Page 76 of Dustwalker

In a low, rumbling voice, he said, “I want you.”

Her eyes widened, and her lips parted. She couldn’t form a response. Those three words, so small, so simple, made her breath ragged and her blood hot. She recalled the explosive sensations he’d awoken in her. After the crushing news he’d delivered, she’d needed a distraction, but he was so much more than that. And what she’d experienced with him last night…she craved to feel that again. Need to feel that again.

Lara stroked her thumb over his chest. “I want you t?—”

Ronin kissed her before the last word was fully past her lips.

His mouth was crushing, hungry, devouring, and sent a blaze of searing need through Lara, straight to her core.

Placing a hand on her back, he eased her down onto the bed. The blanket rasped over her sensitive nipples as he pulled it away. They beaded into tight, aching buds in the cool air. She raised her knees to cradle his hips as he moved over her, settling heavily between her thighs. When he cupped one of her breasts, she moaned against his mouth, arching her back to press more firmly into his palm, needing more.

This time, she wasn’t running from her pain. Lara wanted to feelwhat only he could make her feel—alive. Free.

She wantedhim.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Sparks pulsed between the electrodes under Ronin’s skin, flooding his circuits with a near-overwhelming hum. Had he known what touching Lara would be like, he would’ve succumbed to his desire that first night and run his fingertips over her delicate, responsive flesh. His skin could detect pressure, temperature, texture, and moisture, but hers reacted and changed.

He could feel the little bumps on her arms when she wrapped them around his neck. Could feel her skin warming as blood rushed to its surface. Her nipple hardened under his caress, her smooth flesh giving way to the soft swelling of her areola. Her lips were hungry, nibbling and sucking his. And that suction was such a strange, thrilling sensation. It was so intense, so concentrated, and it sent ripples across his sensors, sparking countless new possibilities in his processors.

Ronin broke the kiss and pulled away. Whether or not grief drove her desire, he would experience all of Lara, in every way he could, while he was able. He wanted to explore the many means by which he could coax reactions from her body.

Leaning back on his haunches, he answered her confused expression with a smile and cradled both her breasts, kneading them, marveling at their give within his grasp. Lara’s lashes fluttered, but she didn’t look away as her hands fell to either side of her. When his palms glided over her nipples, she caught her bottom lip between her teethand moaned, moving her body sensually and making her skin rasp against his.

Witnessing her like this, getting so swept up in the throes of passion and desire, amplified Ronin’s arousal beyond any reasonable measure. The heat of his skin increased further, and the pressure within him built. Much more and he feared alerts would start triggering within his systems.

Catching the hard peaks of her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, he pinched them.

“Ronin!” Lara gasped, body jolting against his.

“Yes, Lara… Let me see your pleasure. Let me hear it.” He slowly slid his hands over her breasts, down the flat of her stomach, and around her flared hips. There he stopped them, eyebrows falling low as he examined the purple bruises on her skin.

He moved his hand to cover one of the marks, which matched its shape perfectly. “I hurt you.”

Though they’d rescinded the no touchingstipulation of their agreement, he’d never intended for her to come to harm. Especially not at his hands. He’d wanted to give her pleasure, not pain.

“What?” she asked, breathless, and shifted her pelvis against him. The friction sent a ripple of sensation through Ronin that briefly jarred him from his thoughts.

“Bruises. You’re bruised, from my hands.”

Lara raised her head, glancing down with half-lidded eyes. Her kiss-swollen lips turned up in a smile. She let her head drop to the pillow, her torso shaking with barely suppressed laughter. “Totally worth it.”

He lifted his hands and stared at them. His processors whirred, but nothing came. Nothing but the evidence before him.

Lara brushed her fingers over the top of his thigh. “Don’t stop, Ronin. It doesn’t hurt. I didn’t even know they were there until you said something.” Somehow, her cheeks reddened further. “Besides, I kinda like them.”

“I…”Don’t understand.

“It’s proof you let go andfelt. That you were alive, with me, in that moment.”

Alive.

Regardless of the truth, no matter the doubts he harbored about himself, she saw him as alive.

Ronin settled his palms over the bruises, rubbing gently. Lara’s lips parted, and she exhaled softly. He slid his hands down over her buttocks, then along her outer thighs, stopping at the soft undersides of her knees.

Grasping them, he guided her legs up and spread them wider, focusing his optics on her glistening sex. It was an enticing pink, with the tiny bud of her clitoris peeking out from beneath a hood of delicate flesh.