CHAPTER FOURTEEN #2
My chest heaved in response. I had to go through with it. Before too many suspicions began to form. Before I could stop pretending that I didn’t want to.
“Brennan,” I whispered, lifting onto my toes until I was barely a breath away from his face.
His cheeks flushed. “Yes?”
“When.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth just as his lips swept up against mine, offering the barest touch.
And then … a second later, Brennan was kissing me, soft and sweet in a way that was almost chaste as his lips moved against mine.
The kiss was pure and innocent. And yet, my knees weakened, heat pooling below my belly.
He pulled back, just enough to catch my gaze, to hold it—to hold me. To ask once more if this was okay, to ask for permission to do it again. To do more.
I bit my lip. It was done. It was over. He had kissed me. Our contract was fulfilled, and we were well within our rights to stop. To walk off the field hand in hand and not share another intimate touch until the wedding.
My mind was shouting at me to step back. Screaming for me to pull away, to end this before anything else could happen. Before Brennan’s lifeforce began flowing into me more than it already had. Before he fell from a sudden loss of energy like Olivay’s mother had.
My heart was pounding, and the crowd was roaring. But I couldn’t pull my gaze back from Brennan’s. I couldn’t look away. Even when I tried.
And then, I didn’t have to fight it anymore. I didn't have a choice in the matter, because the deciding factor had made itself known.
“Come on, son,” King Tirian’s voice rose above the din. “Show them a man! Kiss her! Kiss her hard.”
“By Kavrir, I’m sorry,” Brennan said, his neck reddening, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “We don’t—we don’t have to—”
But I grasped his chin and kissed the corner of his mouth before he could finish. My tongue swept against the seam of his lips, licking and tasting until he gasped into my mouth.
I whispered, “When.”
“When,” he said, a rasp in his voice. His palms cupped my cheeks, angling my face up, then his lips pressed down, kissing my upper lip, sucking it deliciously between his.
We were both kissing harder this time, hungrily.
Our mouths moved furiously together until he took my bottom lip, sucking on it like I was a sip of water that he needed to survive.
Like I was a feast he would devour. A small growl erupted in his throat as he tugged my lip between his teeth, heat and desire growing inside me, building and building until he released me.
I gasped, out of breath, my chest heaving, my skin flushed with heat. I hadn’t been expecting that. Hadn’t expected Brennan to take control, or to kiss me with such skill and fervor.
Or command ...
And just like that, from a sweep of his tongue and his mouth on mine, something was unleashed inside of me.
The dam I’d been building to hold myself back was gone.
I pressed myself against him, needing more.
More friction, more of his body, more of him.
My hands slid up his back, up against the hard steel of his armor, and the soft fabric of his cloak—until I found the warm skin of his neck, and the curls at the nape, and dug my fingers between them.
I pulled on his hair as I tangled my fingers deeper, and deeper into the curls.
My mind cleared of the world around me. I couldn’t remember a single thing beyond his touch, his scent, his taste—not who he was, not who I was. By the Gods, I couldn’t even remember where we were, or why we were kissing. Only that I loved it, that I wanted it and needed it. Needed him.
Needed more. Through the haze of my lust-riddled thoughts was that if we stopped kissing, if he pulled away from me, the loss would be like torture.
I swept my tongue against his, our kiss deepening even more.
I felt that primal thing inside of me was wide awake.
Ancient and unyielding. Like there was knowledge I needed at the other end of his kiss.
There was no denying that there was something sparking between us, something bigger pulling us together …
And that thing was getting louder and louder until everything inside of me was screaming, roaring, demanding.
I needed to push him on his back, unhook his armor, lift my skirts, and push my soaking undergarments aside.
I needed to sink down and down onto his length, to feel him fill me, to push as deep inside me as he could.
To hell with whoever saw us, whoever judged.
Let them watch, let them see, let them hunger for more, hunger for you …
I gasped.
The Azete. The Azete was awakening. No, it was already awake. And it was feeding.
But the energy he was giving me was nothing like it had been between us before, when the mere act of talking to Brennan, of holding his hand, and staring into his eyes had fed me as much, if not more than someone I’d fucked.
Standing on the field where the joust would take place—our bodies pressed together as intimately as we could manage through our dress and armor, our mouths heated as we kissed, our hands pulling the other closer, seeking more contact.
I knew—I knew—he felt it, too. Knew his body was alive, his mind wanting.
Were it not for the steel plates at his waist, I knew I’d feel the evidence of his arousal for me.
Knew he had to be just as hard as I was wet.
But what he was pouring into me, what was being greedily sucked down by the Azete, was barely a trickle of his energy and lifeforce.
Too little for the monster lying within. But too much for the woman he held in his arms.
Brennan’s hand cupped my neck as his other slid dangerously close to my ass. Cheers from the audience grew, the shouts becoming shockingly bawdy and bold just as Brennan’s movements became more rapid, more urgent, more desperate.
And I knew then, Brennan wasn’t in control of our kiss any longer. Neither was I.
The Azete was. It had taken hold, found its way into the seduction it had been plotting for days.
He gripped my waist, his fingers pushing into the curve of my ass, his hips lifting, seeking me out. And the trickle of his lifeforce, his energy, his being, became a stream, steady and powerful.
He will die.
With a jolt, I broke away, my chest heaving, my body screaming out in protest as sweat broke out against my skin. The Azete roared, furious and in pain. The sensation was so excruciating, so punishing, I bit down on my lip, terrified I’d scream.