“I know,” I replied. I thought of my own family, of why I was here. “I would do a lot to save the people I love too. And I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to be aKarath. The sacrifices needed. The decisions you have to make. I don’t know what war is like. I’ve never seen one. And so I have no idea what needed to be done.”
Alaryk’s gaze flickered.
“But it does scare me,” I whispered. “Because I know the lengths to which you’ll go to get what you want. And I can’t help but wonder…how far you’ll go with me.”
Alaryk’s expression didn’t change. His gaze only flicked down to my lips. “You think I’ll hurt you?”
“I don’t think you’ll hurt me like Kamora hurt you,” I said. “But…maybe you’ll use me. Like you did her.”
“You’re nothing like her,” came the sternness of his voice. “I used her for a purpose, yes, but also because Iwantedto hurt her. I wanted my own revenge because I can be a callous bastard. And I got it. She betrayed me long before I ever betrayed her. That’s what cut the deepest.”
But how would he feel if he knew about why I was here? I couldn’t help but fear. Would he considerthata betrayal too?
A surge of panic rose in my breast. I thought he might’ve seen it flash across my face because I caught his brief frown.
But I didn’t want him asking me questions I couldn’t answer. And so I tilted my face up, pulling down on his neck, to capture his lips in a swift kiss, stealing them before they could form words.
His surprised huff drifted across my tongue, but then his was stroking mine, taking advantage, the other arm beneath my head pulling me closer.
“Sex will always be complicated with me, Amaia,” came the sudden words against my lips. Soft and hushed, like a prayer.
Pulling back to look into his eyes, I said, “It doesn’t have to be with me. I want only pleasure. I only want to make you feel good too.”
His eyes closed at that, his brows pulling toward one another.
Hesitantly, I leaned forward and brushed my lips across the cut, sharp lines of his cheekbones. The scar on his jaw that wound its way down his neck looked silver in this light, and I kissed it too.
“Where did you get this?” I whispered against his skin, my hands moving between us.
“Her,” he grunted.
My nostrils flared, anger rising in my breast that she would mark him like this. I kissed the line of it gently, making his breath hitch.
“I worry I’ll lose myself with you,” came his gruff tone. “That I’ll hurt you. Get too rough. I don’t want that. You only need softness, gentleness. I can’t be that for you all the time.”
“I can handle myself,” I told him, thinking I’d liked it when he had been rougher with me last night. “Don’t worry.”
I wanted to lose myself in him again. I wanted to banish the rising panic in me. The warm little ball that was building inside me, that told me I was coming to care about aKarathtoo much, that I was worried how he’d look at me if he ever discovered my betrayal.
I shifted over him, suddenly hungry.
“We shouldn’t,” he grated, his eyes flying open to stare up at me, though his hands settled around my hips, gripping me there like an unyielding lock. “You’re recovering?—”
“I’m recovered, thanks to you,” I said, cutting him off, my hands slipping beneath the fur covering his bed. “And I want you entirely too much,” I confessed.
“Don’t sound so perturbed when you say that,” hemurmured, his hands sliding to my backside,squeezing. His hands were so big they covered my ass entirely, and I wanted them all over me.
“Be quiet,” I ordered, trying to stifle my laugh behind the rebuke, and then I cut off whatever he was about to say next with a hard kiss.
Chapter 27
ALARYK
“You like to be touched,” came the words, guttural from my throat, sucking in a breath as one of Amaia’s hands trailed down my abdomen, tracing the rivers and valleys of the muscles there. Like a road, she followed the path they made until her small finger brushed the head of my cock.
My breath hitched.
“You like to be admired,” I continued, trying not to choke on my groan.
