Page 145 of Reign of Stars and Fire

I closed the door behind me and slumped against it.

Ari turned over his shoulder, halfway into a clean tunic. He laughed. “Tired, sweet menace?”

“Overwhelmed.” All day we’d been fielding questions about Calista, about me, Riot, Captain Annon.

Niklas was fascinated, Elise and Valen were trying to wrap the idea in their minds since they did know Calista when she was younger. How could she have been born centuries ago? Fae folk aged slowly once they matured, but not in childhood.

If she was captured as a child when Sol Ferus was still imprisoned, that wasn’t so many turns ago.

Calista should’ve been grown by then.

Malin had the memories we’d seen under Yarrow’s rite and was trying to catch any clues. So far, she was as befuddled as the rest of us.

Ari wrapped his arms around me and buried his face in the slope of my neck. “Hells, you smell good.”

I sank against him. Since Davorin disappeared, in truth, I felt like I had more questions than I did before, but for a moment I could fall into my husband and be at peace.

“I hope you weren’t thinking of getting dressed,” I said and nipped at his bottom lip.

“Not at all.”

“Liar.”

Ari dragged his nose down the side of my cheek. He took hold of my wrist and guided my palm down the front of his unlaced trousers. “I was waiting for you to do the honors is all.”

I groaned when he kissed me. My hand wrapped around his thick shaft. I stroked the smooth skin, drawing out short hisses of curses as Ari tried to keep kissing me. My thumb teased the tip of his hard length for a few breaths, then I stepped back.

His eyes were glazed with desire. The low-slung waist of his trousers revealed the sharp edges of his waist, the slant of his flat stomach to the crown of his length slipped through the open laces. He was a damn sight. I could study every contour of his body, every slab of muscle, every scar, until I faded from existence.

Slowly, I slipped one sleeve of my tunic off my shoulder. Then another.

Ari drank me in. He’d gone so still. His gaze roved over me in such a way it was palpable. Like his rough fingers touched the curve of my throat, the scars on my shoulders, the cleft between my breasts. Like his breath heated the nipples to hard peaks. I swallowed and finished slipping the tunic off my hips until it pooled around my ankles.

I slid off my trousers.

“Come here.” Ari demanded. Pleaded.

I shook my head. “Not until we’re even.”

With a sly kind of grin, Ari rid himself of his own pants, then sat on the edge of the bed. I went to him, positioning myself between his thighs, and touched his shoulders with my fingertips. I caressed every place the light of the tallow candles struck on his body. Bruises and burns and scrapes were in various states of healing. Ari lifted one hand and cupped my breast, his thumb circling the peak.

I arched into him, my throat bared.

Ari kissed a line down my throat. He dragged his teeth over the sides of each swell of my breasts. “Why are you not sitting on me, sweet menace?”

I grinned as villainously as I could manage with his hands working their artistry against my skin. My fingertips danced down his stomach until they gripped his length again. He cursed and let his forehead drop to my shoulder.

When the bead of moisture seeped from the top, I swirled it around the tip of my thumb, then raised my fingers to my lips and licked it off.

Ari’s eyes watched and burned into a dark flame of need. “What are you doing? Get those legs spread over me, woman.”

“Do I have you begging?” I traced the line of his jaw with my fingertips.

It took a moment, but soon enough, Ari’s lips twisted in a smirk. “You’re vicious. The answer is yes. I’m begging you, pleading,imploringwith all my might for you to spread those beautiful thighs over me this instant. Shall I get on my knees? I would, you know. I’d have the perfect angle for the perfect taste.”

Gods. I swallowed the passion that swelled in the back of my throat. Where did this man come up with his words?

They worked. I trembled with unmanaged desire by the time I leveraged onto his lap, straddling him. I reached between us and aligned him with my entrance. My breath caught when I sank over his hard length at a maddeningly slow pace.