It took a while, but I eventually managed to get back to sleep. When I next woke, it was to find that I was lying on my side facing Talon. And he was wide awake, watching me.
I swallowed, memories of last night bouncing around my head. Did I have any complaints about being so thoroughly taken? Not one. Did I know what to think of him bringing me here and then having me stay the night? Nope, not one. It was literally the last thing I’d expected from him, as was how he’d so publicly dragged me off like a caveman.
Or like a dragon hauling either treasure or prey to his lair, come to think of it.
Many had witnessed him snatch me off the bench and usher me out of the food hall. They might have concluded that he’d merely intended to escort me to the stables … but some officiates had seen him guide me to his barracks. As such, rumors would be running riot—and Khalida would be smirking her ass off.
While being the subject of inconsequential rumors generally didn’t bother me, I wasn’t pleased that some people would no doubt insinuate I’d had sex with Talon in the hope of sleeping my way into the Order. But I had bigger things to concern myself with. More specifically, that this was the final day of Xalbia.
It made me feel both relieved and nervous. Relieved because I wanted it over with. Nervous because I knew that there would be nothing easy about whatever it involved. I would have asked Talon for more details about what lay ahead if I’d thought that he’d tell me, but he never gave anyone hints.
Right then, he was still watching me, unblinking.
I licked my lower lip. “Valor does this sometimes. I wake to find him staring right at me. Then he gives me a doggy smile. You gonna smile?”
His droll look was all the answer I needed.
“That’s disappointing.” I paused. “So … it’s the last day of Xalbia. I’m gonna hate what’s coming, aren’t I?”
His expression saidProbably.
I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth. “I don’t suppose you’ll give me any hints about what to expect, will you?”
He shook his head.
“I’d complain about how that isn’t fair, since I give you access to my pink parts, but I’d much rather lie here while you do wicked things to those parts.”
Heat bloomed in his eyes. He rolled me onto my back, covered my body with his … and, after a minimal amount of fantastic foreplay, pounded into me until we both broke.
He also bit into my throat as he came. Bithard.
At some point, while I was trembling with aftershocks, he lifted his head and stared down at the stinging bite with a gaze all warm and slumberous.
“That won’t fade for a few hours,” I commented. “People are going to see it, and they’re going to guess thatyouput it there.”
Talon shrugged, unbothered. He cupped me tight—staring right into my eyes wearing a very maleMinelook.
Well, now. It would seem that he hadn’t finished taking me off-guard.
Even as that proprietary look made me all tingly, I eyed him suspiciously. “What does that mean exactly? You don’t want others touching me, but you feel you’re free to touch other women? Because I’m not down with that. Do you intend for the exclusivity to be a one-way street?”
He gave a short shake of his head.
I would have been pleased by that if he wasn’t wearing a moody expression. “I have to say, you don’t seem very happy about this.”
Yet, he was requesting exclusivity. No,demandingit. Demanding something that he typically never insisted on, changing his pattern, so he was obviously feeling possessive. And since he struck me as a person who would plain begrudge any emotion that tempted him to act in ways he wouldn’t otherwise do, I could only surmise that … “You don’t like that you want this from me, do you? You don’t like that you feel possessive.”
A stiff incline of his head—an admittance that seemed to gall him.
I almost asked if it was partly because he felt that entering into something exclusive with me was a betrayal to Eva. But I didn’t ask, because I didn’t want to talk about another woman while his hand was still cupping me. I didn’t want her in our metaphorical bed at all.
Honestly, I was feeling somewhat territorial myself, and I found it quite annoying. Mostly because he was, essentially, already committed to someone else. In other circumstances, this would have made me back off. But we weren’t intending to build anything. Relationships didn’t exist among officiates. This would simply be about sex.
Really, really great sex. Which was nothing to sniff at.
Also, it wasn’t as if he’d drop me like a bad habit the moment Eva turned up a year or so from now. Because by thatpoint, our arrangement would belongover—I couldn’t envision him sticking to something exclusive for an extended period, and he’d no doubt ensure that he was free of all ties when it neared the time Eva would come to Deimos.
But there was something he hadn’t considered, and so … “Though I don’t have any personal objections to your request, I’m not sure it’s a good idea. For you, I mean. You laying a minor claim to me will only bolster that sense of territorialism you resent feeling.”
