Chapter 17
Rani
Just because I refused to go swimming didn’t mean I wanted to be running instead.
I hated running. The shin splints, the burn in my lungs…
the way it made me gasp like an oversized cow tipped on its side with no way to get back up.
It was a truly evil thing to make me run this early, but Ezra was in charge of my training now, and, as I’d come to learn, he was a ruthless teacher.
I had a feeling it was payback for last night.
Once I’m between these pretty thighs… I won’t let up until you’re shaking…
Fuck me. I’d never met a man with such a dirty mouth.
His words sank past my callous walls and hooked into me, replaying over and over until I almost crawled to his room to see if he could back them up.
I should have let him prove it right there on the couch, but it was all too intense, and I chickened out. Look what that got me.
“Get those knees higher!” Ezra shouted as I made yet another lap around the house.
I’d show him a high knee. One good one landing right on his dick.
I finished his ridiculous warm-up and fell onto the cool grass, arms and legs splayed like a starfish. I gulped down the already humid morning air as a pair of shoes stopped next to my head and blocked out the sun. Ezra peered down at me, his critical frown a little too judgmental for my liking.
“If you’re done taking a nap, we have some strikes to go over.”
He offered me a hand, and I seriously considered breaking it. My less-than-enthusiastic reaction to finding out he was my bond must have hit a deeper nerve than I thought because I would classify the last fifteen minutes as absolute torture.
“I didn’t take you for a sadist,” I groaned, batting his hand away. Every muscle in my legs ached as I stood, but I managed to do it on my own.
“And I didn’t take you for a coward,” he countered.
My head whipped back on a snarl, but he was close enough that I still had to look up for him to see the threat in my glare.
“Take it back.” I tended to hit before thinking these days, and when he flashed me that smug smile, my hands swung before I gave them the order to. “I said, take it back!”
His lips curled in that signature smirk when I missed. “I call it like I see it, babe.”
Again and again, he dodged my punches; it was like he knew which side they were going to come from before I did. Like he knew how fast, how hard, and just where to move his head so that I overreached and my fist sailed past his ear.
He seized my hips in both hands, stopping my momentum and pulling me close.
“You want to hide behind mock outrage rather than face the pleasure I’m offering you? Then we’ll put it to good use.” His lips brushed against my ear as he spoke, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine.
That molten thread stretching between us—what I now recognized as our bond—woke and took notice. It burned in such a good way as Ezra’s warm breath ghosted across my neck, as he leaned back and I caught a hint of winter snow on the summer breeze.
Thighs trembling with need, his damn words from last night came back to haunt me. My inner siren was a horny bitch.
“I already know you can punch,” he said, drawing my attention back to the matter at hand. “So, let’s work on that move you tried to pull last night, instead.”
Fine with me. My knee came up, powered by all that pent-up force, but Ezra turned slightly and caught my leg. Pinning it to his side, he kept his other hand on the small of my back. I bet he felt my nails scraping his chest with how hard I clutched his shirt.
“You need to tighten your core when you strike and push your hips forward,” he explained, then pressed to angle my waist where it should be.
Faces only inches apart, his muscular body holding my legs open wide… every inch of my control was being tested. The glint in his eye told me he knew it, too. Smug bastard. The urge to roll my hips against the growing bulge between us was so strong, I shook with the effort to deny it.
His hand squeezed my leg. “Imagine your knee in this exact position every time you hit. Don’t just aim for the surface of your enemy. Go through them.”
How could he talk about fighting when all I wanted to do was climb him like a damn tree?
I knew he wanted me just as badly. The clenched jaw, the hard dick pressing against the seam of my leggings…
They were dead giveaways. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to give in.
Just a little. See if he could back-up all that talk.
Before I could test it out, he lowered my leg and nodded for me to try again.
Fine. I could multitask, too. Ezra struck at my shoulders with his palms; more of a light push than a true attack.
I knew what he wanted me to do without needing to be told.
My forearm came up to block my right side, then I gripped his shirt and brought my knee up.
I hit nothing but air as he dodged.
“Follow up with something; anything,” he said, turning to face me head-on once more. “Even if you miss, your next strike might not, so don’t stop.”
I was getting a bit frustrated. At least when I practiced punches, I got to hit the bag. Swinging my leg through the air didn’t have near the same amount of satisfaction. It was also exhausting. Over and over I tried, until my thighs felt like rocks and my leg got heavier and harder to lift.
Ezra resorted to pinching to try and get a reaction out of me. All it did was piss me off.
“Come on, my cranky cucumber,” he taunted, tweaking the small piece of my skin between his fingers. “Hit me just once and I’ll stop.”
Even holding onto him, I couldn’t get it right. He was like water, slipping through the cracks of my fingers; there one minute and only a hairsbreadth away the next.
“You’re not going to let me, are you?” I panted. Only my stubborn pride kept me from giving in.
That and the infuriating smirk on his face that basically said, you know better. I threw my head back and groaned. This was never going to end. I wanted to get out of these sweaty clothes, eat something sweet, and get a full-body massage. In any order.
“Just a little more,” he coaxed. “When we’re done, your muscle memory will be so solid, this move will work on anyone. Well, anyone but me.”
His wink was the spark that set me off. I feinted a punch to his face and quickly followed it with another to his kidney. While he was busy blocking those, I cupped my arms around whatever part of him I could reach and slammed my knee up, pushing through just the way he told me.
It still didn’t fucking land. He moved in, crowding me, and clamped my leg against his side. His hips were once again nestled tightly against mine, and only a fraction of an inch separated us. We both took in giant gulps of air, chests heaving.
“I almost had it,” I grumbled.
“Almost isn’t good enough. Almost won’t save you,” he confirmed, hand sliding higher up my thigh. “Almost will get you right back here, at my mercy.”
The heat in my chest fluttered, and I couldn’t control myself. I rolled my hips against the length of him, and his answering groan was so fucking hot that my remaining knee buckled. He only gripped me tighter and backed us up until the rough brick of the house scraped my back.
I let out a little noise of surprise when he pressed his hips forward, molding himself against all my soft spots. He leaned in. Or maybe I did. Our flushed faces were so close I heard nothing else but the sound of our breaths. My tongue darted out to wet my lips, and his gaze tracked the movement.
Slowly, almost like he couldn’t help himself, Ezra brought his hand to my face and ran his thumb over my chin, my cheek. He stared at my mouth, and I knew he was going to kiss me. But if he didn’t fucking do it soon, I would scream.
“What’s that scowl for?” he whispered, lips still lingering just out of reach.
“You know what,” I huffed, then leaned forward, intent on starting this if he was too chicken to do it himself, but he evaded me with a simple tilt of his chin. “Ezra Alantes, I swear to fucking God…”
“Gods,” he corrected, with an amused glint in his eyes. “Each faction has their own.”
“Well, every single one is about to hear me break your dick if you don’t—”
His lips landed on mine with bruising force. It pushed me harder against the brick, scratching the delicate skin on my shoulders, but I didn’t care. My chest burned ; a throbbing, intoxicating heat that pulsed in time with my racing heart.
Even though he stole my oxygen, as he slid his thigh between my knees and pressed up, I’d never felt more alive.
Forced on my tippy toes, I ground down on him, rocking back and forth in search of that friction.
I smiled when he grunted against my lips.
Ezra pressed harder against me in retaliation, until I felt every glorious inch of him straining against my stomach.
If this was what it was like just kissing him, I feared what he could do to my body if I truly let him touch me. I didn’t think I’d walk away from that encounter with my sanity intact.
Ezra
I was dead. I somehow died and made it to the afterlife because there was no other way to explain the fucking euphoria coursing through my veins right now. Rani was a goddess; a potent, soft-in-all-the-right-places, godsdamned goddess.
Our tongues battled for dominance, swirling and stroking in a way that didn’t allow for thoughts.
It was pure intuition and a need to win.
I couldn’t get enough of her taste; a mix of mint and sugar.
Her hips made small glides across my thigh, taunting the head of my dick with the softness of her belly.
I braced a hand on the brick above her and met each roll with a thrust.