Page 133 of Lady of the Drowned Empire

He curled closer to me, his breathing slow and even against my back. “Your mind is racing, but it might stop if you’re exhausted. You said it’s only when we stop. It makes sense. I remember being like this in the early days, after my mother…after she was gone. The grief was so much.” He traced circles over my stomach. “It weighed on me day and night. And I found that unless I took my body to the absolute brink of exhaustion, nothing else would let me sleep, not with all my thoughts. All the guilt. All the what ifs I pondered. What if I’d been faster, stronger. Made a different choice. I drove myself farther than Lethea with the thoughts. Alcohol could help, if I had enough, but I was on the run. I never wanted to risk being drunk and crossing paths with soturi trying to arrest me, or worse, akadim.”

I felt hopeless. “We’ve been walking all day. We ran this morning. I barely sat down until now. My legs are so fucking sore, and my feet…what else can I do?”

He shrugged against me. “Even sore, we could go for another run. If it’ll make you feel better, I could try and sneak us into a local arena.”

Groaning, I buried my face in the pillow. “Gods, no! I don’t hate running anymore, but you’re farther than fucking Lethea if you think I’m getting out of this bed for that now.”

He chuckled, running his hand up to my waist and squeezing. “Okay, no running. Push-ups?”

“No!”

“Sit-ups?”

I bucked back against him.

He coughed. “No, I didn’t think so.”

Sighing, I asked, “Is that what you did? Every time you couldn’t sleep?”

His fingers trailed down my stomach, as I pulled my head back against the crook of his shoulder. “At first, it was. I started training day and night. I wanted to be ready for whatever came. Akadim. My father. Imperator Kormac. I wore myself out until I…did something different. I found that, uh….” He coughed again, shifting his hips back from me. “There were other ways to tire my body.” His voice lowered. His chest rose with a sudden intake of breath while his heart pounded loudly enough for me to hear it. “Like…a release.” His hand stilled on my stomach.

I sucked in a breath, my pulse quickening. “Oh.”

“If you want,” he rasped, “I could do that for you. Just like the other night—but with my hands this time.”

“And mine?” I started to turn in his arms, but he stilled me, holding my back to his front.

“Just mine on you. For tonight. Only if you want. There’s no pressure here for anything. And no need to do anything for me in return.”

My core tightened, my body fully aware of how dangerously close his fingers were to my core. How easily they could slip down inside my pants, move between my legs.

I inched back, feeling his length, long and hard against my backside. Heat bloomed through me. “But what about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. This is for you.” He nipped at my earlobe. “Plus,” he teased, “I promised to show you the real meaning of stamina, didn’t I?” His thigh moved up toward my center, and I instinctively rocked against it. “I can hardly do that in a room where we both need to be silent.”

“What if I swear to be quiet?” I rolled my hips.

“I don’t want you quiet for that,” he growled. “The first time I take you, I want you screaming. I want to hear you call my name when you explode. I want to hear all the pretty sounds I know you can make and discover the new ones I can draw from you.”

At the moment, the only sounds in the room were my heaving breaths spurred on by the simmering heat between my legs. Rhyan’s other hand reached beneath me, twisted up inside my shirt, and found my breast. As his fingers closed around my peaked nipple, I twisted my head back to find his lips. He squeezed his fingers, making me gasp into his mouth, as shivers danced through my body. Slanting his lips over mine, he deepened the kiss, his tongue coaxing mine into his mouth until I was breathless and writhing against him. His thumb rubbed over my nipple in the same rhythm as his tongue.

“Lyr,” he whispered, sucking on my bottom lip. “Can I touch you?” He kissed his way across my cheek and bit down on my neck. “Will you let me touch your cunt?”

I undulated back against him, squeezing his thigh between my legs. “Yes.”

He slid his lower hand beneath my waistband, his fingers brushing the top of my underwear and his lips licking and kissing their way back to my mouth. I reached behind me for his hair, tangling his bronzed curls between my fingers and pulling him closer. The hand in my shirt switched to my other breast, teasing me.

I gasped, wriggling onto my back to see him better. My legs spread open, as he leaned over me, and his hand paused just inches above where I was desperate to feel him.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked, undulating my body, attempting to bring his hand lower.

He exhaled sharply, watching me carefully, his hand searing as it pressed against my flesh. “I’ve waited for this. To touch you…here. A very long time.”

“Don’t wait any longer.”

His eyes blazed on mine as his fingers swept inside my underwear, finally gliding through my center until he cupped me with his palm. My skin warmed even more with his touch, the heat coiling and twisting inside me.

I whimpered, then we both froze, shocked at the contact between us, at the fact that this was actually happening. I’d waited for this, too—for him to touch me so intimately, so purposefully.