Chapter 51
He presses his lips to mine and his taste floods me as his mouth claims mine with an urgency that borders on desperation.
No smart remarks. No more teasing. Just the raw need that fills us both.
As heat floods through me, he tilts his head and bites down on my lower lip.
A low, guttural groan escapes my throat, and before I can catch my breath, he seizes me, his hips locking me in place as his thumb grazes along my jaw.
‘Gods, Thorn,’ he groans. ‘You have no idea what you do to me.’
My hand reaches around the back of his neck, grasping a handful of his hair as I pull myself deeper into the kiss. As slick as I feel myself becoming, this isn’t enough. I need more. I need all of him.
As if reading my mind, his hand scoops around me and he hoists me upward, my legs going around his hips. The moan that fills the air comes from him this time, but it might as well be mine. I no longer have control over my body. No longer care what happens beyond this moment.
The trials. The gifting. Whatever the hell I did to Oke. None of it matters. All I can think about is this. The feel of his body pressed against mine and how much more I need.
His hands slip up my top with deliberate slowness, so that I’m nearly crying out by the time his rough fingertips finally skim over my nipples.
I swear they’ve never been so sensitive.
He strokes them lightly, and then he gives them a gentle squeeze, which becomes a more forceful pinch.
Conscious of the staff just on the other side of the door, I use all my willpower not to let out a loud moan.
Instead, I bite down on my bottom lip, clenching my eyes closed as I fight to maintain a tiny scrap of self-control.
‘Don’t,’ he orders. His hand moves from my breast to my jaw, his thumb brushing against the corner of my mouth.
‘Don’t hold back. Don’t be quiet. How else am I going to learn what you like?
To know whether you like a soft touch’—his fingers skim my nipple again—‘or a more forceful one?’ He pinches my nipple then and my hips arch into him.
‘Ah. Thorn, you like a little pain.’ It’s his turn to groan. ‘You were made for me.’
Gods, his voice. I didn’t know it was possible for a voice to make me so wet, and yet here I am, drenched.
My thighs squeeze, not to hold on, but because the distance is too great.
I need him closer. I need the friction of him inside me.
Fingers, tongue, cock … I don’t care. I just need something more.
The hunger is all-consuming as his fingers continue their exploration while his mouth closes in around my neck, kissing, licking, nibbling, eliciting another whimper of delight.
‘That’s better.’ His voice is a breathless groan that causes my body to slicken further, if that’s even possible. ‘That sound. You have no idea how fucking hard it makes me.’
‘I have a fair idea,’ I manage to respond.
I can feel him pressing into me through the thickness of our trousers, but it’s not enough.
I need to actually feel him. I’m throbbing, pulsing with feral desire.
Letting instinct take over, I roll my hips down, increasing the pressure on us both.
Another moan ripples from his throat and my body responds by bucking deep into him.
There’s too much fabric. I need to be free of it. I need him, all of him.
I release my arms from his neck, tightening my legs around him to hold myself in place as I pull my top over my head.
A feeling of satisfaction rises in me as a muffled gasp catches in his throat before he lowers his mouth to the top of my breast. I tilt my head away, allowing him to trace his tongue down, weaving a line towards my nipples.
As my back arches, I push further into him.
I’m so close to begging for release that my entire body is trembling, but at the same time, I don’t want this to end.
It’s taking every bit of control I have not to rip his trousers off and wrap my hand around his cock, yet somehow my fingers stay in his hair as I lean into him.
His hands are everywhere, one still on the back of my neck, holding me in place, while the other explores before coming back to my breasts, rolling my nipples between his fingers.
‘More,’ I gasp, unable to hold back any longer. ‘I need more.’
He doesn’t question. Instead, he holds me tight as he turns me around, throws me down on the bed, and removes his top.
Fuck me, he is perfect. Every single inch of his torso is carved and glistening beneath those bands of circle tattoos, and I want to touch it all.
Every part that is visible to me, and every part he’s still keeping hidden.
I lift my hand and run my fingers along the pinkest scar on his body.
The one that I sewed up. He pulled the stitches out himself, rather than asking me. Why does that not surprise me?
‘It’s my favourite one,’ he purrs as he notices where I’m staring. ‘Because it reminds me of the first time you put your hands on me. The first time I heard you moan, Thorn. The first time I made you moan.’
Gods know, he’s going to hear me moan more.
I sit up, my breathing shallow and ragged as I drag my hand over his chest, tracing that thin line of hair that leads downwards to my reward.
His head tilts back as he groans out my name, melting me into a puddle beneath him.
I’m going to come the second he slides into me.
I already know it. I just hope to hell I have the same effect on him.
Because that’s what I want most. Even more than feeling the release in my body. I need to feel his release inside me.
‘Thorn,’ he groans my name again, but I don’t respond. Instead, I work the top button on his trousers. His eyes gaze down at me as he bites his lip. Gods, those eyes, he could devour me with those alone.
Impatience gets the better of me, and with only two of his buttons undone, I reach up and wrap my hands around his neck, pulling him back down onto me. His tongue rakes the inside of my mouth as I finally feel the length of him pressing against me again.
How can I need something this much? How can my body know complete and utter desperation for something it’s never felt before?
‘I need you.’ The words leave my mouth unbidden. ‘I need all of you. Inside me. Now.’
His hands graze over my breasts and my stomach as if he, too, needs to feel every last bit of me, yet when his fingers reach my waistband, they stop. I wait for him to work the buttons. To finally expose me so he can take me however he wants, but his hands continue to hover right where they are.
‘Don’t stop.’ The words are perforated by my breath. ‘Don’t stop. I need this. I need … I need …’ I don’t even know how to finish that sentence.
He stands up and edges away from the bed. I assume it’s to give me room to undo my own trousers, but when I look up at him, his face is tight with a sudden frown.
‘Why?’ he whispers.
‘What?’ I’m still fighting with my buttons, my fingers fumbling and slowed by confusion.
‘Why?’ he says again. ‘Why do you need this? Is it because you think this is the only way I’ll keep your secret?’
‘What?’ I sit upright, aware of the throbbing that continues between my legs. The rhythm of my pulse that’s desperate to be matched by his own.
‘No, no …’ I want to pull him back down on top of me and continue what we started, but he remains out of reach.
‘You didn’t want this,’ he growls, not even looking me in the eye. ‘The other night when I came to you. You didn’t want this. But today … suddenly now you do? Nothing’s changed except I hold your secret.’
‘What? No. I … I … You were drunk then.’
His eyes lock back onto mine. ‘So that’s the only reason? You just happened to choose today out of all days to come and seduce me by pure coincidence?’
I open my mouth, but no words come out. What do I say?
That I wanted him all along, but I was fighting it for my own sanity?
That wanting him felt like a betrayal of my entire family, my entire past, but today I couldn’t fight it any longer?
Or is he right? Is some part of me doing this so that he will keep my secret?
No. No, of course I’m not. This is what I want.
The damn trials have taken life after life, and who knows if they’ll take mine before the end.
Right now this is all I want, and this might be the only chance I have to get it.
But as I clear my mind, and my throat, I already know I took too long to respond.
‘You need to go,’ he says, picking up my shirt and throwing it at me. ‘I need you to go now.’
‘Kyor.’ I stand and reach for him, but he recoils from me.
‘You don’t have to fuck me to keep me silent. I’m not going to tell anyone.’
‘I didn’t think you would!’ I shake my head. How did things go to shit so fast? ‘I never thought you’d tell anyone,’ I repeat.
His head whips up. ‘So you trust me? Utterly?’ His voice is a low purr that trembles down my spine as he takes a step towards me.
‘Tell me you trust me and we can carry on where we just stopped. Believe me, there is nothing I want more than that, Thorn. Just tell me that you trust me. Truly trust me.’
My pulse is drumming and my breathing is ragged, but it’s not just the hunger to feel him inside me that’s causing it.
It’s the pain. The confusion. I believe what I said – that I don’t think he’ll tell anyone what he saw – but now the past is merging with the present.
After what he and his family did to mine all those years ago … trust? It’s a hard-won thing.
‘I … I …’ I stutter.
I know what I want to tell him. I want to tell him the words that will have his lips back on mine and his body inside me.
Yet they refuse to form. Because what good can come of this closeness between us?
How can we possibly have a future together?
How can I explain this to Kay when Kyor and his father are responsible for our family’s ruin?
Our brother’s death? Every logical partial thought I have is telling me to walk away. And yet I cannot leave.
He grimaces. ‘If it’s that difficult for you to say, then I think we already know the answer.’ Without another word, he picks up his shirt, slips it over his head, and turns for the door.
‘You know your way back,’ he growls just before the door clicks closed behind him.