“What a scholarly word.” Vorik laughed softly and picked her up, carrying her to the bed, just as she’d wanted. Perfect. “Nobody has ever spoken of efficacy during my climactic moment before.”
“It was after,” she informed him, shifting to press herself against him, wanting to wrap her legs around him. He’d had hismoment, but she longed for hers.
“Two seconds after, maybe.”
As he lay her down on the bed, kneeling beside her, she let her hands trail over his naked form. It was such a delight to touch him. Though his earlier taut tension had faded, he remained firm and fit. So appealing. She kissed the curve of his pectoral as he untied the laces of her dress and shifted it up. His hands brushed her bare skin along the way, and her core throbbed in anticipation of her turn.
“Ah,” he murmured after he’d peeled away her clothes and lay propped beside her, hand roaming, his gaze lingering on the curves of her breasts, her pert nipples. His perusal excited her, knowing that hewantedto look at her body. “You are beautiful, Syla.”
She groped for a response—thank youseemed an inane thing to say—but when he cupped her breast, thumb brushing the sensitive flesh of her nipple, she could only gasp, the pleasure almost startling in its intensity.
It must have been the right response, because his eyes flared with interest. He bent his head to slide his tongue along her breast, then take her nipple in his mouth. He licked, then sucked, and she arched toward him, grabbing the back of his neck.
Shivers of need and pleasure coursed through her, making her squirm against the blanket. Almost languid, his tongue trailed across the valley between her breasts to find her other nipple. His hand remained on the first, tracing the curve of her skin. Already, she throbbed with need and caught herself squirming and thrusting herself toward him.
When his tongue left her breast, she thought that brilliant mouth might delve lower—shewantedit to—but he was in no hurry and brought his lips back to hers. She kissed him hard, feeling urgency that he did not, and she rubbed and stroked, pulling him closer, wanting his heated form against hers. He obliged, his tongue teasing hers as they kissed, and his fingers slid over her abdomen and lower. Already hot and throbbing, she shifted toward him, legs parting in anticipation of his touch.
He smiled against her mouth, probably smug that she was so eager for him. She hardly cared. He was amazing; let him be smug. As long as he gave her the pleasure she so badly needed.
When his fingers slipped between her legs, she knew he would. He wouldn’t disappoint her. Maybe he wouldn’t betray his people for her, but he would give his heart to their joining, to her.
She kissed him and rubbed him to show her appreciation. And maybe a part of her hoped that if she pleased him enough in bed, he would walk away from his kin, from his orders, from everything that pitted them against each other, and be hers. Always.
As his deft fingers slid in and out, rubbing her exquisitely from within, she bucked and twisted, the delicious stimulation leaving her breathless.
“Quiet,” he murmured, echoing her earlier order, smiling and teasing her.
It was hard to obey when his touch built such intense need within her. Every rub, every brush brought pleasureand promised greater ecstasy. She didn’t cry out, but, almost frenetic, she rocked her lower half into him even as she ran her hands over his muscled form, kissing him hard, needing him like she’d needed none before.
She assumed Vorik would bring her to a climax and wouldn’t grow aroused himself for a time, but her eagerness must have renewed a spark of interest—oflust—in him. When his cock brushed her leg, he was hard again, and growing harder by the second.
“By all the stars in the sky,” he said huskily, pulling away from their kiss to look at her body, glistening from her efforts, from her need, “you’re so hot.”
“You too,” she panted, barely able to articulate anything as he found the center of all her desire and rubbed her exquisitely.
“How can you want me this much, Syla?” he wondered, watching her thrash.
She couldn’t get anything articulate out, only arching toward him, craving the release that only he could give her. Maybe she should have been embarrassed to want him so much, to writhe and twist at his every touch, to be so raw and naked about what she needed, but she trusted him not to tease her later. And the lust in his eyes grew and grew, her display making him growl with increasing need of his own.
She glimpsed his swollen shaft and gripped him. “Take me, Vorik. Hard.”
“Oh, I will.” As if a floodgate had opened, he shifted over her, bringing his lips back to hers as his fingers shifted aside, making room for his cock. “I’m making you mine.”
“Yes,” she agreed.
Like the powerful predator she’d envisioned earlier claiming his prey, he plunged into her without holding anything back, filling her to the brim. And she relished it, satisfaction and longing for more mingling within her. She gripped him, archingand matching his eager thrusts as he drove into her again. She barely stifled a cry of enthusiasm as she grew closer and closer to ecstasy. He pounded his own desire and need into her, soon as frenzied and frantic as she. They panted and thrust, coming together again and again. So primed it was almost painful, Syla came with such explosive satisfaction that she threw her head back and clunked the wall as he poured himself into her. At least she kept from screaming out her brilliant satisfaction for all on the ship to hear.
Finally, he collapsed atop her, and she pulled him close, wanting their chests mashed together, wanting him to stay with her forever.
He kissed her neck and nuzzled her ear, then stroked her head where she’d hit it. “Every time I’m with you, it’s even better than in my dreams.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she wrapped her arms around his back and turned her face to kiss him. “Do you dream of me often?” she whispered, hoping the answer was yes.
“Every night. Days too.” He laughed softly and shifted, not pulling out of her but drawing her over so that her weight lay atop him, and his hand found and cupped her ass, holding her to him. “Never has a woman so enraptured me, Syla. My queen.”
“I wish Iwasyour queen. Then we could be… we could be.”
His eyes sharpened. “We will be. We’ll find a way.”
