Kye brushed away the remaining strands near my jaw, then smoothed his thumb over my lower lip. “I’ve had months to think about what I’d be willing to settle for. What you might let me take, and what you’d keep to yourself. And I don’t think I could be happy with justsome.”
I opened my mouth, and he lifted my chin, closing it before I could speak.
“I know you have secrets. We both know. And mine—mine are all on the table. They’re yours. Every one of them. I give them to you; do with them what you please.” He licked his lips, teeth following his tongue, the newly sprouted stubble under his mouth scratching softly. “But if I give myself to you, I want yours. I want every secret you hoard away. I want you to trust me to guard them for you as closely as you do yourself. I want to know you inside and out. I want every inch of depth in your body and in that beautiful mind. I want to lay you out and worship every fucking morsel of you. And I’m willing to wait as long as it takes.”
I heaved a single, shallow breath. “You might not like what you find.”
A contract, written in blood. A vow to kill his brother. A promise I’d fight in a war he didn’t know existed.
He continued the slow swipe of his thumb across my lip, back and forth. “I’ve made my peace with that.”
“It might take a while.”
“That’s fine.”
“Years.”
The thumb faltered, but then he stretched his spine to meet me, stroking my mouth with his own. “I’d rather suffer the weight of patience than regret.” I bit my lip, nodding slowly, and began to lift off him. He grasped my thighs in an instant, anchoring me down. “Where are you going?”
I blinked into the shadow of his face. “You said—”
“I said if I give myself to you,” he breathed, voice suddenly tight. “I didn’t mention the things I’d gladly take.”
40
Maren
Kye stood, lifting me with him, then turned and deposited me on the bed as easily as a cushion he might have tossed away, though his body quickly trailed mine. His hands snatched the edge of my shirt—his shirt—out from under me, and with a powerful rip it was suddenly off. The tear charged the air between us as I sat there, suddenly bare in front of him.
He pressed a hand into my chest, pushing me down, and then followed, unwilling to allow distance between us. The numb ache of my healed back and the stab wound in my side became lost in the backwaters of my mind, forgotten under a raging current of want and need. I reached for his neck, sending the edges of my blanket to drop from my shoulders, but he pulled my hands over my head, pinning them to the bed as he captured my mouth with his. His heart beat against mine, so close his pulse throbbed somewhere inside me, setting glittering fire to my veins, sizzling across my skin.
Soft and dewy, Kye’s mouth floated to the curve of my jaw. A trail of kisses scorched my flesh, down the column of my throat where he licked and nibbled, inhaling the scent of me. I vibratedagainst him, igniting like wildfire, and he groaned into my collar bone, hips grinding mine hard enough to send wisps of sharp pleasure into my side.
I quivered under every wave of it. Then gasped when he found my breasts, his kiss alternating between soft and hard. He drew his mouth over one, the thrash and grip of his tongue alone enough to leave me drowning under a sea of decadent agony.
“Leihani,” Kye murmured, the rumble of his voice like a torch on my skin. He kissed all his way down my side—but stopped as he reached the flare of my hip. Warm hands wrapped firmly around my pelvis, lifting me into the air, yanking me suddenly further up the bed and placing my entrance directly under his chin. He laughed darkly, fingers drifting across me, leaving my head dizzy with only his touch.
“I don’t think you understand,” he said, guiding my legs slowly apart, “how I’ve dreamed of the feeling of you.” I panted, impatient at the brush of his warm breath against my thighs. He drew the backs of his knuckles up the inside of my leg, thumb poised at the top. “And that noise you make when you let yourself go.” His thumb tracked a cruelly idle curve around my center, and a whimper forced itself from my lungs.
He smiled, wrapping my right leg around his shoulder and anchoring the left flat with his hand. “That’s the one.”
And then he spread me wide, his tongue lashing into me before I could process his words. And every inch of me caught fire.
He lit me into flames, bright and feral, and watched me burn. And burn I did. In embers of wicked pleasure, I lay on a bed of coals as his ragged heat devoured me. And I reached for it, craving the cinders of him, the way he angled this way and that, his stubble rough but his tongue soft, his mouth viciously warm. He pulled back to let his hands take over, the edge of his teeth dragging so softly against my leg I nearly burst with urgency—until he slipped a finger inside my flesh, then two, working me into near madness.
I twisted my hands in the sheets, my head rocking backward from my neck, and wasn’t sure if my eyes were even open. He licked back down my thigh, swirling tongue and gentle nips, and my toes curled in wild ecstasy at the attack.
I had only enough time to moan as I suddenly fractured, legs weak and shuddering against his neck. The sound drove him further, massaging me inside and out, every crash of the tide inside my body breaking over and over as he devoured my climax and greedily demanded more.
“Kye,” I rasped, my voice ragged.
He only laughed, then drew away just enough to speak. “Maren.” The sound of his voice wrapped around my name cleaved into me, so beautiful and dark against my skin it sank beyond bone and marrow. To the heart of me, to my soul and whatever lies beyond. He dipped down again, tongue driving into me, sinful and ruining and exquisite with every stroke.
“Kye,” I said again, this time a weak cry.
He spread me softly with both hands, leaning in and pressing a kiss into the very crux of me. “Keep that up and I’ll never stop.”
“Come here,” I snarled, grappling for a hold of him between my fingers. Melted onto the bed, I could only reach the soft tips of his curls, but he laughed quietly again, rising on his palms to crawl over the top of me. He stopped when his forearms rooted on either side of my head, then lowered himself over me, snuffing the remainder of my fire.
