Page 24 of Artemysia

A deep rumble of a growl. “No, no. I don’t wanna know names. What kind of name is Thom ?” he spits it out. “You’re killing me.” His warm breath hits the nape of my neck, raising the small hairs there. “Imagining you with other men.”

“Does it disgust you to think of me that way?” I let the sarcasm drip.

“It makes me jealous.”

His answer pours oil on the flames, the fire between my thighs. Why am I such a sucker for honesty? “Oh. No, there haven’t been many at all. When it comes to sex, I’m not worry-free and unfettered like Throg, and I’m not as confident as Ivy.”

“Did you love them?” Riev asks, his voice suddenly softer .

“They all said they loved me, and I said it back.”

“Did you feel it?”

I hesitate. “It’s not nice not say it back.

Especially on the eve of a mission when one of us might not make it back alive.

I mean, I liked them, otherwise I wouldn’t have slept with them.

I tried not to let myself get too attached.

Or I did, and it really hurt when they died.

All of them are dead now, you know. Battling Syf. ”

“Ah.”

Though his arm is draped around me, he keeps his hands off, and I see his palm clench into a fist when I admit my heartbreak. I try not to recall any of their faces.

His voice lowers. “I can’t promise you much, but I can promise that I won’t die by a Syf hand.”

“Don’t make promises like that.”

“I swear it. You’ve seen me—I’m faster, stronger, more skilled than any of them. I won’t break your heart by letting a Syf kill me.”

“That’s a big promise just to convince me to sleep with you.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he grumbles.

Maybe he’s only trying to make me feel better, but no one can be certain when or how they’ll die, and it’s best not to tempt fate with such vows.

“It’s not a priority anyway. Sex, or love.” I shiver, and he presses closer. His heat is divine—scorching hot—though his arms and legs are bare. The small hairs on his powerful thighs tickle the backs of my knees.

“Why not?”

“If I get attached romantically and they die, I’m upset and sad. Then I can’t focus as well on my duties—keeping everyone safe and surviving our missions. My priorities are to keep my company alive. You?”

“No.”

“No to what?”

“All of it. Never been in love, never said it to anyone, never had it said to me,” he says.

“And you’ve been with many women?”

“Yes and no. Meaningless distractions. They felt the same about me. Everyone’s intrigued by the mysterious, handsome soldier who rolls into town.

But no one really wants to get to know me, and I don’t stay anywhere long enough anyway.

I’m a good time, and then they go back to the safe guy who offers them a real life. I don’t blame them.”

“But you get all the sex.”

His breathing stills for a moment. “No.” He pauses. “Not in the most traditional sense. Haven’t done that.”

I smack the broad hand dangling in front of me. “Don’t lie.”

He stiffens with my touch, but his reply is utter silence. He’s telling the truth.

“Why?” I ask, intrigue drowning out my hesitation. His hand relaxes, and our fingers tangle. His touch shouldn’t feel like a wildfire erupting across my skin, but where his thumb grazes mine, I’m set ablaze.

“I’m not telling you all my secrets in one night.”

“Does it not work?” I snicker, knowing it does. I’d felt it in the clock tower.

He’s thinking the same, apparently. “For fuck’s sake. You saw what you did to me in the clock tower. Even now, it’s driving me insane not to press against you the way I want.” He moves his hips against me roughly, and I feel the long, stiff length of his cock harden against my backside.

I accidentally let a low moan escape into the feather pillow as my grip tightens on his forearm.

He clears his throat, his lips grazing the nape of my neck as he speaks. “Make noises like that again and I won’t be able to control myself. I swear I’ll break my promise of keeping my hands off you.”

At this point, I doubt my own self-control. My traitorous body arches against him, needing more contact. At the same time, I keep telling myself how wrong this is, how I should just go to sleep. Will this affect our mission in Artemysia, or will it get us killed?

I start with the easiest one to address. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“You asked, and I promised I’d never lie to you again. You won the right.”

I’m taken aback by his vow to be truthful. It does feel a like victory to hear him say this. Maybe he trusts me, so he’s being honest, or else he’s always true to his word. Either way, I win.

I was honest, too—in that I can’t afford feelings of attachment. And all my instincts say not to involve myself with him.

But I don’t know what possesses me turn my head just enough so that my lips press onto his shoulder behind me to give it a kiss.

Perhaps I do it because he took care of me. He sewed me up, then stayed with me until I awoke. But no—Throg’s done that for me, and I didn’t feel this way.

Maybe it’s for his honesty.

Or it’s the fact that one of us could have died today, and we haven’t even made it into Artemysia to begin our impossible task.

In the end, I just wanted to kiss his shoulder.

His chest heaves with a controlled breath, and his nose nuzzles into my neck.

He lingers as if savoring my scent. At the same time, he releases my hand, and his palm splays across my belly, pulling me in closer.

I’m hardly breathing. My entire focus is on the hot rush of blood where he touches me on my stomach, my throat, my legs.

His fingers slide up my ribs, stroking and meandering excruciatingly slow, as if giving me time to stop him.

When I let out a breathy “Mhmm,” he grazes kisses on the nape of my neck, his stubbly chin scraping in the most spine-tingling way.

His hand reaches under the hem of my flannel and slips back upward.

Since he cut off my bra earlier to attend to my stab wound, there’s nothing between his hand and my breast. As he strokes and cups the underside of my breast, the lancing heat of his palm radiates from my chest right down between my legs.

He props himself up on one forearm and curves around me to kiss me.

When he kissed me in the clock tower, his lips were hesitant. Yielding. This time, he’s rougher and hungrier, like he’s seizing what he wants without a second thought.

I like it. I like it so much, I lose restraint despite my anxious thoughts.

I bite his bottom lip, and in response his thumb flicks across my nipple, drawn taut with the exposure to cold air. I groan into his mouth, a desirous haze washing over me.

I need more of him—

His body, hard as iron.

His hum when I shiver at his touch.

His tantalizing juniper scent that reminds me of the southern mountains.

He shifts to sit upright in bed and drags me up with him by wrapping his forearm around my waist, until he’s seated behind me.

“Do your stitches hurt?” He eases us back against the headboard. I shake my head.

I’m certain he’s considering that I can’t lie on my back and doesn’t want to risk pulling out my stitches.

Reclining against his muscular torso, I undo the buttons of my shirt to give him access.

I like what he’s doing, pinching my nipples with enough pressure that the sting leaves me wanting more.

He rolls one softly between his thumb and finger, then gives a firm tweak until I bite my lip to muffle a squeal.

A low grunt of approval rumbles deep in his throat. I’m soaked.

He adjusts his touch to my noises and breaths, rather than the over-excited grabbing and pawing of my breasts as other men have done in the past. I can’t see him behind me, but his legs straddle mine.

His hand slips to my lower belly, trailing along the waistband of my underwear, and he hooks his heels around my calves to splay my legs across the bed.

It’s sexy as hell, how he holds me open.

Good gods. I’m pulsing with a desire I haven’t allowed myself to feel in a long time.

I pull off the blanket, wanting to watch what he’s doing.

The cool air rushing against the heat and dampness between my thighs has my entire body thrumming.

He makes me forget where I am, near the forest of death.

He lets me pretend I am someone else, someone who can have this kind of indulgence.

His palm still works my breast, and his fingers dive down into my underwear.

A long, soft hiss escapes his lips when he feels how slick I am. For him.

There’s an unbearable throb and a need to be filled. My breath is held as he parts my flesh to find my clit, circling around it. He coasts a fingerpad along the wet slit, drawing a shaky, breathless groan from me.

“Bend your knees more,” he orders.

I part my thighs wider for him, rutting into his hand. He curses softly.

And suddenly there are no more anxious thoughts running around in my head, and my entire focus is on his two fingers pressing into me, deep and slow.