“Don’t look at me like that, Lory.”
“Like what?”
He raised a brow. “Like you pity me. I’ve made my peace with the role I’ve got to play as long as Elina remains safe, which she will, as long as I execute whatever missions I’m given, no matter how bloodthirsty. It’s all right that I’ve become a monster because it means she’ll live.”
There—there it was. The truth of his resignation and the dead end his life had become.
“You’re not a monster.” All those times he’d led people to their execution, all those times he’d acted like he was made of stone, all those times he’d let her think he believed in making her life a taste of the torment behind Eroth’s Veil—not real. None of it was real. Except for the one thing Anees had told her all those weeks ago: Khayrivven was ruthless when it came to protecting the things he believed in—but what she should have said wasthe people he loved.
When Lory lifted her hand back to his cheek, grazing it with her thumb, his gaze found her, his pupils two black pits captured in flaring fire, all she could see was that look, those thick lashes fluttering like the silken wings of butterflies.
When he opened his mouth, it wasn’t to speak but to mold his lips over hers in a kiss that could have ended theworld. A streak of fire ran up Lory’s spine, igniting that volatile magic in a raging inferno, but she focused on the sensation of Khayrivven’s arm sliding around her waist, pulling her against his chest, and the flames remained beneath her skin, a wild, hungry force ready to break free, but she wouldn’t let that happen—not when he was kissing her like that, hands roaming her back, tracing lines of heat along her shoulders, where the fabric of her dress was barely covering the torch-shaped brand. Lory didn’t let her pounding heart interfere. For once, she was in control of her magic, even when he was devouring her like she was the rain over the desert. She was burning on the inside, her molten core a furnace, ready to take his steel.
His breath was ragged, a caress on her neck, lower, on the seam of her breast as he kissed a blazing trail along the neckline of her dress.
Lory’s low moans drifted into Khayrivven’s hair, where she buried her face as he licked over the edge of golden lace. His chuckle tickled the sensitive flesh, and she bit her lower lip, holding back a groan as his hand skated the side of her breast.
“I can’t stop thinking about you, Lory,” he murmured between kisses. “From the first moment I laid eyes on you at that trial, I knew you would be the end of all my self-restraint.”
Lory arched into his touch, sliding her leg over his, straddling him, and the dress flapped open so her lace-covered center rubbed over the hard front of his pants as she rolled her hips.
“You need to stop this, Lory, or I will no longer be able to do the right thing.” The torment in his voice barely made Lory slow as she moved over him, pressing the tips of her breasts against his chest.
“And what is the right thing?” Guardians, she couldn’t care less what was right or wrong, as long as he didn’t stop the kisses along her neck and his hands wouldn’t move from her swollen, aching breasts. In that corridor, when she was blindfolded, she’d felt a hint of what Khayrivven could be like if she broke the leash he’d put on himself, if he lost control the way she feltshewas losing control.
“When I’m with you, I’m close to forgetting what right and wrong even means, Gutter Gem.”
A groan ran through him as he pulled back an inch, his hips moving against hers in a teasing roll, eliciting a gasp of pleasure from Lory, and he guided one hand to his face, fingertips touching his mouth. His lids lowered as he inhaled a deep breath, and the throaty sound he made as he let go of that breath once more spoke of primal desire. His glazed gaze as he opened his eyes again made her want to strip bare, just to keep that look on his face forever.
“I can still feel your wetness on my fingers, Lory,” he growled, a predatory tone entering his voice, turning the velvet into the rumble in the air before thunder strikes, and Lory’s toes curled, heat boiling hotter in her core as she tried to figure out whether to be turned on or embarrassed.
The way Khayrivven’s eyes wandered down her front, drinking in the view all the way to the place her dress cleaved open, exposing shimmering gold, like he could scent her.
“I can almost taste you on my tongue.” He lowered his hand to her thigh, lightly brushing against her skin before digging his fingers into her flesh.
Lory’s back arched as she stroked over his trapped cock, the lace forming the sort of friction that made her want to scream.
“If you want to stop this, now is your chance.” The edge in his tone was still there, a predator lying in wait as he grasped onto what was left of his control, but Lory wanted to see it snap. She wanted—needed—to see that final kernel of the mask he wore to appease the Triad, his role as a hand and captain, slip. She needed the real him, and she needed. Him.Now.
Without thinking, Lory reached for the brooch at the front of her dress, tugging it open.
The fabric spilled from its grasp like from an opening fist, falling away from her chest and hips like an opening robe until the collar at her neck and the two straps running to the sides of her breasts were the only things holding it in place. The lace barely covering her breasts and the woven gold over her slick center shimmered in the half-light.
“I want you, Khayrivven.”
When she said it this time, darkness didn’t pull at her vision; neither did she dive into a dream where she could break free from the constraints of reality. Khayrivven took one shuddering breath, and instead of laughing the way she’d imagined he’d do if he ever saw those flimsy underthings earlier, his grip tightened on her thigh. With one quick motion, he flipped her to her back, one hand unfastening theband of golden lace covering her breasts, fingers grazing the skin on her arching back, while he braced his weight on the other arm. With one knee, he nudged her legs apart while his mouth explored her exposed breasts, licking and sucking on her peaked nipples until Lory believed she’d climax from a touch alone.
“Tell me to stop,” he sighed against her skin, but his hand was between her thighs, stroking the sensitive bundle of nerves at their apex.
“Don’t stop.” Lory’s hips undulated, following his hand, aching for just. A little. More.
When Khayrivven lifted his head, pausing for a heartbeat as he searched her face for any signs she wasn’t serious, and found none, a wicked expression entered his features.
Lory barely got a moment to wonder if she’d been right to wish to unleash the predator before Khayrivven slid lower, his head disappearing between her legs, and chuckled against her slick flesh.
“I hope you aren’t particularly attached to these.”
Lory was about to ask what he meant when he ripped the lacy underpants off her, dropping them behind him on the floor.
