21 Penny #2
And that was when I realized I’d never felt safe in my life. Never. No one had ever made me feel protected and I knew that because that feeling—there, with Thilar—was foreign to me.
“God, this feels good,” I muttered.
A low, rhythmic sound vibrated in his throat. A chuckle and a handsome one at that.
“You are a curious thing,” he whispered, his thumb absently stroking my shoulder.
“Because I get cold?” I paused a moment, purposefully letting my breath trail along the front of his neck. “Or because I want you to warm me?”
“Both.” He drew back a little to look down at me. “But why, Penny? You have made it clear you do not hate me for what I did in the arena, but some part of you must consider me a factor in that unfortunate period of your life.”
“Yeah. The only good part.”
The way his eyes bore into me, I imagined he was seeing more than a human could. He stared like he just noticed something about me that I didn’t even know myself and despite that it made me feel utterly naked, I didn’t care. I welcomed it.
His hand lifted from my shoulder and gently moved to sweep a strand of hair from my face with the tips of his fingers.
“Penny,” he whispered. “You’re—”
“Kiss me.”
He did not flinch at those words, almost as if he expected them. That same, conflicted look washed across his gray features.
“I’m sorry. If you don’t want to, I understand. But I can’t stop wanting you to. And I know—”
I couldn’t finish my sentence before Thilar’s lips were on mine, moving with abandon, hot and direct.
I sucked in a breath, surprised, but not at all upset.
Instantly, my hand hooked the back of his neck, my fingers weaving through the loose strands of his coarse hair.
Instinctively, my body followed, nudging closer to his and chasing that precious warmth and security.
Thilar’s thigh slid up between mine, rubbing teasingly against my sex.
I rolled my hips, moaning into his mouth as his tongue pushed past my lips.
So, he did know how to kiss. He knew how to kiss well. Better than I did.
And I loved it.
I opened my mouth to his control, craving more, and the more I took, the less I cared that I was human and he was not.
I swept my tongue across his teeth, pricking it lightly on his fang, and suddenly my nipples were pebbling under my night shirt.
He pressed his thigh between my legs again and I knew at that point, his pants would be soaked.
I thought I would have been embarrassed, but I wasn’t. Not with him.
My hands slid further back around his neck and then down the back of his shoulder, feeling every ripple of his hard muscles flex under my palm.
My stomach fluttered as waves of dizzying warmth flitted through my veins.
When I felt his large hand slide over my hip and along the curve of my waist, bringing the hem of my nightshirt with it, all I could do was hope.
Hope that this was real and I wasn’t going to open my eyes and realize I was back in my mossy cell or on an operating table somewhere.
“Penny,” Thilar whispered between kisses. “I thought you needed sleep.”
“I thought I did. Turns out I just needed you.”
He drew back, balling the hand on my side into a fist.
“We cannot. Not until all of this is through. I need to be sure I am not going to be convicted for all that has happened. And if I am, I will have to answer for it.”
“I don’t understand how they could possibly blame you for anything,” I sighed.
“But… I understand that I don’t understand it.
” Licking my lips, I tried to get my body under control, wishing I could turn off everything that Thilar so unconsciously and easily turned on.
“If you were free to do as you please, with no harm to your honor or your laws, what would you do?”
His eyes settled on mine, bright with unanswered hunger, his pupils thin and almost predatory.
“Tell me what you’d want me to do,” he whispered gruffly. “If my honor and my laws held no sway.”
I swallowed, feeling stripped. Not just of my clothes, but everything. Every defense I’d ever erected felt torn and weakened by his gaze and his question.
“I would want…” I paused to take a breath. “I would want you to touch me. With no restraint. And… I would want you to get pleasure from it.” Another pause to think about whether or not I wanted to divulge what was really on my mind. “Like I got pleasure from it… in the arena that day.”
He blinked, his eyes brightening with awareness. He searched my face, as if looking for signs that I was being dishonest or waiting for me to say as much.
“You cannot have—”
“I shouldn’t have,” I cut him off. “But I did. And I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how I could have…
with all those wretched people watching.
All the violence. It’s because of you. Because of how you fought for me.
I wanted you to have me.” My eyes lowered for a beat before lifting to meet his once again, shy. “Because you won. Because I’m yours.”
Silence overtook the room and through it, all I could hear were our heartbeats thrumming in tandem with each other, rhythmic and energized.
Then, slowly, he leaned in, his mouth meeting mine again in a controlled but hungry kiss that sent my body into another lustful spiral.
I could not help myself. I lifted my knee, sliding it along the outside of Thilar’s leg until my thigh was draped over his hip, and I rocked toward him, wishing against all logic that he would lose control and claim me again like he had before.
“I cannot partake in my own pleasure,” he said against my mouth, his hand slipping down my side, over the crest of my hip, and toward my backside.
He gripped it hard and then continued to move his hand along my thigh where my night shirt had ridden up enough for him to find my bare skin.
“But I cannot think of a reason I cannot partake in yours.”
I shivered at those words, kissing him deeper as his hand slid between us. The moment I felt his fingers slip between my lower lips, I realized just how wet I was simply because I was pressed to his body. I gasped shakily, letting out a soft moan when his thumb brushed over my clit.
“Please,” I whispered into his mouth, bracing a hand against his hard chest as he spread my arousal over my sex, tracing every bit of me in exploration.
“Tell me how,” he whispered back, circling my clit again until I whimpered.
“That,” I said. “Is very sensitive.”
“Painful?”