Chapter 28 #2
“It’s only”—her voice seemed far away—“sometimes, I do not know truth from lie. What is my own emotion and what is His. Sometimes I don’t know who I am anymore.
Like I’m losing myself in this place.” Silla turned to him, finally meeting his eyes and letting Rey see it all.
The weight of bearing her mother’s bargain all alone, while striving to be Eisa.
And in that moment, Rey would have given anything to take the burden from her.
“I missed you,” she whispered.
“I missed you, too,” he replied, sliding his thumb along the smooth skin of her jaw.
But she drew back and said softly, “Then why didn’t you write?”
The hurt on her face was like an axe in his sternum, and Rey would do anything to banish it. But her words made no sense to him. “What do you mean?” Silla looked away, but he gently pulled her chin until her eyes met his once more. “I wrote to you, Silla…every day. Did you not get the letters?”
She blinked furiously, clearly befuddled.
“No.”
“No?” Anger blazed to life inside his chest, and he gritted his teeth. “I swore to you I’d write, Silla, and I did, every gods damned day we were apart.”
“And yesterday?” There was a note of disbelief in her voice, but far greater than that was her anger. Rey was relieved to hear it. “Why did you not come to me upon your return?”
“Jarl Hakon hauled me to his chambers and forced me into a pointless, hours-long meeting.” Rey’s gaze hardened.
“You wrote to me.” This time it was only confusion in Silla’s voice. “I thought—”
“Tell me.” Rey’s mind was reeling, trying to understand. How had this happened—and how could she think he didn’t write?
“I thought you’d changed your mind.” Her voice was small, but the words slammed into him with the force of a maelstrom. “I thought with space, you’d realized…”
He picked up where her voice had trailed off. “You want to know what I realized?” Rey slid an arm around her back, scooping her onto his lap. “I realized how much had changed in Kalasgarde. That leading the Bloodaxe Crew no longer felt right.”
Silla blinked at him, and this time, when he smoothed a thumb along her jaw, she did not pull away.
“I realized what a mistake I’d made in abandoning you in Kopa, with so much on your shoulders. Frightened together, Silla, I promised you that. And breaking that promise haunted me each day we were apart.”
“Oh,” she said, clearly dumbfounded. And then she softened against him, her warmth seeping into all the cold crevices inside his chest.
“Oh,” he repeated stonily. His hand slipped beneath her cloak and his knuckles brushed up her spine. “I don’t understand why my letters didn’t reach you.”
Rey’s mind raced for an answer, and it didn’t take long to find one.
Who had diverted him from seeing Silla? Who was displeased by Rey’s early return?
This had to be Jarl Hakon and Atli’s doing.
Rey’s anger burned to life. They thought they could walk all over him, simply because of their rank—thought they could take her.
But they were mistaken if they thought Rey would ever allow such a thing to happen.
This wasn’t over, not at all. But it could wait.
His anger at the Hakon men burned strong, yet the feel of his woman after so many days apart was stronger.
“I missed you,” he murmured into her hair, before drawing a deep pull of her scent.
Silla was silent, and it pained Rey that for all this time she’d thought he’d broken his promise to write. He opened his mouth to beg for forgiveness, but she beat him to it.
“How much did you miss me?”
Rey drew back at the mischievous note in her voice. Then his blood heated with desire.
“I’ll show you,” he muttered, glancing around.
Rey hefted Silla into his arms, chicks tottering away as she squealed in surprise and he strode through the chicken house.
Spotting a small door exiting the main part of the barn, Rey kicked it open to reveal a small room.
Against one wall was a desk of sorts, scattered with papers, while ledgers and tomes were stacked on a shelf opposite.
Rey sent the records scattering from the desk with a sweep of his hand, and after laying Silla down on the surface, he yanked the door roughly shut behind them.
“Rey!” protested Silla.
But as he turned toward her, he let his mask of control slip for a moment, showing her the full breadth of his hunger. “Yes?”
She propped herself up on her elbows, pupils spreading wide with need. But the mischievous quirk of her lips told Rey she had something up her sleeve. “Clean that up,” said Silla, in a voice of soft command.
It was a test, and he knew it, but Rey needed to atone—needed to prove his devotion to her. Besides, he was so gone for this woman, he’d probably light himself on fire if she asked it.
Slowly Rey dropped to his knees before her, then gathered the strewn papers without taking his eyes from hers. “What else?”
Silla licked her lips, and Rey’s whole body throbbed. “Take off my boots.”
It was pure torture to gently loosen the ties on her deerskin boots when every muscle in him yearned to rip them off. He cupped her calf as he slipped the second boot free, fingers reaching for her stockings.
Silla tutted. “I recall no mention of my stockings.”
Already, Rey was hard as granite, but the lilt of her voice had him growing somehow harder. He forced his fingers to still, gazing up at her over layers of silken skirts.
“You know I’d not kneel for anyone but you,” he said, in a hoarse voice.
Her lips tilted up as a stockinged foot landed on his shoulder and pushed him gently backward. “Undress for me,” commanded Silla, shimmying up to a sitting position on the edge of the desk so she could watch. Her dark eyes were glazed as her teeth sank into her lower lip.
Rey’s control was held by the very finest thread, but he pushed to his full height and reached for his belt.
The buckle clanked loudly inside the small space.
Silla’s pulse fluttered madly at the base of her throat, her gaze roaming all over his body.
He shucked his lébrynja jacket as slowly as he could, giving the maddening woman a taste of her own medicine.
“Hurry up,” she muttered, leaping off the desk and striding to him.
Her fingers slid beneath his breeches, and Rey couldn’t help the tremor that ran through him.
But she only reached for the hem of his tunic to yank it upward.
She was too short to get it over his arms, and Rey let her struggle for a moment before finishing the task.
Silla’s fingers traced the tattooed dragon wing along his collarbone before she jerked back. And as she returned to her perch on the edge of the desk, Rey knew he’d scored a point in whatever game this was.
He toed off his boots and stockings, then slid down his breeches. And as they hit the floor, he could tell Silla was nearing her own breaking point. The proof of his desire jutted evidently from his body, and he stood before her, letting her look her fill.
“What else do you command of me?” he asked.
“Stockings—” she choked out, lifting one foot.
Once more, Rey dropped to his knees before her, taking her calf reverently into his palm. A shudder ran through her as his fingers teased the edge of the stocking. But the moment his fingers touched her soft skin, Rey’s careful control snapped clean through.
“Fuck it,” he muttered, wrenching her legs apart and rucking up her skirts.
“Rey!” she exclaimed, falling backward.
He buried his nose at the apex of her thighs, nuzzling her inner leg until she cried out. Rey drew back and looked up from where he knelt between her legs. “Let’s get this clear, Sunshine. You might one day rule this kingdom, but I will always be in charge in the bedroom.”
“We’re in a barn—”
He slid his tongue through her center, and Silla’s words broke off in a breathy moan.
“Y-yes,” she pleaded.
“Who is in charge?” he demanded.
“You!”
Satisfaction pooled in his gut. “Later,” gritted Rey, “we’ll have a proper conversation, Silla, and you’ll tell me why you doubted my feelings for you.”
A whimper escaped her as he jerked her legs roughly up, and bundled them over his shoulders. “But for now,” he rasped, nipping her sensitive skin, “let me prove to you just how much I want you.”
And he showed her with the expert strokes of his tongue; with the claiming way his mouth worked her.
Rey showed her the flaming heat of his desire until she too was burning with want.
His grip on her thighs was bruising, his pace relentless, but he could not stop until he’d wiped each and every shred of doubt from Silla’s mind.
Her whimpers and pleading whispers were the sweetest music to his ears, and her still-stockinged feet slipped down his back, trying and failing to find something to grip onto. But the more she pleaded, the more Rey slowed his pace, prolonging this moment for as long as he could.
“Rey.”
“Not yet, Silla,” he tutted, kissing her inner thigh, as Silla’s feet, hooked around his back, tried to pull him to where she wanted him. “I’m still making my point.” He was painfully hard, yet he thrived on control and enjoyed this method of torture.
Working first one finger, then two in tandem, Rey brought her to the brink, then pulled back, smiling as her wail of frustration filled the small room. He pushed to his feet and reached for the fastenings of her gown.
“Too many gods damned layers, Silla. I need to see you now. It’s been too long.”
It took all his restraint not to rip the gown from her, and he grunted in satisfaction as it finally slid free. She was gorgeous and his eyes roamed greedily over her.
“Rey,” she pleaded, reaching for him. He considered prolonging this game of control, but even Rey had his limits.
The air thrummed between them as Rey hauled Silla to the edge of the desk and positioned himself at her entrance.
With a single swift motion, he sheathed himself deep inside.
A curse fell from his lips at the silken heat of her.
And based on the pleasure-dazed look in her eyes, she was right there with him. Rey drew all the way out.
“Let me make this clear to you, Silla.” He thrust back in.
“I wanted to tell you about every strange gods damned cloud I saw.” Thrust.
“I spent my days dreaming up names for your future chickens.” Thrust.
“Did I miss you? No. I obsessed about you, every minute we were apart.” Thrust.
“My every thought circled back to you. I missed the feel of you. The smell of you. I even missed your incessant humming.”
“I don’t hum—”
But Silla cried out as he climbed onto the desk and began to move in earnest. Rey covered her mouth with his own to stifle her cries, but the desk thumped against the wall with each thrust, and he soon gave up. Let the guards hear them. Let the whole city hear them.
It wasn’t long before her inner muscles began to pulse, and Rey thanked the gods because he couldn’t last much longer.
The desk rocked back and forth with their motion, and he wondered if it would hold.
But he couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, not even if the world crashed down around them.
The feel of her was so exquisite, for a moment the edges of his vision darkened.
Silla’s sharp cry pushed him over the edge, and a groan wrenched free from the deepest part of him.
With one last thrust, he buried himself deep inside of her and grunted.
His vision burst with starlight as he shuddered in release.
Sounds all around him grew muffled and for a moment, he was weightless—he was falling.
But a shriek from Silla had his instincts rushing back.
They were falling. Rey took the brunt of their weight on his arms, still wrapped around Silla, as they landed in a pile of splintered wood.
They lay there for a silent moment, as understanding settled into place.
The gods damned desk had collapsed beneath their weight.
Silla laughed first, but it wasn’t long before Rey joined in—deep laughs coming straight from his belly.
And as he looked down at her, Rey was flooded with warmth. Because this time, her smile was true.