Chapter Fourteen
T hat offer sounded perfect.
Trouble was that Rowena didn’t know where to start.
Rather, she wanted to do everything, and Slay was so gorgeous that she tried to look everywhere at once. He smiled when he realized she was slightly overwhelmed, but he didn’t move. Didn’t try to take over, either.
That’s why I feel safe with him.
“Take your time,” he said, his deep voice rumbling over in a near purr, shades of the great cat.
One day soon, she needed to see his jaguar form and show him hers. The Animari were sometimes strange about how the Golgoth looked during a shift. Hopefully, it wouldn’t alter how he felt about her. However that was. But this wasn’t the time for reverie or doubt.
Tentatively, she reached out and traced the line of his shoulder, the curve of muscle on his biceps.
His skin was smooth and hot, a golden contrast to her pallor.
Even spending time under the open sky hadn’t mitigated the pale cast much.
His chest was dusted with dark hair that arrowed downward, drawing her attention to the narrow angles of his hips, and in the center…
His cock, already hard and jerking when she looked directly at it.
Rowena smiled. “You like the attention.”
“I like your attention,” he corrected.
“Wow. Okay. No pressure. I’m not sure how to make you feel good.” She licked her lips and tried to imagine what Slay would like.
In a midnight voice, he whispered, “Follow your instincts.”
Right, I can do this.
At least there was no panic wings beating frantically inside her head as she drew closer, closer still, until she pressed her lips against his.
Maybe it was tame, starting with a kiss when they were both naked, but she needed to boost her own confidence, reassure herself that touching him wouldn’t dredge up dreadful memories.
His lips were hot beneath hers, and he kissed her back with flattering alacrity, but he didn’t deepen their contact until her tongue sought his.
Then the kiss went white-hot, all open-mouth gasps, gentle teeth, and surging tongues.
Rowena slipped hers into his mouth, delving, teasing, and she gloried in his unfettered response, one she felt growing in her own body as well.
For the first time, her pussy slicked and softened for someone else, and no fear followed, just another layer of desire.
When she finally pulled back, her mouth felt swollen in the best possible way and Slay was breathing hard.
She chased that success by running her mouth down his throat to his shoulder.
He groaned in appreciation, eyes falling half-closed, and he dug his fingers into the cushions, clinging to the promise to let her explore.
He won’t break his word.
That excited her as much as anything else, and her assurance built as she planted kisses, hot open-mouth ones, all over his chest and shoulders, pausing to lick one tight nipple and then the other.
“Fuck,” he bit out. “Fuck, that feels good, Ro.”
“Would you like it if I suck on them?”
“Probably.”
She tested the theory and his hips pushed upward, as if he was imagining her mouth there instead.
A little quiver went through her. Before, she’d been forced to do that, and she hadn’t liked it much, but it might be different this time.
With great trepidation, she licked and nuzzled a path downward, waiting for the reluctance to kick in.
When she licked the tip, Slay tasted like salt and musk, and his pleasure charged hers.
It’s completely different.
She watched Slay’s face as she laved his cock with her tongue, reveling in the slow flutter of his inky lashes and the way his throat worked, his hips moving restlessly while he resisted the need to move, to seek more.
Without him pressing for it, she gave it to him, sucking him fully into her mouth.
She couldn’t ask if it felt good, but she tasted his eager response, drank down his impatient gasps and visually devoured each jump of his stomach when she found the right spot with her tongue.
He made little jerky thrusts, trying not to startle her, but she thought he couldn’t help it, that it felt too good.
Ro loved driving him to distraction, especially when he was trying his best not to alarm her.
This passivity didn’t come naturally to him; it was a gift he offered out of tenderness and concern.
“Keep that up, love, and I’ll go right in your mouth.” He moaned when she sucked harder, trying to steal his words, his breath, his ability to think. “Fuck. Yes. I’m…willing if that’s what you want.”
Yeah, she wanted to make him spill right between her lips, affirm the fact that she could do this and not relive bad memories.
If she could take this step, next time, she’d go further.
Take him inside her body and ride him until they both came.
Spurred by the thought, she squirmed against the cushions, beyond any level of excitement she’d ever achieved alone.
Her thighs were slick with her arousal and Slay drew in a deep breath.
His voice came out deep and rough, edged in wonder. “You’re loving this. You’re so hot right now, so excited from mouthing my cock that you might even come.”
The dirty words sank into her softly, and she moved her hips as she sucked him, managing to get a cushion at the right angle, so it gave her friction on her clit. She breathed through her nose, a huff of agreement, and Slay gently put a hand on her head, his fingers stroking through her hair.
Oh, yes. It feels good. Don’t stop.
He grazed her cheek, her lower lip, and she turned her face to lick the pad of his thumb, before returning to his throbbing cock. His shaft responded to the lightest pressure, a vein surging beneath her tongue. His taste filled her mouth, salty and strange, but not unpleasant.
“Suck a little harder. Give me some teeth and I’ll come. Please, baby. Please.”
I didn’t mean to make him beg.
He was trembling, and she could feel the shivers coursing through him as he fought the need to take more. She followed his instructions precisely and soon, he lifted his hips, his whole body rigid as the orgasm overwhelmed him.
He came in powerful waves, and Rowena scrambled to finish before the pleasure waned entirely.
She rubbed with her hand, humping against the pillow as she swallowed the hot spurts, and her own climax sparked through her, soft and exquisite and completely untrammeled by other associations.
With a gasp, she toppled sideways, breathing fast.
“Okay if I hold you?” he whispered.
“I think so.”
When he gathered her against his chest, so warm and strong, she closed her eyes in bliss.
This experience was unique, and she recognized his touch, his scent, the feel of his body against hers.
Silently grateful, Rowena stroked his head, feeling the stickiness of sex between them and the delicious heat of his skin.
“Would it be embarrassing I asked if you liked that?”
“Embarrassing for who?” Slay wanted to know. “Never mind. That was fucking incredible, Ro. A beautiful gift.”
“It was different with you,” she confided. “Because I wanted to do that.”
“Hell, I’d never ask you for anything you’re not into. You know that, right?”
She nodded. “That’s why I asked to be in charge. So I can figure out what I enjoy.”
“Any feedback?”
A naughty idea occurred to her, and she wondered if he’d go for it.
Slowly she leaned in for a kiss, waiting for him to object because of where her mouth had been.
Instead, Slay kissed her so thoroughly that her recently satiated body trembled with renewed arousal, leaving her skin flushed and overly sensitive at all points of contact. And they were touching everywhere.
Rowena kissed his nose. “With you, anything will be okay. If we take it slow.”
A few days later, Slay was still basking in the interlude with Rowena.
That glow dispersed when they got word through Kani. As they were leaving the workshop, she whispered, “It happens tonight. You’re assigned the eastern barracks. Can you handle it?”
“Absolutely,” Rowena breathed back.
He glanced around to be sure they were safe, but nobody was paying any particular attention.
The only reason he’d been able to hear the girl was because of his enhanced senses.
Relaxing a fraction, he brushed Rowena’s hand with his, instantly rewarded with her linking fingers, like they were lovers on a stroll, not killers about to poison a bunch of guards.
Hopefully, no prisoners would steal food tonight, but if that happened, they had to live with the collateral damage.
There were no perfect, infallible plans, only those that might work and ones that certainly wouldn’t.
Rowena nudged Slay toward the workshop wall, out of the press of pedestrian traffic. She twisted her fingers together, whispering, “Can’t believe it’s finally happening. I’m so scared. We can’t fail again. We can’t.”
The old Slay would’ve opted for some cocky shit, like ‘this time I’m here, don’t even worry about it’ but he was trying to be better than that asshole, so he thought it over while gently rubbing her back until her body relaxed into his.
“The stakes are the highest,” he finally said. “But the planning people are smart and cautious. Try not to think about everything that could go wrong. Maybe instead, imagine what Golgerra could be like under new management.”
Her eyes brightened, gazing up at him like he’d hung the moon and had lit all the stars in the sky like candles, one by one. “I haven’t dared, before. But…no more undercity. No more penal farms.”
“Keep talking,” he whispered, loving how hope smelled on her, sweet as the wind through a field of wildflowers.
“Later.” That solitary word felt like a promise, as if they were starting something she couldn’t wait to finish.
Hell, they’d never talked about the future, so this could be all in his head.
Slay didn’t think he could live in Golgerra, and she might not want to abandon her people.
He sensed that was how she’d see moving to Ash Valley.
Anyway, Dom might’ve already given him up for dead, put somebody else in as second.
Fuck, that would sting since he’d waited three years for that asshole while he grieved, only to lose Pru—
Slay waited for the usual anger and bitterness to kick in, but his emotions stayed static.
It happened, yeah, but he had no strong sentiments attached to the memory anymore.
Belatedly, he realized he didn’t think of Pru when Rowena was touching him either, even though Pru had been his first and he’d thought she would be his last. He couldn’t even muster up a whiff of regret either. Done was done, right?
Maybe Pru was right after all. We needed to pull the plug a long time ago. Some relationships just didn’t work, no matter how much you wanted them to. If the pieces didn’t fit, they didn’t.
“Okay,” he agreed.
In a thoughtful mood, he ate the evening meal at Rowena’s side, aware that after tonight everything would change.
Multiple teams would be dispensing the poison, and by tomorrow evening, most of the guards should be out of commission.
Then fucking finally, he could shift and let the jaguar off his leash.
Hope I’m still me when the bloodletting stops. A risk, but one I’m willing to take.
Rowena shared her food with him again, and when he tried to refuse, she nudged the bread toward him again. “I ate well in the upper tier, so you need it more.”
That smelled like a lie, but he let it stand.
With a warm glow, he remembered that sharing food in the undercity meant she valued his life more than her own, a fucking wordless declaration of love.
That in mind, he ate every bite and licked the crumbs from his fingers, wondering when he’d get to taste her like she’d devoured him.
The simple memory got him half-hard; he shut it down fast. Not tonight.
We’ll fuck like animals when we get out of this hellhole.
While he’d enjoyed letting her touch him at the comfort house, Slay wished their first time would happen when they were both free, prisoners no more.
That way he could be sure it wasn’t forced proximity making her think she wanted him just because he was here.
If she still gravitated toward him when they weren’t crammed into a cubbyhole to sleep together, then he’d have Ro every way she’d let him.
Slay insisted they get to be near the door this time, and while there were grumbles, he heard someone speculate that Rowena and Slay wanted to sneak out to fuck later.
That pervert needed to mind his own business, but the suspicion provided a handy cover.
While everyone slept, they crept from their quarters, and if anyone happened to be awake, they’d assume that Slay was getting lucky.
Sneaking was his wheelhouse, so he led the way, retracing his steps to the barracks he’d scouted.
Rowena moved like a shadow at his back. Never again would she toil in the workshop.
From this point on, they were at war, and he gloried in the fact that he was here at the heart of it.
Nobody from Ash Valley would know how it all went down.
Wonder if I could claim I got captured on purpose.
Nah, he was trying not to care so much about what other people thought. Better not to spin a story when the truth sufficed.
“Need you to keep watch,” he whispered.
“On it.”
There was one guard on duty outside, quietly dozing.
Likely he’d never encountered trouble; the prisoners were too well conditioned.
Slay leapt on him in an instant and choked him out.
At Rowena’s nod, he snapped the asshole’s neck, then searched for somewhere to hide the body.
While she checked the path, he stashed the corpse in an empty crate and stacked two more on top.
In the morning, they’d wonder, but it shouldn’t stop anyone from eating breakfast.
He slid in through the kitchen, deserted at this time.
Rowena mixed the poison into the flour they used—the good kind that made fluffy bread.
Baking wouldn’t impact the toxicity. Then they laced the stew that was already prepped with the rest. That way, no matter what the assholes ate tomorrow, the result should be the same.
Prisoners weren’t allowed in the barracks and in general, guards weren’t generous. They didn’t share their rations. He let out a slow breath and jerked his head toward the exit.
If all forays went this well, in less than twenty-four hours, the undercity would be at war.
At long last, time for payback.
Slay couldn’t wait for the killing to start.