He closed the distance between us, his devilish smile irresistible. “Let me show you.”
With that, he kissed me again, but this time, my fingers brushed his bare shoulders as Marek’s kiss began as a soft touch to quickly intensify into a raging inferno. His hands explored, as mine did, tugging my shirt from its breeches. Sliding his hand up to find the laces at my neckline and loosening them with one hand, his fingers grazed my skin.
As the kiss deepened, he pushed the linen shirt off my shoulders, letting it slip down my arms. Only a thin chemise separated our bodies as he pressed closer. A murmur escaped from deep within me, and something seemed to snap in him at the sound.
“Issa,” he said against my mouth, the slow, deliberate movements of his hands becoming impatient as he tore off my wide, leather belt and worked open the laces of my breeches. Before I knew what he was about, Marek’s hand slipped between us to the most intimate part of my body.
With no time for shock, his tongue working magic and making my head spin, his finger was there.
“Marek,” I gasped as he slipped it inside me.
“I’m not the only one wet in this cabin,” he said, as if his hand was not… there!
“What are you?—”
My words were cut off by his slow movement, in and out, a second finger now joining the first. My eyes widened as he moved, a knowing smile plastered on his face.
I’d never felt anything remotely like it before. Shoving away the embarrassment that threatened to dampen the experience, I let myself go, just as I’d done above deck in the storm. Marek had a way of making me forget all of the constraints of normal society, and maybe I would regret it later.
But not now.
“That’s my sereia,” he whispered, capturing me in an all-consuming kiss. His tongue flicked against mine as his fingers mimicked the same movements below. Suddenly, the scandalousness of what was happening flooded me all at once, but oddly, I was no longer embarrassed. What was so wrong about finding pleasure?
And what he was doing was very pleasurable.
I held onto his bare arms, feeling his muscles twitching as his hand moved. A building inside me, unlike anything I’d ever experienced, threatened to drown every other sensation. I moaned, the sound not at all familiar, even to my own ears.
In response, he circled his thumb against me while continuing the deliciously tortuous ministrations until I could not possibly hold on any longer. With a flick of his tongue, and his thumb, everything inside me began to tense and coil like the ropes I’d found him asleep on.
And then, it exploded. I couldn’t even continue our kiss, pulling away and throbbing against his fingers. It was as if there were too many pleasurable sensations at once, if such a thing were possible.
He wasn’t smiling now.
Marek stared deep into my eyes, his lips parted… watching.
I breathed heavily, as if I’d just run through the woods, unable to continue. His fingers were still there, inside me as I pulsed against him. Then, ever so slowly, he pulled them from me and did something even more shocking.
Taking one finger to his lips, he licked it, that ever-present smile returning.
I blinked, trying to process all that was happening.
“Tastes as sweet as I expected,” he said. “Now how about I do that one more time? With my tongue.”
23
ISSA
As I dressed, my mind replayed all that had happened. Thankfully, I’d been spared a response when he mentioned his tongue—not that I could have come up with a proper one—whenTidechaserhad lurched, telling Marek that the water channel he’d created had been disrupted.
With a wink, he’d raced from the cabin, leaving me to stare at the door and wonder what in Elydor had just happened. Sitting, even though my shirt and breeches were still wet from being pressed against him, I attempted to gather my thoughts.
As if such a thing were possible.
My world was crumbling around me. Betrayed by Hawthorne. Days away from potentially losing Marek. And what had just happened? I had difficulty forming a complete thought except, I wanted it again. And what he’d said before he left?
The cabin was suddenly getting much too cramped, and hot. I finished dressing and I was about to leave when I realized Marek had never changed his clothing and was still soaked. I made my way to the trunk, hardly even needing the moonstone, having learned the cabin well.
I reached for it to look inside, wondering which pieces Marek might need. Thalassari clothing was resistant to water, especially their boots, but they were not completely impervious. I took out a shirt when a deep-blue handkerchief caught my eye. I knew that piece of fabric, its gold trim woven by my mother. Pulling it out, I turned it over. Sure enough, the Hawthorne crest stared back at me as my mind was brought back to the day I’d given this to him.
