“I know, I’m sorry.”
Bracing a hand against my chest, he knocked me back onto the thin mattress and climbed over the top of me, straddling my hips. I watched him unbuckle his belt and yank it from the belt loops with a loud snap. My heart bucked in my chest, excitement and apprehension doing the same dance they always did.
“We are a team, Dahlia. That’s what we decided on.”
“I know.”
Grabbing both of my wrists, he forced them over my head and began to bind them tightly in his worn leather belt, wrapping the remainder of the leather around the bedpost.
“You keep saying you know, but I don’t think you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have risked yourself to speak to that creature in the cage.”
“Lyla.”
“I don’t care who she is. She almost killed you once.”
Before I could speak again, he thrust two of his fingers into my mouth, pressing them toward the back of my throat. I swirled my tongue around them, sucking the salt off his skin
He shifted his body to one side of me, bracing himself on one hand and freeing his other so he could slide it down the length of my torso, over my belly, to the laces on my pants. Once he’d loosened them, he slipped his hand inside, dipping his fingers between my legs to find me wet and wanting. Despite all that had happened and all that was going on around us, I still hungered for him. He was an addiction I couldn’t flout.
That was why I needed him. Everything was too real to disregard and every harsh touch he lay on me dragged me further from the shadows I knew would eventually consume me.
Vidar brushed his fingers between my lower lips, soaking himself in my arousal before he stood over me, looking down with that predatory gaze of his, like a butcher searching for the perfect place to cut. Then he reached into one of the crates filled with dusty bottles and uncorked one, eyes fixed on me as he took a swig.
“Do I need to keep reminding you that we’re in this together, you and I?” he rasped.
He set the bottle down on a rickety side table and got on his knees between my legs, bending over me as he pushed the hem of my shirt up past my hips, revealing my stomach. His hot breath cascaded over me as he kissed my flesh, his tongue tracing over the raised skin on the crescent scar that decorated my ribs, wrapping nearly my entire torso. The shark wasn’t the largest I’d encountered, but it could have ripped me in half and like all my other scars, it was a reminder that death hadn’t forgotten me. Not even for a day.
“I don’t care how godly this Akareth believes himself to be.” Vidar kissed me lower, his mouth caressing the soft skin just above my sex. “If he’s real, he can die.”
He hooked his fingers on the waistband of my pants and dragged them off of me, sliding my boots off in the process. Then he looked up at me from the shadows of his brows, his eyes devious, and slapped my legs apart. Slowly, his gaze settled between my thighs as he began unlacing his britches. I bit my lip at the sight of him pulling his hardened cock out and sliding his fist up the thick length.
“Keep your legs spread for me, love,” he said, almost tenderly, as he reached for the bottle of rum.
He began to pump his cock with one hand as he lifted the bottle over me with the other. My pulse leapt at the threat. I couldn’t quite decide whether to watch the bottle or Vidar’s hand as he toyed with himself. I gripped the leather of my binds hard as he slowly tipped the rum bottle and a thin stream splashed onto my stomach. I felt nothing but the tickle of warm liquid on my skin. He poured again, that time letting the drink drip down between my thighs. I gasped sharply, my hips lifting at the mild burn on the sensitive flesh.
Vidar set the bottle aside and groaned, his hand abusing his cock at the sight of me writhing and moaning before him. My instinct was to close my legs, but I’d been given a command not toand Vidar’s eyes were still fixed on me as if in a dare. So, I endured the pain and let it fill my body with heat as I watched him stroke himself to completion. The sight of him tensing and throwing his head back with a strained moan sent shivers straight to my clit and for a moment, I wondered if I could come just by watching him revel in his pleasure. Hot seed landed on my belly as he shuddered through his release, finishing with the sounds of my pleading breaths in his ears.
“Fuck,” he said through his teeth as he dropped to his knees and descended on me.
The heat of his breath washed across my center as he lapped up rum and arousal with an eager tongue. He licked and sucked, drenching me in liquid fire. I bowed off the bed, my loud gasps singing through the room and as if it was a demand, he slid two fingers deep into my entrance. Another wave of delicious pain gripped me and soon, I was squirming, a desperate mess beneath his agonizing kiss as he thrust into me.
“Ask me to forgive you, Dahlia,” he said between torturous licks.
“I don’t want your forgiveness,” I panted, screwing my eyes shut.
He turned his head, his teeth clamping down on the flesh of my inner thigh. I yelped but was unable to stop my shock from turning into a pleasured whimper soon after.
“Ask anyways.”
I squirmed beneath him, my skin burning. He added a third finger, stretching me around him and mercilessly driving me to the edge where pain and pleasure were indistinguishable.
“Forgive me, Vidar,” I keened. “I don’t know yet where the line between protecting you and hurting you is.” I raised my head, a different sort of discomfort swelling in my chest that I didn’t enjoy so much. One I didn’t know how to contend with, despite having been with him for many months. I looked at him, eyes stinging. “I’ve never…” I swallowed, wondering, like always, if I was about to make the wrong choice. Ultimately, the words escaped me, transforming on the tip of my tongue. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”
Love. The word was there, hiding in my throat, dreading the day the darkness swimming in my head heard me admit it so it could take it away.
Vidar kissed my belly again and moved over me, his fingers still slowly thrusting as he hovered. I was revealing too much again and he could see every bit of it. Hiding things from him was an impossibility I had yet to get used to.
“I will forgive you for anything,” he whispered. “That is what frightens me.”
