“Move.” Her nails scrape against the roots in front of her. “Tharos, please?—”
I move.
I drive into her with all the fury and desperation the battle has stoked in both of us. Each thrust drives her into the wall, drives the breath from her lungs in sharp cries that echo through the hollow. She braces herself and pushes back, meeting me stroke for stroke, taking everything I give her and demanding more.
My hand finds her hip, grips hard enough to bruise. The other slides around to find her clit, circling the swollen nub in time with my thrusts. She keens—a high, broken sound—and I feel her starting to tighten around me.
“That’s it.” I growl the words against her ear. “Come on my cock. Let me feel you fall apart.”
She shatters with a scream that I muffle with my hand over her mouth. Her walls clamp down on me, rippling, milking my cock as her whole body convulses. The sensation drags me to the edge?—
But I’m not done with her yet.
I pull out. Spin her again. Lift her by the backs of her thighs and drive back inside before she can catch her breath.
Her legs wrap around my waist, ankles locking behind my back. In this position, I’m deeper than before. She’s open and vulnerable, pinned between my body and the wall, and when I start moving again, her eyes roll back.
“Again.” I set a brutal pace, driving up into her with every thrust. “Come for me again.”
“I can’t?—”
“You can.” I angle my hips, find the spot inside her that makes her voice break. “You will. I want to feel you shatter around me when I fill you.”
Her nails rake down my back, drawing blood. The pain only sharpens my pleasure, makes my thrusts harder, more urgent. I can feel my own release building at the base of my spine—a pressure that threatens to break me apart.
But I wait. Hold on by sheer will as I drive into her again and again, watching her face, feeling her body tense and tremble beneath my hands.
She comes with my name on her lips. A silent scream, her mouth open, her entire body clenching around me in rhythmic waves. And this time, I let go.
My release tears through me. I bury myself to the hilt and spill inside her, pulse after pulse, her walls milking every drop from me as my vision whites out and my legs nearly buckle.
We stay locked like that, shaking, breathing each other’s air. When I finally lower her to the ground, we both collapse—a tangle of limbs and sweat and satisfaction.
“Well.” Her voice is hoarse, wrecked. “That was...”
“Necessary.”
“I was going to say ‘incredible,’ but sure. Necessary works.”
I laugh. The sound surprises me—rusty and unfamiliar and too loud for our hiding place. She laughs too, and the absurdity of it hits me: two warriors laughing in a hole in the ground while an army burns the forest around them.
I pull her against me, her back to my chest, my arms wrapped around her. She fits perfectly. Like she was made for this space.
“We should move.” I say it even though every part of me wants to stay. “The Engine?—”
“I know.” She doesn’t pull away. “Just... give me a minute. Let me pretend the world isn’t ending.”
I hold her. Feel her breath slow. Feel the thunder of her pulse gradually steady. My hand traces idle patterns on her stomach, and she captures it, laces her fingers through mine.
“I need you to understand,” I say into her hair.
“I understand.” She lifts her head, meets my eyes. “If the King takes you, I’ll kill you myself. I won’t let you become a puppet. I won’t let you hurt people while wearing your face.” Her hand finds my cheek. “But that’s not going to happen. Because you’re going to fight. You’re going to use that thing’s power, and then you’re going to walk out of that grove. That’s the deal.”
“I never agreed to that deal.”
“Too bad. It’s the only one I’m offering.”
I kiss her forehead. “You’re impossible.”
