Page 35 of Artemysia

He wades over and bows his head. I rake my fingertips over his scalp and part his hair where there’s the most blood. There’s a gash the size of my thumbnail.

“I could sew it for you.” Gods, his hair is soft.

Calm down, Delphine . It’s probably because the only other hair I’ve touched besides my own is elk coat.

No, his hair is damn soft, and I love it. It’s straight but waves a bit where it’s longer, like down by the nape of his neck.

“That wouldn’t hurt at all,” he grumbles, retreating to his side of the hot spring.

“Fine. It doesn’t look like it’s bleeding anymore, but be careful with it.”

“Is that an order, Captain?” The corners of his lips twitch upward.

“Have you ever followed a single command of mine? If I ordered you to swim right now, you’d probably drown yourself just to defy me.”

He frowns, bobbing back and forth. Water gently spills over the edge of the pool. I’ll bet anything he’s considering a snarky reply, but the next time he floats forward, he stops suddenly.

I’m very aware that there’s only an inch of hot water between our bare bodies.

The sinewy muscles of his neck and shoulders flex as he speaks.

“I don’t care about my head, or your orders. I care about you and what you’re doing to me right now. I don’t think I can wait any longer.” His voice comes husky and deep, and I’ve grown fond of what this means. He doesn’t touch me yet, and it’s as if he’s waiting for permission .

I’m not sure I can wait any longer either, so I close the remaining distance and my bare breasts land against his torso. He clutches at my waist to hold me against him, gripping me as if he wants to occupy the same space I’m in.

“I want you, too,” I manage to whisper, parting my lips to steady my breath with a slow exhale.

I angle my head inward to kiss him.

“Wait,” he says softly, at the same time finding my fingers underwater to interlock in his. “Not to be too practical right now, but we didn’t discuss this before. I don’t want to get you pregnant, not knowing what I am. Should I—”

“I’m on a tonic, so I can’t. I wouldn’t risk another life while on a dangerous mission.”

He releases my hand and strokes the curves of my hip, moving down to where my legs meet.

His thumb tilts my chin to him.

We’re suddenly kissing as if it’s the only thing that matters right now.

His hands rove everywhere. Over my ass. Up the sensitive undersides of my breasts.

My nipples prick at his touch. He bites my lip.

My skin tingles, and hot water splashes ever the edge of the pool.

Our bodies crushed against each other, he clasps the nape of my neck with a large palm, sending a delightful shudder down my spine at his demanding touch.

My thighs straddle his waist, and I arch my tits out of the water, wanting his mouth on them.

He grips the base of my braid and yanks it back to kiss my neck, trailing his lips down to meet my nipple as I moan his name into the dark, cavernous hollows above us.

Underwater, I feel him hardening against me, spiking a tight need where our bodies meet, and we both press into what little space is left between us.

His gaze grows heavy.

“Do you want me right now?” he breathes. The low rumble of his voice travels through my chest.

“Yes, Riev. Of course.”

A nod, and his eyes shine like two silver coins. He looks at me as if there’s nothing else in the world around us. The intensity in this man is a force that devastates me to the core, and I find it hard to breathe for a brief moment.

He lifts me up over the edge of the water and arranges my shins and feet so they are out of the pool.

I’m seated on the warm stones. He begins to lower me onto my back, but then considers my injury.

Even though I’m still on painkillers, he folds a pillow out of his pile of clothes to place under my shoulders.

He crawls over me again. My thighs clench together, trying to relieve the ache, the tormenting need that only he can fulfill. Everything we’ve done before has only ever left me feeling like all the bones in my body liquefied, so the thought of his cock in me has my pulse racing.

He stretches an arm out to the side of the pool, reaching for something, and plunks down a leather sheath next to my head. “Here’s my dagger. Stab me in the heart if anything goes wrong.”

“Way to ruin our nice moment,” I say. He replies with a grin. My gaze dips down his powerful chest, lower still to the lines of his hips and below the smattering of dark hair there.

I’ve been with others before, and Throg is always obscenely pointing out fruits and vegetables that he claims correctly depict his size, but Riev, with those bulging ridges expanding before me—

Good gods . When he was in my mouth, I could barely take him then.

I crave his taste. Salty, woodsy, earthy. Warm and sultry.

And now…feeling a mingling of desire and nervous anticipation, I stare at his impressive, beautiful erection jutting out at me. He doesn’t seem to mind me staring one bit.

“Touch me,” he commands, “anywhere you want. I’m yours.”

I’m suddenly aware that my fingers are balled into tense fists, so I unclench my hands and run my fingers along his abdominals to the V-shaped indents at his hips, tracing them down to his cock.

His erection twitches at my touch as I grip the ridges, which pulse wider.

He shuts his eyes with a jagged groan before flicking them open again with an intensity that stuns me.

There’s a softness in his gray irises that I’ve never seen in him.

I reach up and brush his cheek, and he turns his mouth to kiss my fingers.

“I know you won’t allow yourself to get attached to a lover,” he whispers, the purr of his seductive voice dipping into the pit of my stomach. “Elphie, my promises to you stand. I’ll never lie to you, and I won’t get myself killed by Syf. But we can stop right now. I’d die happy just kissing you.”

My heart stumbles. In his own way, he’s promising that he won’t break my heart. I relax, because he always seems to know when I’m nervous…even now, the way he’s focused on reading me and reacting to my every breath, every sound I make, to make sure I am with him.

His pupils expand as his mouth spreads into a gorgeous smile.

He looks at me as if he’s just awoken from a feverish dream.

Strands of his dark hair fall across his flushed face, and his lashes drop as he gazes down at me through heavy lids. He kneels between my thighs, the corded muscles of his bare shoulders trembling under his skin as his knuckles graze my hip.

“Riev,” I gasp out when his fingers slide between my folds, drawing wetness back up as he circles my clit before gliding down and repeating the movement with his slippery finger, sinking deeper each time he dips back into me.

He already has me trembling. “I need to hear you say it.”

“I don’t want to stop.” I brush the loose strands away from his brow.

“Then open for me.” His rough voice burns through me. He uses his knees to press my thighs apart until I’m spread before him. His expression grows wilder, fiercer as he pins me with his body.

With one hand, he coats the stiff head of his erection with the warm dampness growing between my legs, where an emptiness throbs for him.

“Lift your knees,” he orders.

My knees splay farther apart, and I kick my feet into the air, ignoring the uncontrolled pulse coursing through my chest.

I pinch and tug at my nipples without thinking, loving that he can’t stop staring. He inhales sharply, watching me with shining eyes.

“That’s it. Let go with me.” His voice rumbles out almost like a purr.

I want to, but I haven’t let go completely. I’m wondering about him, wondering if he’s okay, how he feels about waiting all this time to do this . To have sex, what sex means to him, and what’s going through his mind. And most of all, if it’s even possible for me to stay unattached after this…

“Elphie, you’re thinking about problems that aren’t there,” he rasps, as if he knows his voice will pull me out of my drowning thoughts .

And it does.

He begins to thrust in an inch, out an inch, tentative but gradually moving deeper. Gods, the friction, the rippling texture of the cresting ridges partway down his cock dragging over the perfect spot inside me…

They stretch and pull at me, taking my breath away. I’ve never felt this tight, and I question how I’ll take the rest of him.

He must feel it too. “Is it too much?”

“Mmff…keep going.”

“You’re dripping wet for me, spilling onto the rocks. It’s fucking beautiful.”

I know it’s his first time, but he’s skilled at reading what feels good for me, and I grow slicker as he spreads my inner thighs with his hands, readying to go deeper.

I writhe with desire and utter unrecognizable sounds that I try to muffle even as they echo off the cavern walls.

He moves slow and controlled, but shallowly, straining almost as if he’s in pain.

I let him take his time, but when I choke out his name, he hisses a breath and pushes in a bit more, widening me even as I grasp my inner walls around him with the need to be filled.

He pauses again. Perhaps he doesn’t want it to be over too fast.

But I also know now that he fights his thoughts, his fears of what he is.

So I lift my head, press his forehead to mine, and whisper, “I want you, and you want me. I care for you, for everything that you are. Even the parts of yourself that scare you.”

Whether or not I meant to say it out loud—because it would mean my heart is no longer detached—doesn’t matter anymore, because I want him to know he matters to me, here and now.

He deserves to know. My pulse thumps loudly.

His heaves a trembling inhale and breathes out, “Elphie, you’re incredible,” and plunges long and deep into me.

My cry echoes in the cavern. With each rough thrust, he practically lifts my ass off the ground. I yell out again at the sensation, at how deep he reaches and how filled he makes me feel.

“Do you want the last ridge in you? Are you ready to try?”

“Mmmh,” I nod, and blather a greedy, “Yes. ”

He grips my inner thighs. I have to open myself wide for him, to take all of him, especially when the thickness of his engorged ridge near the base of his cock pushes into me at last. It takes a few breaths to get used to the sensation, but once I take it all in, when he’s fully hilted, the fullness is glorious.

“Dear gods,” I can’t help but let out a breathy moan. When he moves back out a little, the swollen bulge pops over my entrance and my legs tremble at the stretch.

“Am I hurting you?” he asks, his voice fraying. With concern, his eyes lock on mine.

I shake my head, not trusting my voice to be steady.

Looking both thrilled and overwhelmed with a bloom of red across his cheeks, he bears down into me. We move together in snagging breaths, rolling against each other.

His mouth devours me roughly, finding the hard tip of my breast and nipping before he tugs with his teeth, soothing the sting with a swirl of his tongue.

“You’re taking all of me so well, Elphie,” he mutters. “I didn’t think anyone could. You’re amazing.”

A gasp slips from me, and I utter his name with each exhale. “Riev, please,” I plead.

He gives me what I want. A shrill squeal escapes me when his lips clamp down brutally on my nipple, the fiery shock of it—pleasure, pain, pleasure—racing down deep between my thighs at the same time as he ruts those bulged ridges along my inner walls.

I clutch his arms, my nails raking small half-moons into his skin as I find my cresting release, gripping his thick cock with each spasming wave.

Once he feels me contracting and narrowing around him, he shifts, becoming rougher.

Those damned swells seem to pulse and grow wider, overwhelming me as I narrow tightly around him.

When I come apart again, he’s slapping against my clit with a merciless rhythm, drawing out my orgasm long and tight in a way I’ve never felt before.

Silver stars collide in the backs of my eyelids.

His curses echo off the cavern walls around us. We fit perfectly, as if made for each other.

He can’t possibly know this, but I do .

He lets himself go and rasps my name, pounding into me relentlessly until my vision hazes over in the most delicious way. “Elphie,” he calls out, over and over…

And when he’s done, he shudders but stays buried inside me. With our bodies locked together, he ghosts a kiss on my forehead. As his eyes slam shut, he collapses his face into the hollow of my neck, his breath heavy.

As I come down from the high, I hold him tightly, because deep in my stuttering heart, I know that in a world like ours, such moments of perfection exist only in dreams… And sooner or later, no matter how hard we try, we will be forced to awaken.