Answering that most primal call.
I moved on. Up. Crawling over and above him, shoulders and hips rolling without the need for stealth. Not stopping until I hovered above his bellybutton with knees on either side of his lower ribs, I buried those golden circlets beneath the pillows, then settled back. One hand hidden beneath his armpit, the other braced on his chest. Feeling his ribs expand between my thighs. Skin hot and prickling against flesh that was swollen and still slick. His heart beat between my knees… Blood oozing from my bite high between shoulder and neck.
Connected to his slumbering ki, I moved as if my actions were not my own. Widened the hinge on the slave collar and fit it around the slimmest part of his left bicep. Leery of pinching his skin, but certain it wouldn’t be enough to wake him, I secured the circlet filled with my blood.
I kissed him then, pressing my lips to his until he came alive. Until he groaned and shifted beneath me. When his left hand found my knee, I caught his fingers with those that had long been branded with his mark. It was nothing to flick the first bracelet forward. Nothing to set it above the matte-black mark of the Empire, and cover the softclickof it snapping shut with a breathy groan of my own.
“Come ‘ere,” he murmured, smile soft and pliant. Sleepy.
I shook my head, letting my hair fall forward in a silvery halo around our faces. Obscuring his view.
“Insatiable little witch,” he breathed, and uncovered his eyes—though he couldn’t seem to find the strength to actually open them. His forearm bumped my chin… scraping over the points of my nipples before he brushed my hair back. Cupped my cheek.
Lacing our fingers together against my skin, I deepened the kiss. Tongue slipping between his lips. Tasting.
He flexed, coming awake. Pressing stiffening length up, sending it between my cheeks to play in the creamy mess we’d made. “Tell me what you want,” he rasped, left hand skating over my hip and down my back. Glittering out of sight. Coming to rest on the curve of my ass, while his fingers dove further still. Spreading me.
Again, I shook my head. But this time, the denial was mixed with something akin to fear. Vulnerability.
“’Sokay.” He tilted my hips back and set himself between my lips. Pressing forward until the hypersensitive head slipped in, and though he wasn’t fully hard, he rocked into my heat. “I’m too tired right now anyway. ‘M afraid you wore me out, Miss Tannovic.”
Well,thatjust wouldn’t do. What was victory, even one so pale as this, without a witness?
Hungry, I shifted back, gathered the dark bedsheets around my hips—to hide the illicit flash of gold where it shouldn’t be—and took him in. Not stopping until he reached as deep as he could.
His eyes popped open, wide and shocked in the gloomy half-lit bedroom.
Holding the dark glitter of his gaze, I kissed the palm of his as-of-yet unadorned hand, then shifted his grip to my breast. Telling him what I wanted the only way I could.
“Come here,” he hissed, but pinched my nipple. Massaging and kneading. “Lie with me. Lemme fall asleep inside you.”
I clenched around his girth. Denying him respite. Giving him one last moment of…thisbefore I crushed it forever.
Nostrils flared, he grunted, straining deeper. Hardening within me against his will. Fingers tight on my hip, he spread his legs—just a little—making space for his sack to fall between his thighs and securing leverage in the twisted sheets. “God.” He shuddered, guiding my hips. Rocking into me. “I want you.Again.”
I knew the feeling. Felt my pussy gush with renewed enthusiasm, thrilled by the notion that the most powerful ki-wielder alive was pliant between my thighs. That he trembled somewhere deep inside, already trying not to spill as I rode him. Unaware of what fate had chosen for him.
For…us.
Drunk, I fell forward, working his length at this new angle. Grinding my clit against his pubic bone, even as my fingers inched toward his undecorated wrist. Pushing that right hand above his head. Pinning it to the pillows, out of sight.
And when his head fell back, eyes squeezed shut with pained ecstasy, I struck. Licked the rough, salty skin below his jaw, and put the last of his golden bracelets in place, one-handed. Deftly nimble in spite of the tension rising in my core, or because of it—I couldn’t begin to say.
“Fuck,” he gasped, brow furrowed. Fingers clenching beneath dark sheets, hips flexing and bunching. Helpless to refuse.
Again, I sat back. Released his trapped wrist and cupped my swollen, reddened breasts, distracting that inky gaze with pinched, rosy nipples.
Something about having him like this—submissive as I rode him against his will—struck a chord. Set those dark wings to beat at their cage of bone and Glaith as I rushed to claim what wasmine.
Fingers curved into claws, I denied myselfnothing.Surrendered to this madness one last time and followed purest instinct, and in doing so, won skill far beyond my limited experience.
“God,yes.Fuck me, Mila,” he rasped, sweat beaded on his brow, eyes chips of obsidian glass. Wrapping his hands around my waist, he meant only to feel me as I did just that, as I milked him for all I was worth and dragged the spend straight from his balls—but a golden flash caught his bewildered gaze. Made him blink. Confused. “What—”
But it was reallymuchtoo late.
Grinning my toothiest grin, I wrapped branded fingers around his throat and claimed the master cuff with the other. Pulled it from beneath the pillow and sent that tiny glass vial to drink from the wound on his shoulder.
“Hear this, Captain Asher Rawlings of His Majesty’s Imperial Army,” I said, and squeezed his airway all the tighter, feeling his control begin to splinter when my blunted claws scored that delicate skin. “I decline your offer of suffering and servitude.”
