Page 58 of Of Blood and Banes (The Arterian #2)

SIT DOWN

L ater that night, after the sun has set and the moon is high in the sky, Sethan returns to lead us all to our individual residences in Pinepoint. With the promise of two elk carcasses reserved just for her by the end of the week, Daeja agreed to fly Melaina and Archie later in the night.

As soon as Sethan’s soldiers hook Darian’s shackles into the wall and leave, an awkward silence falls between us.

I sit on the bed with my back to him, unlacing my boots.

“Did you bring me any whiskey?” Darian asks.

“No.”

“Why not? Are you not wanting to continue your training?”

I ignore him, biting down into my lip to keep the sadness at bay.

Perhaps it was only luck that I was able to save Vathstone from burning down.

And returning the ripples back to the ley lines in Ashfall.

What good am I if I can’t save a life? Can’t save more than just buildings or souls already passed?

And while I’m relieved I came clean to Archie, admitting my feelings out loud only opened the hole in my heart where Cole is. It’s simple. I still love him.

“People die all the time. You better get used to it,” Darian says with a casualness that stings. “No need to mope about.”

“Stop talking,” I mutter, removing one boot with quick, angry movements.

“You’re pissed. Good. Remember what I told you last? You use it as fuel. Slowly. Deliberately. If you explode, you’ll only hurt yourself.”

I rip my second boot off and throw the pair of them near the door. “Oh, fuck off. Like you know anything about me.”

He lifts his chin with a broad arrogance. “Take it out on me. Come fight me.”

“I said fuck. Off,” I growl.

He taps his chest, then splays his hands as wide as his long chain connecting his wrists will allow him. “Get your ass over here and make me.”

I storm across the room, snatching my sheath from where it leans against the wall and drawing my sword with ease as I meet his eyes. Hoping it’s enough of a show to shut him up, and he’ll actually leave me alone. “I mean it.”

He presses on with a smirk, adamant to push me off the edge I’m teetering on. “And I mean it. Come over here and make me fuck off. We can even pretend you can actually fucking hit me.”

Shaking my head against the mounting rage, I close the distance between us and swing the sword in the direction of his chest, and when he jumps back, catching my blade with his chains, something flashes in my heart when I miss him—relief.

“Good,” he purrs. “More.”

I swing again and again, channeling my frustration slowly with each swipe, as he’s suggested. Each move grows dangerously close to slicing him, until he stops with his back against the wall, his chin still lifted high.

I prowl toward him, keeping the blade pointed at his throat as my chest rises and falls. “I’ve got you pinned.”

“So, it seems.” He slowly spreads his fingers open in a silent surrender.

“Per our agreement, tell me about the King. Why does he want both rings?”

His eyebrow raises. “Per our agreement, you were to owe me whiskey before our little scuffles.”

I lean forward, inches from his face as I grit out, “What does the King want?”

“The same thing I do.”

“And what’s that?” I hiss.

“You,” he breathes, then leans forward despite the blade slicing into his skin and kisses me.

Gasping, I shove his chest back so it breaks our kiss. He leans his head back against the wall, a stupid, lazy smile on his face. A small trickle of blood races down the column of his throat to the top of his shirt. He’s fucking toying with me, and I’m not in the godsdamned mood.

“Here’s the thing…” he whispers, then wraps his hand around my right wrist, the hand holding the sword to his throat. “You’ve been wrong all along. This?”

He peels my fingers off one at a time from the hilt, never breaking eye contact. And for some fucking reason, I don’t fight him—I’m just stuck in his sea of green.

He takes my left hand off his chest, then places the sword in it. “Is the reason you’re so shitty at weapons. Because you’re actually not right-handed…”

I tear my gaze away and look down at my left hand as he squeezes and lets go, the weight of the sword heavy and oddly comforting.

I’ve never been the most impressive with weaponry, and my experience has been less than stellar.

But the longer I sit with the familiarity of the sword in my left hand, the more I believe his theory.

How easy it is to balance the weight in my palm.

“I should have noticed it sooner,” he mutters.

I look up at him, flexing my hand around the sword’s hilt. “How? What makes you think I’m left-handed?”

He taps the blade low, down and away from his direction. “You grab door handles with your left hand.”

“So?”

“So, you grab with your left hand. You always put your right foot first when you start to walk. When you get heated in conversations, you use your left hand to gesture. And whenever you pet your oversized flying lizard?—”

I narrow my eyes.

“—you always touch her with your left.”

He’s been watching me. Even in all the times I didn’t even realize he was around. A small warmth creeps to my cheeks, spreading across my face and down to my chest.

“Wipe that smile off your face,” he growls. “The only reason I’ve noticed it is because if you die, the King dies. And then I have no chance at saving my sister.”

“I’m not sure if I believe you,” I murmur, a swell of hope rising within me.

“Then trust me.”

I snort. “I don’t trust you, either.”

He sighs, then slides with his back down the wall to sit and look up at me. “You’re impossibly difficult. Especially so when you’re pissed off.”

“Sounds like your problem, not mine.”

He smirks. “Funny, I tend to fuck my problems. Or, I guess, they fuck me.”

Crouching down to his level, I place the sword behind me out of reach and snatch the front of his shirt in my fist. “Listen. If you so much as hint about our little mishap outside of these four walls one more time?—”

“Mishap?” His eyebrows shoot up his forehead before he shakes his head with that agitating bravado.

“I’d prefer the term ‘stroke of luck.’ Or I suppose if we’re getting technical, many, many strokes of luck.

And I wouldn’t call my study of your pleasure luck.

I work damn hard to figure out what makes you quiver and come?—”

“Stop talking before I fucking kill you,” I growl.

“Then I suppose you won’t get those answers you need, will you?”

That godsdamned smile of his triggers a crest of heat within me, and I tighten my grip on his shirt.

“I noticed something about you,” he whispers and snatches my hips in his strong hands.

My breath slips out in a soft gasp. This is dangerous. I already can sense it. And yet, his hands on me are too tempting to do anything but freeze. His thumbs rub a gentle circular pressure in front of my hip bones.

“But you’re going to need to...” He pulls me forward and positions me over his strong thigh and plops me down. “…sit down.”

“You bold bastard—” I’m interrupted by a shot of pleasure exploding up my spine.

He shifts my hips back, rubbing his thigh against me with a jaw-clenching pressure. I fight to keep a moan behind my lips.

“Sorry, what was it you were saying?” he rasps, eyes locked on mine.

He guides me, pulling my hips back and forth into a tight rocking motion.

“Tell me if you want me to stop. But I know it feels good, and you need to take your mind off everything for a moment. Feel something else for just a second. Let me be your distraction.”

I fight against the pleasure rising inside of me as it threatens to drown out the logical side of my brain. But he has a point because my anger begins to melt away. My sadness. Everything but him.

I find myself grinding harder into his lap. Chasing the beautiful friction against my clit.

He looks at me with hooded eyes and parted lips.

“If you want to keep pretending you don’t think about me fucking you…

fine. Mistake or not, take what you want from me.

You’ve come on my fingers, you’ve come on my tongue, and you’ve come on my cock.

You want to be a good girl? You don’t want me to fuck you?

Fine. You don’t need my touch. You can make yourself come instead and not feel bad about it. ”

He takes his hands off my hips and holds them out to the side, testing me. “I’ll sit here for you and let you take whatever it is you need.”

Our movements still, his eyes locked on mine. The longer the seconds drag on without that friction, the colder I grow.

It…technically wouldn’t break my new rule about sleeping with him.

Gods. What is it that makes me so pathetically stupid with him? That I’m dying to grind myself on his fucking thigh for a climax? But I don’t care.

All my worries are gone.

Before I can stop myself, I slowly roll my hips forward up his thigh, grazing myself over his muscled leg. His parted lips turn into a grin. He threads his fingers together and places them behind his head, his chin tilted up to watch me lose myself.

I rock my hips again and again, faster and faster until I’m grinding myself greedily against him. My fingers find his shoulders, digging into them to steady myself as I race toward an orgasm. My breath comes out in pants.

“Fuck,” he mutters, eyes dancing up and down my body. “Even clothed you are so godsdamned sexy.”

I glance down at where the heat collects between my thighs and admire the growing erection in his pants.

All I’d have to do is ask. My thoughts drip into a fantasy of ripping his pants off and riding him until we both come.

But this is a good compromise, and the closest I can get to him without giving myself completely.

“Eyes up here,” he snaps.

“I want you to touch me,” I breathe, sweat dampening my brow.

“How? Like this?” he asks, one hand sneaking around to grab my rear. His fingers sink into my cheek, gripping me hard as he gives me a good shake. “Or this?” He smacks my ass with a delicious sting, and I stumble forward, nearly sharing his breath.

“Both,” I moan and whimper. “Just don’t take your hands off me.”

Wordlessly, he grabs my ass and spreads me wider as he helps grind me against his thigh, his expression tight with wicked determination. I edge closer and closer to my climax.

Staring at his mouth, hungry to kiss him, I ask, “Will you make me come?” He opens his mouth, no doubt to taunt me, but I whimper, “Please.”

He grabs me by the hips and spins me away from him before plopping me down on the ground between his legs. Angling me back to lie against his chest, he pulls my legs up until they’re bent at the knee. He slips his right hand down between my thighs.

Despite not being skin to skin, his tight, controlled circles against my clit have me arching back into him.

I spread my legs wider and watch him rub me, my lips parting as desire floods me.

How godsdamned obsessed I am with his possessive touch.

With his left hand, he slips it underneath my shirt and fondles my breast, kneading my nipple.

Knowingly, he presses his lips to my neck, grazing his teeth up the column until he gets to the spot behind my ear.

Moaning, I lean my head back onto his shoulder as my eyes flutter closed. My legs quake, and I grab onto his thighs as he works me like putty.

Sucking on my earlobe before he pulls at it with a soft bite, he whispers, “Come in my arms. Break for me. Let it all go.” Then he rubs my clit faster, biting into the spot above my collarbone. His breath is hot on my skin, and Gods, he moans into my neck.

Surrendering, I tip over into euphoria.

My mouth parts as I cry, my climax ricocheting like a wave of echoes spasming my limbs. His fingers on my clit draw the rest of my pleasure out, his mouth still devouring my skin.

As the hazy tingling of my orgasm subsides, a heat flushes over my cheeks. Darian removes his hand from between my legs and my shirt. I lean up off him, and as I turn to face him, he smiles. Wicked and handsome.

Holding up a shiny key.

Guess I’m not the only one who’s using our sexual tension as a manipulation.

Gaping, I swing forward to try and snatch it from him before he evades me, chuckling. He unlocks the shackles and stands, before he adjusts the erection in his pants.

“Remember what I’ve told you?” He taps the key against the side of his head and slips it back between my brassiere and my breast. “Don’t let your emotions control you.”

He fucking pats my breast, kicks off his boots, and flops into the bed, stomach down.

Did I just get bested by a fucking thigh ride?

Shaking my head against the rolling wave of vexation at myself, I walk over to the other side of the bed and pile the pillows into a barrier between us.

I shift down beneath the sheets as he lifts and turns his head to face me.

His cheek is pressed against his crossed forearms underneath himself, a sly smile on his lips.

“Goodnight,” he chimes.

I take a pillow at our feet and pile it on the one already between our faces, blocking him from my view.