Her taste was still on my tongue, my mouth watering for more as the remnants of our magic drifted in the air between us like a thick fog, heady and dizzying.
She’d nearly bonded our magic.
I’d felt her…sinking into me.
For a moment, I’d been tempted. It had felt too good. The reckless part of me wanted to see what would become of a bond like that. The selfish part of me knew that if I allowed it, she’d never go back to Dakkar again.
I wouldn’t allow it. Some semblance of reason had cut through the cloying haze of lust and power. But now…I knew what could be. And I craved it.
“It wasn’t meant to happen like this,” I found myself saying.My voice was thick, husky from my groans, from the soul-wrenching bellow I’d unleashed when I’d spent myself between her thighs.
“But you believed it would happen?” Amaia’s voice was husky too. Soft. Though, fortunately, not laced in the desperate anger I’d meant to guide her away from.
I ran a hand down my jawline. I had been exhausted before I’d stepped foot in my dwelling. A representative from Elysom—Gevanth—had flown through the night, had landed in Grymia shortly after the gathering had finally dispersed. The arguments with Gevanth and my own riding council had been…extensive.
“After Ny’am…” I said, “I thought it likely.”
I’d wanted her then. Fiercely. And I knew myself well enough to know that when I coveted something, I usually did everything in my power to get it.
That ambition served me well as aKarath. In other ways…it made me high-handed and arrogant.
She was still naked, sprawled out on the table, but she’d come up onto her elbows, her lush breasts tipped up toward me. My cock stirred, her eyes flickering down to it.
“We should clean up,” I said, tipping my chin toward the washroom at the back of the dwelling, hidden from view by the curtain. “And we need to talk.”
Perhaps my intent of fucking the anger out of her had worked because she wordlessly rose from the table, her legs a little shaky. I steadied her, my palm grazing her hip, and led her to the washroom.
The tension was palpable as I filled the sunken bathing tub, larger than my bed, with a set of stairs leading down into it. Amaia watched the water rise wordlessly, the steam beginning to brush against her flesh, as I—finally—undressed.
I couldn’t help but notice that my come was dripping down the inside of her thigh. How much restraint it had taken not to spend my seed deep inside her…
“Ignore it,” I commanded when Amaia’s gaze cut to my hardening cock.
“That would be hard to do,” came her flippant reply with a raised brow.
I huffed out a sharp breath. “Get in—the water’s high enough.”
“Can you speak without it sounding like an order?” she shot back, but unlike earlier, there was no bite in her tone.
Fair enough.I unclenched my jaw. “Will you please get in the water? It’s high enough.”
Amaia shook her head, but when she stepped down into the bath, I watched her breasts bounce, making me blow out a sharp breath. I wanted her again. But this time, I wanted to take my time. I wanted tosavor. I wanted to torment her a little more, to see what fire I could unleash.
The small pendant that hung around her neck gleamed as she settled down onto the ledge opposite where I stood. She looked up at me. Her hair was a wild tangle, her lips red from my punishing kiss, her nipples puckered from my sucking.
I was fully hard again, the need I thought might’ve been satisfied roaring back in merciless force.
“You desire me,” she said softly, her eyes rapt on my cock.
I cut her a withering look as I followed after her. “What was your first clue?”
I surprised her by coming close, by pressing her back into the edge of the pool, standing between her thighs where she sat on the sunken ledge. My arms caged her in, one hand landing on the stone behind her and the other drifting beneath the water.
She went a little breathless when she asked, “Is it me or my magic you desire?”
My fingers grazed over her pelvis, sinking down, making her breath hitch when I caressed her sensitive flesh.
“I can’t exactly fuck your magic, now can I?” I rasped. “But Imight do a lot of uncharacteristic things for another taste of this…”
