He proves his point by setting a relentless pace. I’ve never come twice with a man before. Half the time, I didn’t even come once. My expectations were so low. Tovian knows what he’s doing, and he’s giving this his best effort. It’s tender and sweet and filthy as fuck. He kisses me. I have to crane my neck for it, but it’s so worth it.
Then I’m holding on for dear life while he sets a pace that steals my breath. A sheen of sweat breaks out on my skin. Yes. This is what I’ve needed. What I’ve yearned for the past three months. What I’ve wanted since long before.
I come a third time, right before he locks me in place and takes what he wants from me. It’s not gentle. It’s not sweet. Tovian’s rough and needy, unsparing. He knows I can take it, and I do, coming hard on his cock.
“Good, Sunshine,” he grits out when I climax around him. I had no idea I had such a praise kink. From the first moment we met, he’s made me feel good.
About myself.
Slowly, we relax into a puddle of cramped postcoital bliss.
That’s when the rain starts falling.
“This is charming.” Tovian peers up at the canvas. “Atmospheric.”
I wheeze-giggle.
“What?” Tovian asks with mock offence.
“Since when did you become a Scot?”
“A what?”
“A person from Scotland.”
“What’s a Scotland?”
I laugh. I can’t stop laughing. We’re squished together on a cot with a tattered blanket in the middle of a burned village, on a war-torn island, under a leaky canvas roof with a fire that’s bound to go out and our leadership missing, yet I’ve never been happier.
Tovian kisses my cheek. “I’m counting on you to show me the world, Sunshine.”
I work my way around until I’m facing him on the narrow bed.
“I can’t wait to show you everything, Tovi.”
He squeezes my waist and sighs contentedly.
Chapter 15
“What do you see?”
I lower the binoculars and pass them over without saying a word. Tovian lifts them to his eyes and fiddles with the knob between the lenses. He whistles.
“That’s a lot of Sentinels.”
“Thirty-six of them, according to Saskaya.”
“And they can all do that—” He mimes an explosion. I nod. During the weeks it took us to get here, skirting carefully around occupied villages, I told him about the night of the invasion the origin of those machines. Instead of attacking our enemies, they attacked us.
I can’t imagine so much destructionwas what he said when I asked him about it.
“Are these the same machines used in the war five hundred years ago?” he says now.
“I think so. Sas found them in a secret bunker in the Sun Temple. Spent most of her life trying to reassemble them.”
Tovian again looks over the wall. “The Ansi have stories about being hunted by walking machines. Legends. Stories we tell children around the fire before bed.” Pensively, he says, “If they’re true, Brenica will have every reason to keep the Ansi hidden.”
He hasn’t spoken much about his mother since his arrival. Part of me can’t believe he’s risking the wrath of his tribe to be here with me. I’m still grateful to have him at my side. I squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry.”
