, languorous movements, he stoked her need higher, deeper, until she was desperate to reach that pinnacle and break apart.
But Rey drew back. Withdrew his fingers. And as he slid down her body, Silla had a moment of apprehension.
“Rey, I was just sparring,” she protested.
“I know,” whispered Rey, throwing her leg over his shoulder.
“But I sweated.” She whispered the last word in warning.
“I know.” Rey’s eyes were fever-bright as he looked up at her. “Please,” he rasped, reaching down to adjust himself. Was he…aroused by this?
“Oh, very well—I—oh!” Silla gasped as his tongue slid through her, and all her inhibitions burned to ash.
There was only feeling. Only the scrape of his beard and his coarse curls against the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.
Only the thrust of his fingers, the delicate touch of his tongue.
Her feet pushed down against his back, trying to urge him closer, trying to get the pressure just right…
“More,” she begged, tugging against her binds to no avail. The realization that she was at his mercy—that she gladly relinquished complete trust and control to him—only made her pleasure coil tighter.
“Patience,” he rasped, yet his voice betrayed a hint of his own impatience. And as Rey reached down to adjust himself once more, Silla knew she was not alone in her frustration.
Rey pulled the tenderest part of her into his mouth with a gentle suck, and Silla bowed off the bed with a cry.
“Yes!” she urged him on, her heels digging into the thick muscles of his back. “Please!”
And finally, the man obliged. A curl of his fingers.
A twist of his tongue. Another gentle suck, and it was enough.
The tension inside her broke free, her pleasure a living thing thrashing ferociously through her.
On it went, Rey’s merciless fingers never letting up.
Silla spasmed and clenched until it had run its course.
Then she lay panting, clutching her hands to her forehead as she stared up at Rey.
His brows were drawn. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Free yourself—”
Silla blinked, then stared at her freed wrists. “I don’t know. Did you not free them?”
He shook his head slowly. But Silla was quickly distracted by the sight of his unfulfilled desire.
“Need—” she whispered, freed hands reaching for him.
Every muscle in Rey’s body seemed rigid as he took himself in hand and pumped.
And not for the first time, she thought he looked much like a malevolent god.
Slowly, Rey pushed into her. Silla clasped his arms as her body gradually accepted him.
The room was quiet save for the sounds of their mingling breaths as Rey worked himself in with deliberate, insistent thrusts.
As he reached the deepest part of her, Silla’s body clenched around him, and they stared at each other.
But neither could bear to exist in such a state for long, and when Silla, ever impatient, wriggled against him, Rey began to move. As he found a rhythm, her pleasure quickly spiraled anew, tightening with each increasingly erratic thrust of his hips.
“You drive me mad, woman,” he muttered, and Silla wasn’t sure if it was praise or a complaint. “Did you enjoy kissing me in front of all those warriors?”
“Y-yes.”
Rey’s eyes flared wide at her response, his hips surging forward with yet more speed.
“I wanted them to know—” Silla gasped as he again reached the deepest part of her.