Page 42 of Taking Jenny (Planet Orhon #4)

I beat at it, scratched at it, tried to pull away from the hand, but it kept a grip on my hair and I could not get out of the water.

My heart raced and my lungs burned. Not like this.

I dug my thumbs into the wrist as hard as I could.

But then another body came into the water with me.

The hand on my head released and I surfaced, gasping… and came face-to-face with Mal.

His hand clamped over my mouth before I could say a word.

“Breathe quietly,” he whispered, his lips brushing my ear.

The heat of him contrasted the chill of the water, and my breath caught for a very different reason. I nodded and followed directions as best I could. Our heads were a foot below the level of the riverbank, so whoever we were hiding from could not easily see us.

Mal lifted himself up over the edge, looking around again. When he dropped back down he murmured, “They went past us, but keep your voice down.”

While I was happy to see him, I was also a little miffed. “Why did you hold me under water?”

“I didn’t want you to pop up, see me, and say my name,” he said, dragging his fingers through his wet hair. “We’d both be dead.”

I shook my head in aggravation. “What are you doing here, Mal?”

“What do you think?”

“That you’ll die too!” I hissed.

“Your confidence in me is overwhelming,” he drawled.

My jaw clenched. “This is serious, Mal. I was doing fine, I…” Illiamor is helping me. But I couldn’t tell him that. Mal didn’t know I was a conduit, and besides, where was she? “I have it all under control.”

He eyed my bare breasts beneath the surface of the water. “You call hiding naked in a river having things under control ?”

“I wasn’t hiding, I was washing blood off of me.”

Mal’s brows snapped together in concern. “Who’s blood?”

“Pleon’s.”

He stilled, then a wicked grin spread across his face. “Is he dead?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“I knew you had it in you.” The pride in his eyes and his pleased smile made me warm all the way through, despite the cool water.

“Yes, I do, so go,” I said, making a shooing motion with my hand, when the last thing I wanted was to be alone. “Before they find you here.”

He gently touched his fingers to my cheek and it took all my willpower not to nuzzle against his palm. “You don’t want my help?”

He legitimately sounded hurt, and I sighed. “Mal, I don’t want you dead , so just…go back to wherever you came from.”

“No.”

I growled in frustration. “Why are you so stubborn?”

He grinned. “Too much privilege, not enough rearing.”

I snorted a laugh, trying to keep it quiet. “I’d bet that’s true.”

He moved closer. The water rippled between us, but he was like a current all his own, and I had to resist that pull. “Seriously, Mal, why are you here?”

He stared into my eyes and paused. “You still don’t know?”

My heart raced from the weight of his gaze, and the unspoken words there.

He hooked his hand around the back of my neck, pulling me to his lips.

His touch burned through me, and I opened my mouth to him.

It was reckless— we should be watching for hunters, since Illiamor vanished.

But in the moment, I didn’t care anymore.

I wrapped my legs around him and clung to his neck and shoulders.

My body needed to feel something good, and who knew if this would be my last chance to be with Mal.

He groaned into my mouth, and I did the same to him.

He gripped my ass as I grinded against him over his clothes.

His cock hardened between us. I hadn’t expected it with the cool water, but Ladrians do run hotter than humans…

He growled, biting my bottom lip. “This is not…how I pictured…the first time.”

“I don’t care,” I said, desperate for him. “I might die. I need this.” And you.

He didn’t hesitate, just unzipped his bodysuit all the way down and pulled his cock out. My buoyancy made it a challenge to aim myself at him, but once he’d notched the head of his cock at my entrance, I quickly learned he was like Tiger—damn near too fucking big.

But I did not care. The pressure was perfect.

I welcomed the ache, needing something to burn away the dread in my bones.

I needed to feel alive. Whole. Wanted. I was on the edge of madness with desire for him and the need for anything that was good and right in the world.

Even if it was an illusion, it didn’t matter.

Mal turned me so my back was against the side of the river and thrust into me.

His hand returned to my mouth to smother my cries, but my body betrayed me—writhing, clenching, arching against him.

Every nerve ending was stretched tight with sensation, my internal muscles taut around him as he drove deeper with every plunge of his hips.

His low growls were pure animal hunger, guttural and possessive. “You feel like fucking heaven.”

He bit at my neck and I broke against him, my orgasm tearing through me in a blinding rush of pleasure. I screamed against his hand, body locking down around him, pulsing with wave after wave of release.

He didn’t stop. Didn’t slow down. He chased me to the edge again, and three brutal, delicious thrusts later, he came with a curse, hips jerking, cock throbbing as he spilled his seed inside of me.

We clung to each other, breathless and shaking, our bodies pressed tight in the water. The chill returned slowly, but I still felt the heat of him lingering inside me.

He didn’t speak right away. And for a moment, panic fluttered in my chest. Did he regret it? Hate how it happened? Had I just—

But then he lifted his head, his dark eyes searching mine, warm and reassuring, and whispered, “I needed that, too.”