Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
KIERAN
After an hour or so of intense training, running myself into the ground with drills, I felt calm and level-headed enough to return to the townhouse and await Arken’s arrival.
She expected to be back around two, and her exam wasn’t until four fifteen, which gave us just under two hours to return to our new brand of normalcy.
And I intended to take full advantage of that time, right down to the last minute.
I considered pouring myself a drink when I got home, tapping a bottle of gin I so rarely drank that it remained over half-full, five years after I’d purchased it. I decided against it, knowing it would probably be a coin flip over whether the liquor would mellow me out or reignite my demons.
Resolved to be a good boy for once in my fucking life, I picked up the copy of The Novosi Pirate Prince that Arken had essentially claimed as her own and indulged in a bit of a re-read.
“The Alberich clan had always ruled the black seas of eld, from the farthest corners of the east to the ever-expanding islands of the west, in the forgotten realms of…”
Within half an hour, a soft knock at my front door announced Arken’s arrival. Perhaps the Fates didn’t despise me after all. She was early.
“Why hello there, Little Conduit,” I purred, opening the door and tugging her tome-laden book bag off her shoulder as she entered the room, promptly hanging it on one of the hooks by the door.
I needed to find her a better solution for all those textbooks.
I knew she had a sentimental attachment to that bag, but the woman was going to fuck up her back if she kept lugging that shit around on one shoulder.
I was pleasantly surprised when she leapt into my arms the very moment my hands were free, thighs wrapping around my waist, her smiling lips capturing mine for a deep, slow, welcoming kiss.
Everything awful about my afternoon faded away, barely a thought in my mind now that I drank her in, taking hold of her by the ass and sipping on her kisses like they were the finest wine in the world. Utterly intoxicating.
Her scent was invading my senses, all lemon and moss and the smell after rain, blending with the subtle, earthy fragrance of her sweat and the salt of her skin. I could lose myself in her essence, given the opportunity.
Gods, someone bury me in a lemon grove. Even in death, I want to remember her when it rains.
When I finally set her down, we had already made our way back to my bedroom, and she giggled. “Miss me, Captain?”
“You know I did.”
“Likewise,” she whispered.
It was then that my gaze drifted to her bare neck.
The pretty, pale, and perfectly pristine skin of her throat.
It was only over a decade’s worth of training that kept my face calm, straight, and smiling while something primal in me began to howl and snarl.
Don’t. Don’t do this.
As Arken took a private moment to slink into the washroom, peeling off multiple layers of clothing, I took several long, heavy breaths, pinching at the bridge of my nose.
Get your shit together, Kieran.
I was sure she had a perfectly good reason for this, even if I wasn’t feeling very logical or intelligent right now. With no small amount of effort, I managed to mostly compartmentalize, burying the way the sight of her throat wiped clean simultaneously infuriated and destroyed me.
It’s not that fucking deep.
Right. Yeah. It didn’t have to mean anything at all, really—this was just common practice. Plenty of my previous conquests had done the same. Not that I had particularly cared when they’d done it.
And if you didn’t give a damn about them, you have no right to give a damn about it now.
By the time Arken returned, I had myself under control. Though the fact that she was now donning the dark green lingerie set I’d left out for her to discover…I was about to lose control in an entirely different way.
“Holy fucking shit.”
Arken’s fingertips were already glimmering with Light aether as she leaned against the door frame, running one hand seductively over her curves.
“Yeah?” she breathed, staring me down with half-lidded eyes like those dark lashes were just too heavy, too luscious to keep lifted at a time like this.
I moved toward her like a man possessed, ready to drop to my knees and beg for just a taste of that perfect cunt.
Most of Arken’s own underclothes were a bit plain, which came as no surprise.
She was a woman who put function over fashion, prioritizing comfort over appeal.
Probably because she knew damn well that she would be the most appealing woman in the room no matter what she wore.
She could break hearts in a burlap sack.
But I was still about ready to pen a personal, heartfelt thank-you note to Ysabeau.
“Yeah. Gods, yeah. The Source should just take me now, Asher. You’re fucking devastating.”
“Mm, you do such dangerous things to my ego, Vistarii.”
“I’m about to make it worse,” I whispered hoarsely.
In a move very unlike me, given my preferences, I did indeed sink to my knees before Arken Asher, still fully fucking clothed. And rock fucking hard, but that went without saying.
I took hold of one of her legs, soft and smooth, and bent my neck so that I could press gentle kisses up her calf.
“How has your day been so far, sweetheart?”
“Fates,” Arken murmured, her golden gaze gone molten, biting her lip. “Did I do anything at all today before this? I can’t say I recall.”
You have no idea how badly I needed to hear you say those words, sweet thing.
As if she knew how desperate I was to allow myself to be comforted by her, Arken reached out with a tentative hand and ran her fingers through my hair as I continued to press kisses against her flawless flesh. I groaned as her nails grazed against my scalp in small circles.
“Gods, I missed you, Kier,” she whispered. There was something like awe in her expression as she drank in the sight of me on my knees before her, something tender, a mirror to the gentle seduction I had started. “I missed you so godsdamned bad, it’s absurd.”
I drank those words in like the nepenthe they were. And her next words were so faint, I wasn’t entirely sure if she intended for me to hear them.
“Fates damn it all, Kieran, what are you doing to my head?”
We had only been parted for four hours, thirty-seven minutes, and some odd number of seconds, and yet I knew exactly what she meant. I understood how she felt because I felt it, too.
I could barely breathe without her now.
“Nothing nearly as bad as what I’d like to do to your body,” I murmured, pushing myself up on my knees just enough to run my nose across the seam of her panties, letting my hands wander anywhere they could find purchase.
Fuck, she smelled good—that blend of her arousal and the lightly perfumed silk was a heady cocktail.
“You know…I was hoping you might say that.”
I glanced up at her. “That so?”
She nodded, tendrils of her hair beginning to come loose from the soft bun above her head. Light from the window behind her shone through, giving her a natural halo.
Was it really any godsdamned wonder that I wanted to worship the ground this woman walked on?
“What, exactly, were you hoping I might do with this pretty little body of yours when you dressed it up for me like this?”
“I truly cannot recall,” Arken said dryly. “I fear you’ve managed to distract me from such thoughts entirely. I’ve never had a thought in my godsdamned life, actually.”
“I see,” I purred, slowly rising to my feet, my hands making their way from her hips to her waist, then to cup her breasts, both thumbs teasing at the hardening nipples hidden behind silk and lace. “Well, then…”
I could give her plenty to think about. And even more to fantasize about later, when I inevitably had to let her out to take her exam.
Arken’s eyes danced with satisfaction as I picked her up by the waist with very little effort and tossed her back onto my bed where she belonged.
“Sophrosyne’s finest academic has forgotten how to think straight? We can’t have that, now can we?”
“Something tells me that whatever you’re about to do is decidedly not going to help me think straight, Captain.”
I grinned. “Yeah, probably not. Quite the opposite, if I do it right.”
“And he’s not even sorry about it, Your Honor!” Arken exclaimed in falsetto, feigning a swoon with a hand resting delicately on her chest. “The scoundrel!”
Guilty as charged.
“Not even a little bit sorry.”