“Is there anything we can do to mitigate it?” I ask.
“I’ve been thinking through our options since we left the Den yesterday.” Tarek sighs, clearly frustrated by the conclusion he’s come to. “Other than abandoning whatever information Hatus Orill might have for us, there’s nothing we can do but meet what’s coming our way head-on and hope our skill outmatches what we’ll be up against.”
I snort at the uncharacteristic humility in that statement.
“You’re the Order of Scorpions. Who stands a chance against that?” I tease, and his answering laugh vibrates through me in a delicious way I’ve been told not to think about until later.
“Weare the Order of Scorpions,” he corrects, wrapping his palm around my throat.
He tilts my head to the side and nibbles where my neck meets my shoulder. “And no one stands a chance against us.”
“Then what has you worried?” I press, a shiver chasing the goose bumps that scatter across my skin as he sucks and nips up my neck.
“I’m always worried,” he admits, his lips skimming the shell of my ear. “We just found you,” he continues, and a trill of surprise rings through me.
“You’re worried about me?”
“Not about you,foryou, love. I know you’re a force to be reckoned with; it’s not an issue of questioning what you can do. It’s that I have everything I’ve ever wanted in the palms of my hands, right now,” he tells me, squeezing me possessively before forcing himself to loosen his hold. “I’m waiting for something to come and strip it all away.”
I turn to look at him, the ache in his words calling to me as I stare into his pale blue eyes. I brush a wet wave from his face and trace his jaw with my fingers as I try to work through what to say.
“If I die today, it will be the freest and happiest I’ve ever been in my life. What you and your brothers have given me is so much more than I ever dared to dream. I will take my last breath with no regrets in my heart, needing nothing more than what the three of you have already given me.”
His soft snowflake-blue gaze takes me in, and he reaches up to cup my cheek as my confession bobs in the water between us.
“We would follow you. There’d be no choice in it. Where you go, we go,” he whispers, as though he’s trying to hide his words from fate.
The promise that rides his breath tickles my face and sinks deep into my soul.
“Then follow me,” I whisper back. “What do we have to fear from death? We are its faithful servants, it can give usthis.”
I circle the tip of my nose around the tip of his as I press my hand to his heart.
“Worry about having plenty of weapons. Worry that they’re sharp enough. Worry about your bowels turning to liquid from nerves and fear.”
Tarek’s eyebrows lift with shock at the last part.
“Telson of the Order of Scorpions has shit herself because of nerves?” he teases with a hardy laugh.
I scoff and roll my eyes at him. “Never,” I indignantly exclaim, slapping at his wide muscular chest for even thinking such a thing. “A boy during my early years in the pits had an issue with it. It seemed like something worth worrying about until I knew I was made harder than he was.”
“Mm-hmmmm,” Tarek rumbles. “It seems we’re both hard,” he confesses, rolling his hips and drawing my attention to his stiff cock.
I laugh but spin until I’m straddling him in the large tub. I press up on my knees, making me taller than him as he leans back against the tub. I stare down at him, my thumb pulling down his bottom lip as I cradle his face and marvel at his incredible beauty. Each of the Scorpions is sculpted perfection from the tips of their toes to the tops of their heads. It makes my heart race and my breaths shallow when I get to stare at their utter perfection like I’m doing with Tarek right now.
“Time isn’t often fair,” I tell him as I sink down on his thick length.
He inhales sharply, his strong hands moving to grip my ass as he tilts his hips up to fill me completely.
“Life promises us nothing,” I continue, lifting up and then dropping back down on him.
Fuck, he feels good.
“Don’t letmightandcouldrob you of whatisright now.”
I start to fuck him faster, my last words hanging in the air between us, as the rib-high water starts to slosh over the sides of the tub from my movements. Tarek palms my breasts as I ride him. He leans in to suck one taught peak into his mouth, flicking his tongue over the sensitive bud until he has me whimpering, and then he moves to do the same to the other.
“I will fight with everything I have to stay right here,” I tell him, punctuating the last two words by dropping down harder and harder onto him. “I know you and your brothers will do the same, and that’s all any of us—”
