Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
I’m on my feet instantly, hand going to my knife. I turn slowly, scanning the darkness between the trees. The moon is rising now, casting everything in silver and shadow. It’s hard to distinguish shape from darkness, predator from prey.
Something shifts near the tree line, half hidden in silver shadow. A silhouette separates itself from the darkness of the stone outcropping.
Oh, it’s just Garrett.
He’s leaning against the rock formation about twenty feet away, bottle of dark glass in one hand. The bottle tilts to his lips and he drinks deep. Even from here I can see the slight unsteadiness in his movements.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he says. His voice isn’t slurred yet, but it’s looser than it should be.
He sees the knife in my hand and raises the bottle a little in mock salute, as if to say don’t waste the edge on me.
I slide the blade back into its sheath and turn my back on him, refusing to acknowledge whatever game he’s playing.
“Don’t mind me,” he says behind me. “Just came to enjoy the view.”
I ignore him and push the water skin under the current again, filling it to the brim. The cold bites at my fingers, sharp enough to ground me.
Garrett takes a long pull from the bottle.
“I’ve been wondering something.” I hear him swallow before he speaks again. “What you’re like.”
I keep my hands in the water and my eyes on the current.
“In bed.”
My hands go still in the river. Heat flashes up my neck before I can stop it.
He can’t be serious.
“Someone like you…” He takes another pull from the bottle. “I’ve been trying to work it out all day. I cannot decide if you’re the type to take someone apart or let yourself be unraveled.”
The fuck is he asking me now?
The air shifts, suddenly charged. My jaw sets but I don’t look at him. I don’t give the bastard the satisfaction of a response.
“Whether you’re the sort to command or surrender, I mean.” The bottle tips again and I hear the liquid slosh. “I keep changing my mind about it.”
I refuse to engage with this insanity. I screw the cap onto my waterskin slowly. The cork tightens into place and I keep pretending I don’t hear a thing he said.
“You’re not going to tell me?” he asks.
I stand without answering. My feet find the bank and I keep my eyes fixed on the path ahead. I just need to walk away from this conversation. He can talk to the night air for all I care.
“No,” he says, and I can hear the slow grin spreading through his voice now. “I don’t think you have to. I think I’ve got you worked out.”
“Go back to camp, Garrett,” I mutter under my breath.
I pass him without slowing, without looking. My shoulder comes within inches of his.
“You’re the one who takes it,” he decides.
I stop walking.
“Yeah.” He chuckles softly. “That’s it. You don’t want to be in charge at all. You want someone to take control, to pin you down, to—”
Before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve turned and started back down the bank. My pace stays slow because anything faster ends with his blood on my knuckles.
He watches me come and the smile doesn’t leave his face.
“Go on,” he says quietly as I close the distance between us. “Hit me. I’ll take it. I’ve earned worse.”
I stop a stride away from him, close enough to smell the wine on his breath. His glazed eyes tell me exactly how much he’s had. I unbuckle the lower half of my mask.
Garrett doesn’t understand at first. I see the confusion in his face, the slow blink and the light tilt of his head.
He’s never seen my face fully. Since the moment we met, part of me has stayed hidden either by my upper or lower mask.
There’s always been something between his eyes and my face even as I lay with him in bed.
I pull the mask off completely and throw it. It hits the ground somewhere in the darkness behind him with a muffled thud against dirt and grass.
Gone. Nothing between us now.
Garrett makes a sound, small and surprised. His lips part and his eyes travel across my face, taking in my mouth, my jaw, the linear scar across the bridge of my nose.
“Oh,” he breathes, sounding almost dazed for a second.
His hand comes up slowly, drifting toward my face as if drawn by a string.
I slap it down.
Hard, and the crack of it echoes in the quiet night. He stares at me with his mouth still open.
I put my hand on his belt.
His breath stops and I feel the whole of him go still.
His pupils are wide and black in the moonlight, mouth still slightly parted from whatever he was about to say.
He doesn’t move. I’m not sure he’s breathing either as my hands find his belt buckle and ease it loose. The metal clicks as it comes free.
“Wolf,” he manages, and his voice has gone hoarse and uncertain.
“You wanted to know,” I tell him, meeting his eyes while my fingers find the laces of his breeches and pull them. “You asked what I’m like. So I’m showing you.”
“What are you—”
The laces come free under my fingers and his breeches loosen, sagging low on his hips. Our eyes stay locked while I let him see the truth written plain on my face. Garrett thinks he knows me.
He doesn’t know me at all.
I drop to my knees. He has made a mistake, and I’m about to prove it.
“Wolf…” My name fractures on his lips. “You don’t have to. This isn’t—”
He needs to understand that I’m not what he thinks I am. I don’t take orders or submit or let myself be led by anyone, least of all him.
I pull his sagging breeches down enough to free him. His cock springs out, thick and already hard.
I freeze.
I’ve felt it pressed against me before and saw occasional glimpses when he came out of the bath stark naked. But looking at it now, it seems bigger somehow. Veins run along the length, prominent and visible even in the dim moonlight. My throat tightens at the thought of taking that inside.
For a second I consider backing out. I can make some excuse and walk away from this entire situation. Then I steel myself.
I’m not backing down.
Not from this. Not from him. I lean forward.
I start with my tongue, dragging it slowly up the underside the way Sera always did for me. The slow movement by the courtesan usually made my breath catch and my hips jerk.
Garrett makes a sound low in his throat.
I wrap one hand around the base of his cock while the other moves lower, cupping his balls with careful pressure. The lovely courtesan told me this part matters. The dual sensation grounds you, makes everything else feel more intense.
“Fuck,” he breathes above me, his voice strangled and rough.
I take him deeper and hollow my cheeks the way I learned feels best, applying suction while my tongue traces patterns. His breathing changes, coming faster and shallower with an audible strain. That means I’m doing this right.
Then I realize something unexpected.
I’m getting hard.
My own cock is pressing painful and insistent against my breeches, aching with a need.
I’m turned on by this.
Garrett is falling apart above me and I’m the one doing it.
More raw sounds spill from him and his thighs tremble on either side of my shoulders.
That iron control he wears like armor is unraveling thread by thread under my tongue.
I’m making the unshakeable commander lose his composure, and the power of it burns through me.
Just like that, Garrett fucking Clayborne is at my mercy now.
I work him harder, faster, chasing the sounds he makes. Every grunt, every sharp intake of breath, every bitten-off curse fuels something hungry and dark inside me.
“Wolf,” he gasps, and his hand tangles in my hair.
I expect him to just hold on.
Instead, he pulls and forces me to take him deeper until he hits the back of my throat.
Moisture stings my eyes and I can’t breathe. His control is completely gone now. He’s holding my head in place and moving his hips, fucking my mouth with desperate thrusts.
His cock grows thicker and harder in my mouth as he plunges in and out. It should make me angry and me pull away.
Instead it makes me harder. Arousal sits heavy in my balls and I feel like they’re about to burst.
My hands fly to his thighs, trying to push him away. Black spots dance across my vision. I slap him harder, nails clawing into muscle. I’m suffocating and just before everything goes dark, he registers it.
Garrett’s hand tightens in my hair and he pulls me off his cock. I gasp a breath into my burning lungs, spit connecting my lips to his length. I only have half a second to recover before he’s guiding me back down. Deeper this time. I choke around him but he doesn’t stop.
I can’t take it anymore. My own need is clawing at me insistently. I stroke him with my tongue and swallow the tip of his cock deep into my throat.
Garrett grunts above me, the sound punched out of his chest. His whole body goes rigid. Every muscle locking up at once. Another soft gasp escapes him that almost sounds desperate and then he’s coming.
He comes hot and bitter in my mouth, pulsing against my tongue while his whole body shakes with it. His grip on my hair tightens to the point of pain and his hips jerk erratically, riding out every last wave until finally he’s spent.
When it’s over, he releases my hair slowly like his hands have forgotten how to work properly.
He’s braced against the rock with both hands flat to the stone behind him, head tipped back and chest heaving like he’s run a mile uphill. His eyes are closed and his throat works, but he hasn’t made a sound since he finished.
I spit his cum onto the ground and wipe my mouth on the back of my wrist. I stand up and wait for Garrett, staring at him until he opens his eyes.
He does, slow and dazed.
I hold his gaze, keeping my face carefully blank. “Consider that repayment.”
His brow knits in confusion.
“For what you did to me last time,” I remind him.
“Wolf,” he manages, his voice hoarse and deep.
“We’re square now.”
I turn and walk down the bank to the river without looking back. I can feel his eyes on me with every step.