“Lenya just left for the palace to report the tally of thornlings entering advanced training. Brunn and Ycken are stillworking out the logistics for the next few months, and the hands are celebrating in the staff area.”
Lory swallowed when Khayrivven didn’t stop at the harness and belt. He was unbuckling the leather pieces of his uniform now, shucking them, while he stepped onto the heel of one boot with the toes of the other, wiggling his foot out of it, then repeating the same motion for the other boot.
“You brought wine?” With his chin, he pointed at the bottle in her hand.
Lory swallowed hard as he started unbuttoning his shirt. “Thal and Tabi passed out on my bed after finishing two of these on their own. I consider it a favor to have removed it from their reach. Plus, they are both sleeping on my bed, so I’ll need a place to stay tonight.”
That painted a grin on Khayrivven’s lips, and Lory’s heart did a flutter as he tugged the half-open shirt over his head and dropped it onto the floor.
“If I hadn’t invited you in, would you have knocked on someone else’s door instead and asked whoever had opened it to sleep in their bed tonight?”
Lory bit her bottom lip, hiding a grin of her own. “Depends on whether they’d have promised to fuck me until I screamed.”
Khayrivven’s grin turned wicked. Like a predator, he prowled closer, reaching for the bottle in her hand. A curtain of black waves tumbled onto his forehead as he bent to the side to set down the bottle on the dresser next to the bookshelf.
“Did you know that the doors to the hands’ rooms are keyed to their occupants alone? No one else can open a hand’s room.”
“Does that mean we’re safe in here?”
Khayrivven grumbled a noncommittal sound. “Depends on what you consider safe. No one can disturb us while I lay you down on my bed and do all those things to you that I’ve been fantasizing about since you came around my fingers.” He lifted his hand in front of his face, eyes shuttering as he breathed in through his nose, and a lust-addled expression took over his beautiful features. “I can still smell you. After over two weeks, your scent hasn’t left my skin.” His voice dropped to a guttural register, making Lory’s toes curl. “I need to taste you, Lory.”
Lory barely dared look away from those hypnotizing eyes, but the expanse of hard muscle cording his chest and abdomen was almost as distracting as the way his tongue flicked over his bottom lip.
As Khayrivven got down on his knees in front of her, Lory remembered vaguely that she should have been asking him about the mind reading or about the rebels, about Lenya’s plans, or what happened to Andromeda, if she survived and got out. About her father, or about whether the Triad intended to punish her for interfering during the ashling trial, but her mind stopped working the moment Khayrivven’s hands gripped her waist, pulling her shirt from her pants, and his mouth skimmed her stomach, just above the waistband of her pants.
Lory’s breath caught as he unbuttoned them, slowly sliding them down over her hips, and his mouth drifted lower, lower, until his breath brushed the sensitive spot at the apex of her thighs. Carefully, he reached for her ankle, lifting herfoot and tugging off her boot, then repeated the procedure on the other side. When he was done, he pulled her pants lower, freeing both legs and tossing them in a heap atop her boots.
His gaze didn’t stray from her core as he carefully set her foot down wide enough from the other that he could kneel between her toes, and pure, unadulterated fire flared in his eyes as he inhaled deeply through his nose. He didn’t warn her before putting his mouth on her, licking straight through her core and gently sucking at the sensitive bundle of nerves.
A moan slipped from Lory’s mouth almost instantly, and Khayrivven’s chuckle reverberated through her entire body, awakening her like a touch of its own.
So fucking good with his tongue—the man really knew what he was doing.
“I will count to five, Lory,” he said, licking over her after every single syllable. “And then I’ll let you come.” The gust of breath from every word made Lory ache for more, more, more. Always more. There was no end to wanting this man. It was pathetic, insane, dangerous, but also exhilarating. “One.” Nothing in the world felt like being touched by Khayrivven Falcrest. “Two.” Nothing made reality splinter the way he did with one simple touch. “Three.”
Nothing was like the warmth spreading in Lory’s chest when the man who had lived in a cage for all his life unleashed himself on her. For her. Only for her, he let go of all masks. Only for her, he became vulnerable. Only for her?—
“Khayrivven—” his name came out in a moan as she tilted back his head to slide his tongue into her, and Guardians, was she close to screaming it.
“Not yet, Little Flame,” he warned with a chuckle, but his tongue went back to working her into ecstasy.
“Four.”
Her legs were trembling and her breath hitching, her hands digging into the silken black of his waves, when he pulled out his tongue to let it swirl in circles around her clit.
“Five.”
Lory climaxed hard, back arching and nearly toppling over as the room faded from her vision and her mind filled with colors—green and yellow and pink, a blur of shapes oddly familiar, yet she didn’t recognize them.
When she returned to the present, Khayrivven was holding her up by the hips, her legs useless, and his grin spoke of purely male satisfaction.
In one quick motion, he was on his feet, sweeping her into his arms and carrying her through the gap in the wall to the bedroom Lory hadn’t fully seen before.
A plain single bed sat against a wall with a slanted ceiling, a tiny window above it revealing the moon. No other lights had followed them in here.
As he laid her down on the black sheets, Lory reached for the waistband of his pants, but Khayrivven was quicker, pinning her hands down on either side of her head, his grin widening. “So greedy.” His soft chuckle skittered along Lory’s skin as he bent over her to kiss her neck while he reached for her shirt, and in a blink, it was gone—ripped straight off her body. Khayrivven straightened, a frown entering his expression as his gaze snagged on the elastic band around her chest. For a moment, he eyed it like it offended him, thenhe hooked his index finger under it. A sizzle seared along the fabric, and it disintegrated into ash right there, on her skin.
Lory was about to protest, but the fire hadn’t touched her.
