Page 14

The moment pulled taut between us, and for a second, I pictured doing it again, pulling a knife on him, but I knew why I couldn’t. We both knew why I couldn’t.

“You said I can’t kill you until your empire has fallen,” I pointed out. Part of me wondered if I could even then. What if I never killed him? What if I simply left him alive?

And why did that feel worse? Why did leaving him alone in a shattered kingdom feel just as impossible as killing him?

“You don’t have to do this,” Tallu said, his eyes fixed on mine.

“No, I don’t have to, but is there room for want in your plan to destroy your own empire?” I watched his eyes, and we were so close that I saw the moment he flinched.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said. But he reached out for me, a look of near horror on his face. He couldn’t resist me. I was some folktale of old, the spider turned flesh who trapped men in her invisible webs.

“No one deserves me. I am a gift to the world,” I joked. “Only my sister calls me an undeserved punishment.”

Then, because I couldn’t stand the tension between us anymore, I pushed onto my toes until our lips crashed together. Tallu stood still, his body tense, every muscle tight, and I could feel his chest trembling under my fingers.

Perhaps when he said you don’t have to do this , he actually meant I don’t want to do this , and the feeling curdled something in my stomach.

I pulled away, but he was faster. No sooner had my lips left his than he grabbed me tightly, his arms wrapping around me, pulling me close, pulling me against him and crushing my arms between us.

He plundered my mouth, his kiss unyielding.

He walked us backward until my legs hit the bed, and then we were tumbled down, only I wasn’t crushed, his arms moving to frame my shoulders, keeping himself from falling on me.

I couldn’t handle how strong he was under all those layers of silk and distance.

This had gone off target; the arrow I had aimed to unearth his secrets had instead pierced the heart of a wild buck, revealing blood on white snow. Tallu was desperate, as though he hadn’t been touched, as though he needed me like breathing.

“Please, Tallu,” I begged, raising my hands to his bare chest. He pressed forward into my palms, and his warm skin was enough to get me hard.

“I don’t deserve you,” he repeated. No one, not even my mother, who’d raised me as a tool, or my sister, who was the other half of my soul, had thought me so precious. “I trust you, do you understand?”

I didn’t, I couldn’t. What did it mean that he trusted me? Did he even know what it meant to trust the man sent to kill you more than you trusted those sworn to keep you safe?

But he didn’t leave me time to wonder because his mouth moved from mine, kissing along my jaw and down my neck, and even though I doubted he’d ever dressed himself in his entire life, he was more than capable with the small buttons and clasps, the ties of the belt at the waist of my pants, and soon, I was bare from the waist up, my chest heaving and trapped cock so hard that I wasn’t sure I’d last when he finally made it to my pants.

“Tallu,” I whined. “ I am the one who is supposed to be seducing you .”

He laughed.

“Tallu,” I repeated, whispering his name like a prayer to an ancient deity, older than even the One Dragon.

“Airón,” he said, his voice thick with wonder. He’d said losing me was the greatest loss the north has ever taken .

I couldn’t stand it; I couldn’t bear it.

I rolled us so that I was on top, and his eyes went wide, hands skimming to my hips.

His mouth fell open, and I didn’t wait, shimmying out of my pants and then pulling his down.

He grabbed at me, but his hand landed in my hair, and oh, did that give me ideas.

I bent, licking my lips, and didn’t give myself a chance to think before wrapping a hand around his cock and swallowing the head down. This I knew how to do. Quick fumbles in the dark with warrior boys who I was jealous of had been the limits of my experience before him.

Now, I wished I knew more, but I would make do. I swallowed him down, the silky flesh moving on my tongue, and Tallu made a choked, desperate noise, lacing his fingers through my hair. I whined.

He twisted his fingers, tightening his grip on the strands of my hair. I moaned around his cock, my throat working hard, all thoughts of choking forgotten as I tried desperately to take him inside me. I wanted to see what sounds I could pull from him.

I was the one sucking him, and so why was I the one losing my mind from the sheer overwhelming want of it?

Tallu’s free hand scrambled to grip the sheets tightly, and he was talking, his words tumbling over themselves. I wanted to press a hand to his mouth. Don’t admit anything you wouldn’t when your cock wasn’t down my throat .

But all he was saying was my name over and over until it lost all meaning. He pushed up on one elbow, his eyes wide and sharp. I let my own fall shut because I couldn’t bear the sight of him, the stretch of his copper-gold flesh, the way his hair was tousled, and the expanse of his skin.

He pushed me off, his cock falling from my lips, and I blinked my eyes open to find him pulling me up the bed, gripping my jaw tightly. He maneuvered me so I was laid out on top of him, his spit-wet cock trapped between us. My flesh felt overstimulated.

“Are you sure?” His words were a rough, desperate plea kissed into my throat. And under them, I heard again what I should have heard all along: I don’t deserve any happiness .

“Tallu, keep asking and I will believe that I’m the moon goddess, destined to live her days untouched and pristine.” I shivered as his lips hit the sensitive spot between my collarbones. “I have no such ambitions. And I want you inside me.”

He growled and flipped us, his touch suddenly desperate and heavy. His mouth was no longer teasing as he worked down my chest and belly, his hand finding my cock and taking it in his palm. He tightened a fist over my too-sensitive flesh, and I whined, bucking up.

As he shushed me, he slid his rough palm over my cock, and it was too much. I wanted to push forward, I wanted to pull back; I couldn’t do anything.

Then he was gone, and I felt the ache of missing him, but only for a moment, just long enough to ask myself what I wanted, why I wanted. This was more than seeking information, more than manipulation. Somehow, in these few minutes, I realized that what I wanted most desperately was to trust him.

I wanted—more than I had ever wanted anything else—for this desire to be true, to have a real partner in this.

A partner whose goals aligned with mine.

I wanted him. I wanted Tallu to be telling me the truth, without any lying, without any obfuscation, without his real motives hidden in his heart, outside of my reach.

Tallu was back, his hand cupped around a porcelain jar, and his eyes searched mine. “Ready?”

His question caught me off guard, as though his lightning magic had given him the ability to read my mind and he knew that what I wanted was him, all of him. I wanted Tallu as an ally, as a partner, as mine .

“Yes,” I said, even though I knew that wasn’t what he was actually asking.

The corners of his eyes relaxed. He eased my leg back, putting it on his shoulder, and dipped a finger into the jar. He circled it around my hole, and I bit my lip, looking away.

None of my tumbles had come close to this. Hands and mouths, yes, but that ache to have someone inside me had always been unfulfilled. He paused, slick finger pressed just at my entrance.

“Airón?” Tallu’s voice was quiet, and I looked up and nodded. The smile that crossed his lips was there and gone. “We don’t?—”

“If you say we don’t have to do this,” I growled, “I will make good use of all my training and show you how lethal I can be.”

Tallu blew out a breath of laughter but pressed his finger inside me, and my whole spine arched; years of anticipation could never have prepared me for the experience of being breached. “Tallu.”

He shushed me, working his finger further in, the sensation unbearable, the sensation perfect .

When he started to remove his finger, I mewled like a kitten, and he kissed my hip bone, pulling his finger free and taking more of the warm oil, then pushing two inside.

The stretch felt like nothing I had known, and I couldn’t imagine how good his cock would feel.

As he worked me open, he murmured, “Gorgeous. Absolutely perfect. You are a gift I could never think to ask for. How could I? I couldn’t dare to hope that I could find someone like you. Someone I could share this burden with.”

When he pulled his fingers free and slicked his cock, I bit my lip, unable to bear the sight of his muscled form, dark curls of hair falling over his face, when I would be feeling all of him so soon. He positioned himself, and I lifted my other leg, both of them slung wantonly over his shoulders.

His thick cock pushed in, and I was wrong . His fingers hadn’t been perfect; his cock was. My whole world narrowed to his cock pressing into me, his body muscled and perfect and mine.

I could feel myself opening for him, feel myself giving in, and was this what it might be like to yield to him? To be his blade, his assassin, his tool to wield?

I could imagine it, imagine turning myself into anything he wanted if he would just keep pressing into me, coring me until all that was left was something that belonged to him, only him.

When he was inside me, fully seated, he paused, his weight bearing down on me, my knees and hips flexing to let him kiss me, let him nip at my lower lip. Then he pulled back, drawing his cock nearly free before pressing in again.

The lazy thrusts were almost too much for me. I could come just from the way that he moved. I could come without touching my own cock, without anything more than his casual thrusts pushing me into the mattress.