“Yes.”I scratched my nails down his back and arched my hips.He closed his eyes and pushed inside another fraction of an inch.
Gods, he felt so good.“Yes, yes,” I cried, almost forgetting to keep quiet.I pressed my lips together and rocked my hips, taking more of him.I thought my pleasure had crested but he ignited it again, prolonging that pleasure as he filled me and stimulated those aroused nerves.His jaw was tight as he fought for control, and our eyes met as he moved deeper.I felt a flash of pain and then his lips kissed me gently.My body relaxed at the careful way he kissed me even as he pushed deeper inside me.I’d never felt so full, so completely overwhelmed by sensation.My muscles clenched around him, and he inhaled sharply and whispered something in his language.He slid out, almost leaving me, then slipped back in again, pressing deeply until he found an angle that allowed his hard member to skim against my clitoris, reviving the pleasure from before.I clenched harder as the aftershocks pulsed through me, and he moved again.He was slow and deliberate, his strokes bringing me pleasure as his gaze on mine melted my heart.
No one had told me it could be like this.No one had told me I could feel so completely connected to another person.I felt, suddenly, as though I’d known him for years, not days.I felt impossibly vulnerable, and yet, when I clenched around him after another wave of pleasure, the expression of pleasure on his face let me know I was powerful.He was as caught up in me as I was in him.I felt him swell inside me, and he seemed to stretch me even further.And then he groaned quietly in the back of his throat and closed his eyes, and I felt the way he pulsed.
His expression, usually stony and determined, softened for a moment.He looked young and exposed, and when he opened his eyes to look at me, my heart tripped at what I saw.He must love me.Love was the only way I could describe what I’d seen in his eyes.I wondered what he saw in mine.I was falling in love too.How could I not when he was everything I had ever wanted, even when I hadn’t known I’d wanted it or him?
“Mara,” he murmured as he withdrew and pulled me into his arms.His heart hammered against my ear as I lay on his chest and tried to catch my breath.For the first time in days, I was not cold.My muscles were not tight.My limbs felt loose and free.I closed my eyes and listened to him breathe.He pulled the blanket over us, tucking it around my back, then lying back down and pulling me against him again.I smiled and closed my eyes, more content than I’d ever been in my life.
Be careful.It was my mother’s voice I heard in the back of my mind.She’d said those words to me so many times over the years that it was not hard to conjure them.I knew why I had thought of them now.I was falling so hard and fast for this man, and I imagined he felt the same.But what man didn’t feel some love at the instant of climax?Did he love me or was I a means to an end, a prize he’d won from the enemy?I didn’t know what would happen when we reached his country.I had to keep my feelings for Taio under control.I had no idea what I would find in Zulen or who I could trust.I trusted Taio now, but he had told me about palace intrigue.Could I trust him in the capital city?Could I trust what he’d said about the cure?Could I trust anything?
“Sleep,” he murmured.“I’ll take first watch.”
“I don’t want you to get up,” I said.“Stay here.”
He kissed the top of my head.“I’ll stay.”
I closed my eyes and fell asleep to the beat of his heart.
Chapter Sixteen
Istared at the pieceof parchment, turning it to the right and then to the left.The letters and figures swam before my eyes.I couldn’t read them.No matter which way I turned the paper, nothing made sense.How would I ever find the cure if I couldn’t read the royal language?I focused on the paper again, staring at it hard, willing the symbols to make sense.
“Mara.”
I opened my eyes to darkness.Taio had shuttered the lamp, and the cabin was full of shadows.
“You were saying something in your sleep,” he murmured.
“A nightmare,” I murmured back, rubbing my eyes.Of course I hadn’t forgotten how to read the royal language.Then a thought occurred to me.“Taio, how did you know I could read the words on the parchment?Canyouread the royal language?”
“No, and neither can Leed.But he’d been told the scroll contained the directions for making the cure and copied a few words from it.What you read made sense if Leed was correct about the scroll’s contents.”
I blew out a breath.The fate of the world really did rest on my shoulders.I wouldn’t have sweet dreams as long as I felt that weight.“How long have I slept?”
“A few hours.”
