“Good,” I said. “So you can rest easy.”
“Or we can go back to what we were doing. If you want.”
I tried to frown at him and tried to look stern. “We shouldn’t. I have reports to write.”
He blinked, his wide eyes going wet, but he held it back and smiled up at me. His eyes were so blue they almost looked pale, and his mouth was still soft and a little bruised-looking from mine.
“Did I do something wrong?”
There was a pressure behind my eyes that I didn’t recognize, and somehow, the simple question undid barriers I’d spent years building.
“No. Of course not. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m trying to do the right thing.”
“So? Do the right thing.” He stepped another foot closer, and I reached for his waist. That was all the invitation he needed toclimb directly into my lap, straddling my hips and settling there as if that was where he belonged.
“This is not the right thing.” I dragged down from his waist to his hips, holding him there.
“Is that why you are hiding in here writing reports when you could be fucking me?”
I stared down at him for a long moment, my fingers flexing around his hips as I tried to hold myself back from simply taking over, from making every decision for him, from consuming him whole. Slowly, I slid my hands up his back, tracing the supple curve of his spine, bare and still warm from his shower. I wrapped a hand around the back of his neck and pulled him closer, and he arched into it, letting out a soft gasp. The kind of gasp that had the power to move mountains.
I tilted my head and leaned in close, brushing my lips softly against his. When he smiled against my mouth and laughed in a quick, joyful burst, I crashed my lips into his, desperate and hungry, as if I might learn how to feel such joy myself just by tasting it.
His mouth was warm and soft, and he tasted of the lavender candies he always pocketed at dinner. And he kissed me back like this was everything he’d been wanting, his hands coming up to frame my face, his body pressing forward into mine.
I kept one hand on his neck, working my way around to his jaw, while the other moved down his back—the warmth of his skin,the faint ladder of his spine, the way it curved inward just above his hips, a detail I hadn’t expected to want so badly. He arched into the touch, his body responding to my hands the way it had responded to my mouth—with eager, enthusiastic surrender.
The lamp bracket was humming again, louder this time, a clear, continuous note that vibrated through the room. Pip broke the kiss to look up at it, his eyes wide with wonder.
“Is that you?” he asked. “Are you doing that?”
“Yes,” I said, and kissed him again before he could ask any more questions.
Chapter 9
Pip
Ikissedmywaydown Aeldryc’s throat. The skin there was warm and taut, tasting of salt and leather, and I could feel his pulse hammering beneath my lips. I followed the line lower, to his collarbone, where the leather of his armor started, and I bit down gently on the muscle above it.
His hands roamed over my body. When he cupped my cock through the jockstrap and squeezed, I nearly came right there.
“Off,” I said against his skin. “This needs to come off. All of it. How does this even work?” I was pulling at the chestplate, at the buckles and straps that held it together. There were too many layers, too many clasps; it was like trying to unwrap a present designed by someone who never wanted anyone to have fun.
He smirked at me and started on the buckles, but I wasn’t waiting for the armor. I had somewhere else to be.
I slid off the chair and onto my knees, the cold stone a shock I barely registered. His trousers were a puzzle of small metal buttons on a flap that folded over the front. My fingers shook as I worked them, the fabric hot with his heat, the hard shape of him a promise beneath my hands. Each button that popped free was a victory, pulling me closer to a need so sharp it was almost painful.
The last button came free. The flap fell open. And I forgot how to breathe.
He wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
I’d seen cocks before. I’d seen them in every imaginable context, and I’d enjoyed most of them—forgotten most of them. His was not forgettable. It was long and thick, flushed dark, curving slightly upward, the kind of cock that made your mouth water on instinct.
I wrapped my hand around the base and he groaned.
I stroked him once, getting the measure of him. His skin was velvet-soft over steel, hot in my fist, and he was watching me with those blown-violet eyes and his chest was heaving. He shoved his fingers through my hair again, letting me know he was ready for my mouth. I let him guide me forward.
I licked the head. Just the tip, a tasting kiss, and his hips jerked. A full-body twitch that ran through him like electricity. His fingers tightened in my hair and I heard the iron fittings on his chair hum: a low, resonant vibration that trembled through the metal, which I felt in my knees where they pressed against the stone.
