40. Clash of Stone and Steel
Clash of Stone and Steel
Samhail
The next morning, Samhail was immediately aware that he was no longer on his own side of the bed.
He’d been careful to lay down as far from Talyn as he could after he’d pleasured himself, but sometime during the night, he and Talyn had rolled toward each other, and she was now tucked up against him, his front to her back.
He’d curled an arm around her body to pull her in close, and her head was nestled into his shoulder as his fully-awake dick pressed tightly against the small of her back.
He caught that citrusy, lemon verbena scent of hers when he inhaled, and it made him strangely happy. He could lie like this all day.
“Still trying to figure out how to get back to your side of the bed without waking me?” Talyn asked quietly.
Samhail chuckled and nuzzled his face into her hair. “Not at all,” he said as he pulled her tighter against him. “I was trying to decide how much longer to let you sleep before I woke you up and slid my cock between those beautiful thighs of yours,” he said.
A soft moan escaped her, and his cock twitched. Gods, how did she make his body react so easily?
“How are you feeling?” he asked, willing himself not to think about her soft body pressed up against him.
“Like someone is driving a stake into my brain,” she said.
“That’s to be expected given how much you drank.”
“It wasn’t that much,” she argued without conviction.
“How much do you remember about last night?” he asked.
She was quiet a moment. “Enough that I probably owe you an apology,” she said finally.
He lifted his head. “An apology? For what?”
Another pause. “For throwing myself at you.”
Samhail pulled away enough to roll Talyn onto her back so she was facing him and his body was half on top of hers. That was a mistake because it only reminded him how very, very naked she was.
Samhail took a deep breath and tried to calm the blood that was coursing faster through his body now, especially to one part in particular.
“Never apologize for telling me you want me,” Samhail said. “Next time, just say it when you’re sober.”
Talyn opened her mouth as if to speak but then closed it again, and he wondered if she’d been about to say it. She didn’t, and the wall she erected whenever she came too close to admitting her desire for him was back up again.
Talyn nodded lightly. “I understand.”
Samhail kept his face impassive as he tamped down the flicker of hope that had bloomed in his chest when she’d opened her mouth.
It was fine. She was still feeling the aftereffects of her night of drinking, so this wouldn’t be ideal for their first time together anyway.
That didn’t necessarily mean they couldn’t do anything, though.
Samhail lowered his head slowly to hers, giving her every opportunity to push him away.
When she didn’t move, he kissed her, gently at first, then with more insistence as he parted her lips with his tongue.
She returned the kiss, angling her head up to his and meeting his tongue in a kind of sensual dance.
Samhail lifted his head. “Maybe I can pay one of my debts now.”
Talyn opened her mouth again, but the words seemed to die as he peeled the covers back from her body.
She was breathing harder, and when she didn’t say anything to stop him, Samhail dipped his head to her breast and closed his mouth over it.
Talyn gasped and arched off the bed as his tongue licked around her nipple while his hand closed over her other breast to knead it gently.
“Samhail!” she rasped.
Her hands threaded through his hair as her chest heaved beneath him. His hand on her breast trailed lower until it reached the apex of her legs, and he gripped one of her thighs to pull it open. His fingers grazed her clit before sliding further until he slipped two long fingers inside her.
“Gods above!” she gasped. “I-”
Whatever she’d been about to say was cut off by a loud knock at their door, and Talyn put a hand on his forearm to stay him.
Samhail growled and swore violently under his breath. “Go away!” he yelled toward the door as he continued to push his fingers leisurely in and out of Talyn despite her hand on his arm.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,” came the terrified voice from the man outside, “but there are two, um…winged persons here to see you.”
Samhail’s head jerked up from where it still hovered over Talyn’s breast. It couldn’t be. The gods could not hate him this much.
“Tell them I’m not here,” he said.
“I wish I could, sir,” the man said, “but they already know you are.”
“Fuck,” Samhail said, pulling his fingers from Talyn and rolling away from her to sit up in bed. He was going to kill Surgeon and Serise, or at least beat them both to bloody pulps.
“Fine. Tell them I’ll be down in a few minutes,” Samhail said.
“Um…” There was a pause on the other side of the door.
“What?” Samhail snapped.
“They want to see both you and the woman,” the man answered in a quavering voice.
“Then they’re out of luck,” he growled. “They’ll get me or no one.”
“But, sir, I…I…,” the man said, falling into a terrified stutter.
“We’ll both be down shortly,” Talyn called out from beside Samhail.
“Thank you, miss!” the man said, and they heard the quick retreat of his footsteps down the hall before she could take back what she’d said.
“Forget it,” Samhail said to her. “You need to stay here.”
“They’ll just come up to look for me if I don’t come down.”
“They’ll have to get past me, and that’s not going to happen.”
“I assume it’s your brother and sister,” Talyn said. “What makes you think you can take them both?”
Samhail quirked a brow to let her know he was offended by the very idea she’d question that. “Because I’ve done it before,” he said anyway.
He didn’t bother to note that Surgeon and Serise had actually gotten the drop on him a few days ago when they’d first arrived. His siblings had the element of surprise then, but in a straight fight, they’d never beaten him, either together or separately.
Talyn looked at him in disbelief. “You’ve fought them before?”
Samhail shrugged. “The last time my family got together,” he said. “Gargoyle gatherings tend to involve a lot of fights and competitions. Just let me deal with them.”
Samhail threw the covers off and got out of bed. He’d slept in his pants just to be sure he wasn’t tempted to do anything.
“You can do the talking,” she said, “but I’m coming with you. I can’t sit up here wondering if one of them is going to burst through the door because they got past you. I’d rather face them head on.”
“I told you they won’t get past me,” he said as he grabbed his shirt from where he’d left it last night.
“If you say so,” she said, “but I’m still coming. If there’s going to be a gargoyle battle royale, I don’t plan on missing it.”
Samhail sighed. He didn’t think it would actually come to the battle she seemed to hope for, but he understood she didn’t want to sit up here and wonder what was happening.
More to the point, he had no way to make her stay in the room, so she might as well come down where he could keep an eye on her.
“Fine,” he said. “Get dressed, unless you’re willing to be a diversion.”
She gave him a look that said she wasn’t willing to go that far and slipped out of bed with the sheet wrapped around her.
He almost laughed at her modesty now, given that she’d undressed last night and strolled naked across the room to seduce him.
He never knew what to expect from her, and it was intriguing. Alluring. Maddening.
Gods damn him. He wanted her so much.
Talyn
Talyn wasn’t sure what made her pull the sheet off the bed and wrap herself in it while she looked for the clothes she’d stripped off last night.
She’d already paraded around naked in front of Samhail twice now.
It wasn’t like she could hide anything he hadn’t seen before.
Her need for the sheet must be overcompensation for her behavior last night, a way to convince either herself or him she wasn’t quite the harlot she must’ve come across as.
Gods above, she’d actually tried to get him to take her against a wall in an alley.
Thank the Protector he’d had enough sense to refuse her flat on that suggestion, although the wall might still be a possibility under different circumstances…
Talyn didn’t remember much from last night, but her proposal of the alley was one of a few stronger impressions in her mind. She also recalled with a decent amount of clarity the dagger-throwing games with those three men and the moment Samhail had first walked into the tavern.
Granted she’d been more sober earlier in the night, but the fact that the noisy tavern had gone almost dead quiet when he walked in made the memory stick with her.
Samhail had a presence wherever he went, and she’d felt both thrill and dread when she’d turned to see him standing there.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she’d known he’d find her.
Perhaps she’d even hoped he would, but he hadn’t acknowledged her when he sat down, so she’d been happy to keep the game going.
She knew he’d watched her the entire night.
She could feel his eyes as she flirted with the three men at the bar, and he’d even gone so far as to turn around on his stool to watch the knife game.
She thought he might rip the top off the bar when she’d purposely lost the first game and kissed that man.
She’d felt the anger radiating off him, although whether it was directed at her, the man, or both of them, she wasn’t sure.
Regardless, she’d loved knowing she was driving him crazy.
Somewhere over the course of the night, however, she’d completely lost her own self-restraint, and Samhail had found his. She was grateful she couldn’t remember too much more after they returned to the room because she was sure she’d made a fool of herself.