14 Tommy #4
“Tommy,” she mouthed, no sound escaping her lips. Her face was contorted in exquisite agony. She was right on the edge, teetering over the abyss of the climax, but the silence was holding her back. She couldn’t let go without making a sound, and making a sound meant death.
I knew exactly what she needed.
I dragged my body upward, covering her with my massive frame, bearing my weight on my forearms so I didn’t crush her. I hovered directly over her face, my chest grazing her aching breasts, the agonizing friction sending fresh spikes of desire through my blood.
“Give it to me,” I breathed against her lips. “Scream into my mouth. I’ll take it. Let go, Kaia. Let go.”
Her eyes went wide. Then, the dam broke.
She surged upward, crashing her open mouth against mine at the exact moment I curled my fingers deep inside her, striking the aching knot of nerves hidden in her wall.
The climax tore through her in a violent, silent explosion.
Her jaws clamped down, her teeth grazing my lower lip as a muffled, desperate scream tore out of her throat and straight into my mouth.
I swallowed the sound whole, drinking down her pleasure, my tongue tangling with hers as the orgasm wrecked her.
Her inner walls clamped around my fingers in hot, radiating spasms, milking the digits with an aggressive, rhythmic force that nearly broke my remaining control. The fever crested and poured down the tether, a flood of poison finally finding an exit, rushing through me and into the earth.
I held her through every violent shudder, my own body rigid with the sheer, agonizing effort of remaining unfulfilled.
My wolf was a feral, howling thing, denied its mate, denied the mark, pacing the cage of my ribs in blind fury.
I clamped down on it, locking the beast away behind iron bars of discipline.
When the last tremor finally faded, leaving her limp and breathless on the narrow cot, I slowly withdrew my hand.
I collapsed my forehead against hers, my lungs heaving, dragging in the scent of her sweat and the sweet, dark musk of her arousal.
The fever had broken, but when I pressed my cheek to her neck, I could feel the heat still simmering right beneath her skin.
The climax had vented the immediate poison, but the potion was still active, a fragile ticking clock.
It was only a matter of time until this banked fire would reignite again.
We had bought ourselves a few hours of quiet, nothing more.
I was a wreck. A shaking, unfulfilled, thoroughly ruined man.
And I had never felt more powerful in my entire life.
She reached up, her trembling fingers finding the line of my jaw.
The gold in her eyes had banked to a warm ember, clear and completely awake.
She saw exactly what the restraint had cost me.
She saw the violent trembling in my arms, the rigid tension of my jaw, the throbbing pain in my cock, the dark, hungry void in my eyes.
Her fingers trailed down my cheek. “Tommy.” She pulled me down, pressing a slow, certain kiss to my mouth, sealing the promise in the dark. “I swear I will make this up to you.”
The boots outside stopped scuffing.
A second pair joined them. Low voices, the crackle of a field radio, a voice I caught clean through the canvas—tight, too fast, a string of prefix codes that ended in an order.
Kaia went still in my arms.
Then the Steward came back over her like a coat pulled on, the spine drawing up, the gold banking down behind a flat clean nothing—except now I could feel her under it, lit and whole and awake, the mask a weapon in her hand instead of a collar around her throat.
She sat up. Buttoned the gray tunic to her chin.
And the fever was a hum now, banked, drained enough to stand.
She nudged my shoulder, her touch light but urgent. “On your knees by the post. Head down. You don’t speak. You don’t look up. Try to look confused.” She leaned in, her lips brushing my ear, the hum of the tether between us warm and fragile. “And whatever they do to me, Tommy—don’t answer it.”
I moved into position just in time.
The flap tore back. Green light flooded the tent.
It wasn’t the regular guard. The commander stood in the gap, his face pale and slick with sweating fear under the green light of the lanterns, his hand hovering near his sidearm. He didn’t look at Kaia. He looked at the dirt, then at me, his shoulders rigid.
“Command didn’t clear your recovery.” He swallowed hard, the movement of his throat sharp and jerky.
“High Alchemist Joss just arrived at the perimeter with the Third Saint. They are overriding the purge logs. Joss read your intake claim about a ‘male dormant.’ He wants you and the prisoner under his review. Now.”
I dropped my head and let them haul me up, the cuff drinking my arm cold again, the wolf coiled silent and patient behind my teeth. The marks were unmade, the bond was unsealed, and the mask was holding by the thread of Nadia’s potion and everything I hadn’t let myself take.
As they walked us out of the tent, the green hex-fire cast our shadows long and twisted in the dirt. I didn’t look up, but I felt the pull of the tether between us. We were walking right into the fire.
The clock was already running.