She furiously sucked my clit, slipping two fingers inside of me. She matched the sucking with her pulsing fingers, and her other hand, which tightly grasped my thigh, edged up my tunic. She found my nipple and began pinching and squeezing.
The force of the pleasure was so intense that even the thundering beast in my core paused for a moment. Time suspended. I closed my eyes, listening to her suck, grunt, and press into me over and over again, drawing out every second I could with her ravishing me.
And then I broke.
I shoved my hand over my mouth, stifling the moans erupting out of me. No matter how far Ludwig had fled into the darkness, he must have heard the moans. The kernel burned brightly in my heart again—this time, a soothing, warm feeling instead of the hollow burn.
She kept pressing into me, riding out my orgasm until the end, and the spark turned into an ember, my chest catching fire. When everything settled and my body stilled, she finally came up for air, and I was glad for this evening to end with a different kind of flame.
I kept my eyes closed. I was undone, emptied, and full all at once. She ripped off another piece of her tunic and cleaned the mess she’d made of me. Then she shimmied my undergarments back into place, put my trousers back on, and tenderly set both of my boots neatly by the wagon doors. I didn’t move a muscle.
Only when I felt her settle in beside me did I dare open my eyes.
I looked up at the ceiling, and she looked at me. I couldn’t meet her eyes just yet.
“Give me two minutes, and it’ll be your turn.” My voice sounded like gravel after holding in so many moans.
“No, no,” she said, still looking at me. “Tonight was just for you.” Her husky voice sent tingles down my body.
Tonight.What about tomorrow? Would there be a tomorrow with Hesper like this? Did I even want that?
“Unfair,” I replied. And it was. I wanted to taste her on my tongue, I wanted to undo this warrior lying next to me until she was nothing but a puddle at my feet. Only then could she taste me again. And I wanted to do it here and now, in the in-between of the past and what was to come.
Nothing counted in this wagon. It would once we left it, though.
“Clara, dear,” she whispered into my ear. “I’ll wake every monster on the Irk if I come on your mouth.”
I nervously laughed, trying to ignore how her words caused my recently doused wildfires to flame back up again. No distraction could convince my body to ignore Hesper, though. I feared it never would.
“Look at me,” she said into the dark. I obeyed again, this time out of curiosity more than anything else.
She gazed at me intently, the former hunger giving way to that same look again—astonishment and something else. Thatsomething else, though, was dangerous. I skirted a boundary I should not—would not—cross, not with her, not with anyone.
My heart collapsed in on itself, the hollow place trying to breathe but there was no air. The spark was gone, the kernel of happiness blotted out. This wouldn’t do.
“We’d better rest,” I said too quickly. Her eyebrows shot up only for a moment, and then resignation filled her eyes. I had doused her fire. Or whatever she felt.
“Yes, indeed,” she said, her voice still ragged but with a more practiced lightness. She seamlessly slipped out of whatever we had just done, into what we had been. She put her arms behind her head and her tattoo flashed in the air. Her bargain.
All the more reason to let this night only be this night.
Besides, I’d told her my fear of losing her just moments ago, and all she had to say wasClara.
That was that. We had no choice.
“So then…” There were things I knew I wanted to tell Hesper Altanfall. But why say them when it would make the inevitable goodbye that much harder? The words escaped me, hunkering down deep in my soul where the rest of myunvoiced secrets were. “So let’s just leave it at this then,” I said, unsure.
“Yes, indeed,” she repeated again. The stoic fae warrior once more. No hint of anything else in her voice.
She turned her back to me, and I did the same.
Hesper was with me on Eldrene’s orders. We got caught up in almost dying. That’s all tonight meant. Of course, we would end up making this mistake being in such close proximity. But now, it was out of our system. She didn’t care about me as much as I didn’t care about her—we were travel companions. I couldn’t let myself forget that. If I did, I’d risk losing everything.
And I couldn’t live through that, not again.
Tomorrow, we would reach Dwindle. With the seeds now gone, my hope rested on basically nothing.
Just try, Clara.
