Chapter 11
KAZAN
The kiss didn't stay a thank-you.
It started that way. Soft. Careful. The kind of kiss she could pretend was gratitude if anyone asked.
Then her hand fisted in my shirt, and she opened her mouth under mine.
That was the end of careful.
I should have stopped. The audit was soon, and my scent on her was one of the few things that could ruin everything. She needed to smell like a woman who'd been living alone in my house. Not like she'd been pressed against me in a barn with my hands under her clothes and my mouth on her throat.
That was a sensible thought.
I ignored it.
The barn doors were half open, and the orchard dripped quietly outside with the aftermath of the storm.
For now, there was no one here but us.
For now, I could have this.
She pulled back just enough to breathe, her cheeks flushed and her eyes dark. Sawdust clung to one side of her hair, and I had the insane thought that I wanted to brush it out and then mess her up all over again.
“I came out here to tell you I didn’t want noble,” she said.
My hands tightened on her waist.
“Say it plain.” My voice had gone rough. No helping that. “I’m a literal man. I don’t guess at this.”
She didn’t look away. That nearly undid me.
“I want you,” she said. “Here. Now. I’m done being careful.” Her hand flattened over my chest, right over the bond she didn’t know about. “Make me feel it.”
Good.
I lifted her.
She made a startled sound as I turned her to face me, settling her over my lap on the edge of the buggy. Her knees went to either side of my hips, and the whole rig dipped under us before the hover field caught.
We floated up a hand’s width.
She grabbed my shoulders and looked down. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“Good suspension.” I’d built it for rough roads. For the ridge path. For getting her to town without jarring every bone in her body.
Apparently, I’d also built it for this.
The buggy rocked gently under us, and when I leaned in to kiss her throat, it tilted with me. She gasped, her fingers digging into my shoulders.
The violet scarf was still around her neck. Silk against her skin. Too pretty. Too tempting. I’d been telling myself all morning that it was just a scarf.
It wasn’t.
I got my hands under her shirt.
Her skin was warm and soft under my palms, her waist so small I had to remind myself not to grip too hard. That was always there in the back of my mind. The size of me. The size of her. What I could do if I forgot myself.
I never forgot myself with her.
I drew her shirt up and over her head. The scarf stayed where it was, loose and violet against bare skin, and for a second all I could do was look.
She started to cover herself.
“I don’t–” she said, but it was more nerves than command.
“I’m going to keep looking.” I caught her wrist and moved her arm aside. “You spent four years with a man who never saw you. Let me.”
Her breath shuddered. Then she let me.
Perfect.
I cupped her ribs, thumbs brushing the undersides of her breasts. Her heart beat fast beneath my hands, quick and wild, and when I bent my head and put my mouth to her, she arched like I’d touched her with flame.
I licked her nipple, then drew it into my mouth. She made a small, desperate sound and rocked against me, and the buggy rocked with her.
It almost dumped us backward.
She laughed, breathless, her fingers sliding into my hair near the base of one horn. “This thing.”
“I’ll fix the dampers.”
“Don’t you dare.”
My tail had been moving behind me, slow and restless. I let it curl around her, brushing up her spine.
She went still.
I stopped immediately. “Too strange?”
Her hands tightened in my hair. “Do it again.”
There were few orders I enjoyed taking. That one, I’d obey forever.
I dragged the soft tuft of my tail over her breast, watching her face as I did it. Her eyes went heavy, her mouth falling open. I did it again, slower this time, while I licked and teased the other nipple with my tongue.
She shivered in my lap.
I had hands and a mouth. I had a tail.
I used all of them.
She moved against me, helpless little rolls of her hips that made my cock ache behind my pants. I wanted inside her. Wanted it badly enough that my teeth clenched with the force of holding back.
But she was shaking in my arms, and I wanted that more.
“I want…” She didn’t finish.
“I know.” I slid one hand down between us and under the waist of her leggings. She was wet already, slick and hot against my fingers, and the sound she made when I touched her nearly ended me. “I’ve got you.”
“Kazan.”
I worked her slowly, careful with the size of my fingers, watching every flicker of her expression. Her hips jerked when I found the spot she liked, so I stayed there, rubbing firm circles while my tail teased her breast and my mouth found her throat.
She came with my name breaking in half on her tongue.
I held her through it, one arm locked around her back, my hand still between her thighs until the last little shivers faded. She sagged against me, forehead pressed to my shoulder.
Good.
Very good.
Her head lifted. Her eyes found mine, and there she was again. The woman who’d crossed a galaxy, who’d clawed a hunter bloody. The woman who’d looked at every exit I’d built for her and decided she didn’t want to take one.
Her hand went to the front of my pants.
I sucked in a breath.
“Now,” she said.
I closed my hand over hers. Not to stop her. If I’d wanted to stop her, I would’ve had to be a better man.
“I’m not going to break,” she said.
“You might.”
“You won’t let me.” She held my gaze like that was the simplest fact in the universe. “That’s the difference, remember? So don’t make me ask twice.”
No, I wasn’t going to survive that.
Getting our clothes off was not graceful. Her boot caught in her leggings. The buggy lurched. She swore and laughed at the same time, and I had to catch her with one arm while trying to get her other boot unlaced.
“Stop moving,” I growled.
“I’m not the one who built a floating sex trap.”
“It was a buggy five minutes ago.”
“It evolved.”
I laughed against her mouth and finally got the last of her clothes off. Mine followed. Not neatly. I didn’t care. By the time she was bare in my lap, the scarf still loose around her throat, I was so hard it hurt.
Her gaze dropped between us. She bit her lip.
I almost came from that alone.
I gripped her waist and lifted her over me. She was so small in my hands. So soft. So trusting. My cock nudged against her entrance, and every instinct I had roared to take.
I didn’t.
“Slow,” I said.
Mostly to myself.
I lowered her carefully.
The first tight press of her around me made the whole world narrow down to her face, her breath, her nails biting into my skin. I watched her for pain. For fear. For anything that meant stop.
She only tightened her legs around me.
I kept going.
Inch by inch, she took me, her body stretching around mine until she was seated fully in my lap. The buggy rocked beneath us, jolting softly in the air. She pressed her forehead to mine, both of us breathing hard.
“Okay?” I asked.
She answered by moving.
Stars save me.
The hover field did half the work. Every roll of her hips sent the buggy dipping and swaying, turning small movements into long, slow strokes that dragged a groan out of me before I could stop it.
She smiled like she’d won something.
Maybe she had.
I held her waist and helped her ride me, keeping my grip firm but careful. She rose and sank, her slick heat taking me again and again, and the sight of her on top of me almost broke whatever good sense I had left.
Her breasts moved with every stroke. The scarf slid lower, violet silk against flushed skin. Her mouth was parted. Her eyes were bright.
Mine.
The word surged up from the bond, hot and dangerous.
Mate.
I locked it behind my teeth.
Not now.
Not here, with the audit coming and her future balanced on some stranger’s report. She’d had enough men tell her what her life was supposed to be. I wasn’t going to add destiny to the list while my cock was buried inside her and her scent was wrapped around my lungs.
So I said the only safe thing I had.
“I’ve got you.”
Her breath hitched.
“I’ve got you,” I said again, sliding one hand up her back and pulling her closer. “You’re safe.”
Her rhythm faltered. Her thighs trembled around me.
I brushed my tail against one as if to steady her and thrust up, just enough.
She cried out.
There.
I did it again.
She clutched at me, panting, her body tightening around mine. The buggy rocked harder now, the field humming beneath us, the whole damn thing swaying like it knew exactly what it was doing.
“Kazan,” she gasped.
“I know.” My mouth found her throat, right above the scarf. “Come for me.”
She did.
Her whole body bowed against mine, tight and shaking, her cry muffled against my shoulder. The feel of her clenching around me snapped the last thread of control I had.
I held her close and came hard, burying my face in her hair, careful even then. Careful while pleasure burned through me and the bond blazed like a star behind my ribs.
Mate.
I didn’t say it.
But I felt it in every part of me.
After, the barn was quiet except for the sounds of the orchard and the low hum of the buggy.
She lay against my chest, limp and warm, one arm tucked between us. The scarf had gone crooked, one end trailing over my arm. Sawdust clung to her shoulder.
I brushed it away with my thumb.
Her fingers traced one of the old scars on my chest. Lightly. Like she wasn’t afraid of where they’d come from.
“I’m keeping the scarf,” she said. “That’s mine now. The auditor can pry it off my cold dead neck.”
A laugh rumbled out of me before I could stop it. “I’ll have Drevus make you ten more.”
“Five was already too much.”
“And yet you took them.”
She finally lifted her head. Her cheeks were still flushed, her hair a mess, her mouth swollen from my kisses. She looked wrecked.
She looked perfect.
“I’m done refusing things I want,” she said. “Turns out it’s a habit. I’m breaking it.”
“Good.”
She smiled, and something in my chest went dangerously soft.
Two weeks of pretending. Of keeping distance. Of washing this from her skin and acting like I hadn't just had her naked and trembling in my lap on the ridiculous floating buggy I’d built her.
I could do it.
I’d do anything if it meant she got to stay.
But for one more minute, I didn’t move.
I held my mate in the quiet barn and let the minute stretch as long as it wanted.