Not gentle. Not questioning. I claim her mouth with all the desperation I’ve been holding back, all the want I’ve been denying since the moment she walked into my forest with death in her eyes and defiance in her spine.
She responds with equal intensity. Her fingers dig into my shoulders, her body arching against mine. The kiss deepens—teeth and tongue and the raw need to feel alive while death waits outside.
I press her back against the wall of the hollow, caging her with my body. My mouth moves from her lips to her jaw, down the column of her throat. She tilts her head back, giving me access, and I take it. Taste the salt of her skin, the copper hint of blood from her temple wound, the sweat she’s earned fighting an army alone.
“Tharos.” My name on her lips is half gasp, half plea.
I bite down on the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to leave a mark. To claim her in a way that will last beyond this moment.
She moans. Grinds against me, and I feel her heat through the leather between us. Feel how much she wants this—wants me—even with the world burning outside.
My hands find the clasps of her armor. Start working them loose.
“Here?” Her voice is breathless, barely a whisper.
“Here.” I pull her ruined breastplate away, toss it aside. “Now. Before?—”
“Before everything falls apart.”
“Yes.”
The leather beneath her armor is slick with blood—some hers, some not. I peel it away carefully, revealing the body she’s hidden beneath steel and violence. Lean muscle. Scarred skin. Breasts that fit perfectly in my palms when I cup them, her nipples hardening against my callused fingers.
She arches into my touch. “More.”
I give her more. Duck my head to take one peaked nipple into my mouth, sucking hard enough to make her cry out. Her fingers tangle in my hair, holding me against her as I worship first one breast, then the other. By the time I lift my head, she’s panting, her hips rolling against mine in a rhythm that makes my cock throb painfully against the confines of my leathers.
“Your turn.” She shoves at my armor, and I help her strip it away. Her hands go straight to the bark-scars on my chest, tracing the ridges with her fingertips, then following the same path with her mouth.
The sensation is... I don’t have words. No one has touched these scars since they formed. No one has kissed them, licked along the edges where bark meets flesh, pressed their lips to the places where the forest has claimed me.
“Does it hurt?” She looks up at me, mouth hovering over the longest scar.
“No.” My voice comes out wrecked. “It feels like...”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re the first person in decades who’s touched me and meant it.”
Something shifts in her expression. Something softer than I expected. She rises on her toes, kisses me again—slower this time, deeper. Her hands work at my belt, the laces of my leathers, until she can wrap her fingers around my bare cock.
I groan into her mouth. She strokes me—base to tip, her grip firm, her thumb swiping over the head to spread the moisture already gathering there.
“I want this inside me.” Her voice is raw. “I want to feel you for days after this.”
The words snap something inside me. I spin her, press her front against the root-wall of the hollow. Her breath catches as I yank down her remaining clothes, baring her from the waist down. She’s slick when I slide my hand between her thighs—so wet my fingers glide through her folds without resistance.
“Gods, Xela.” I bite her shoulder, slide two fingers inside her. She’s tight, hot, clenching around me in a way that makes me want to bury myself in her immediately. “You’re drenched.”
“Your fault.” She pushes back against my hand, taking my fingers deeper. “Been wanting this since—ah—since you first pinned me to a tree.”
“Should have taken you then.” I curl my fingers, find the spot that makes her whole body shudder. “Should have spread you open against that bark and made you scream my name.”
“Do it now.” She looks over her shoulder, eyes blazing. “Stop teasing and fuck me.”
I withdraw my fingers. Line myself up with her entrance. And push inside in one long, relentless stroke.
She screams. Not pain—pleasure, raw and overwhelming. Her walls grip me so tight I have to pause, jaw clenched, fighting the urge to spill immediately. She’s perfect around me. Hot and wet and gripping me in a way that makes my vision blur.
