His hands are on me, one digging into the flesh of my hip, the other pumping in and out of me, his fingers curling to coax pleasure from me.
“I want you,” I manage. The words are choked. My mind flutters, slips sideways. His fingers. His tongue. His breath. His lust. He’s the last person I should want. And yet he’s pleasuring me with more dedication than any lover's ever shown before.
Roiven's fingers slip from me and he bows his head lower. His lips suck gently, then harder. I moan. My hips rock against his mouth of their own free will. The king keeps going, without pause, without breaking rhythm, as I pant and gasp and tighten my fist in his hair. Pressure builds until I can't stand it, until I'm nearly screaming with frustration.
And then I finally shatter. Stars burst over the night sky. My eyes are squeezed shut, but I can see the heavens wheeling overhead. My whole body rings with pleasure, and even the sound of the ocean is muffled as my body sinks deeper and deeper into the pleasure.
This isn’t a short, frantic climax that snaps through me, like I’m used to. It’s long, and I am destroyed, every inch of my body humming with ruin.
My arched back falls flat to the cold hard stone.
“Gods.” The word comes out hoarse. Treason shouldn't feel this perfect.
“Good girl,” Roiven growls, but his lips are only off me for a second before he flicks me with his tongue.
His hands grip me and drag my hips toward him across the stone. He hitches one of my legs over his broad shoulder. Like wringing water from a towel he's squeezing every drop of pleasure from me my body can give. No time to rest or recover from the first one. I clench around his fingers with a whine, wanting more. Wantingallof him.
Roiven reaches for my left breast. My nipples are stiff and peaked from the cold wind. He lightly pinches. I moan out as my core squeezes tight. He tugs, with a small twist of his fingers, and my eyes roll back with a groan of pleasure.
I cry out as Roiven drives me through a second climax. My body is exhausted, tingling with pleasure, my muscles limp. He runs his hands over me, stroking, squeezing, like he already knows what feels good. Through the bond, he can feel my immediate response without having to hunt for it. My body is pliant under his touch. I quiver and whine until I’m nothing but a sobbing mess of nerves as his mouth finds its way back between my thighs. I'm nearly sore from his lips, but I pant and rock my hips as he brings me up to, then over, the cliff of a third climax.
The world is spinning. My heart beats so loudly my ears ring. I can barely see.
Roiven lets go of me and braces his hands on either side of the pool. The witch hauls himself effortlessly out, water sheeting off his skin. I keep staring straight up at the sky, unable to move.
“You’ll have to move me if you want to fuck,” I mumble, my body so spent the words don't come out sounding too enthusiastic. But I’m still hanging over the edge of the pool, feet dangling in the water, and I genuinely don’t think I can re-arrange myself to accommodate him just yet.
“No,” Roiven says. He picks up his clothes and dries himself with them. My body feels cold and I'm suddenly far more awake.
What kind of man spends that long on someone else’s pleasure and asks nothing in return?
“Why not?”
The boom of Sava’s wings sounds right above me and a blast of air announces the dragon’s arrival. I yelp and clasp a hand over my bare breasts, not that a dragon would care. She flies low overhead, turning the already dark landscape utterly black. The wind rushesover me. Something bright smacks onto the ground three feet to my side. It’s silvery, and the size of my torso.
A fish.
“Dinnertime,” Roiven answers. “Don’t go back in unless you hold on to the edge.”
He walks away, leaving me shivering in the cold and the dark.
29
It turnsout Roiven packed clothes for me in that huge bag of his. By the time I’ve dried off with my dirty clothes and put on the set of clean ones—soft trousers and a flowing shirt, with sleeves wide enough it’s no trouble for my metal arm—Roiven has a fire going. He’s still wearing the same clothes from the day, but his wet hair is tied back. Sava lies down some thirty feet away, her immense body curling loosely around where we’ve made camp.
I pad toward the fire, trying to keep a close clamp on my emotions. I don’t feel embarrassed about sex, usually, and Roiven obviously wanted me. But even knowing what we are to each other, I have to admit, at least to myself, that it hurt he didn’t want anything in return. Was it my looks, or who I am?
Roiven has a long knife out and is sawing into the fish Sava brought us, a blue-crested spear. By the light of the flames, I see two long rents on its side from the dragon’s claws. I sigh in disappointment that my days of fruits and vegetables are over.
“Problem?”
“I could go the rest of my life without eating fish and it stillwouldn’t be soon enough to crave it. Not that I’m ungrateful. The Bluff was just… grim.”
Roiven smiles tightly.
“We’ll be at the Tower tomorrow. We grow our own food there, too.”
“What are you burning?” I squint at the fire and crouch beside it. There’s no smell. No wood, or dung, or blubber.
