“Valdrek. Why don’t you talk?”
His ears come around, and he considers me for a long moment.
“Stormbreak is loud,” he says. “My clan. My shieldmate. Everyone. Words are water there. Spilled everywhere, worth nothing. Mine land differently.” And then a door behind his eyes closes.
That’s a partial answer if I’ve ever heard one, but his pupils are spreading, and I’ve got better things to wonder about right now. I put my cup down.
“So you’ve got words,” I say. “Fourteen months on this island, and you’re sitting on a vault.”
“Yes.”
“What’s in it?”
He goes still, and the black of his pupils fully swallows the gold. When he speaks, his voice drops to the register that makes me embarrassingly wet.
“You want to know what I would say?”
My heart pounds.
“Yes,” I say, breathy. “Tell me.”
He looks at the door pointedly and then back at me. “For you. Only ever for you. Close the door, Wren.”
I have never moved faster in my life. I give the poor handler a soft smile as I close it. I turn around, and Valdrek’s standing now, filling the whole room.
“Come here,” he says.
I plant myself in front of him. I don’t know what he’s going to do, but it better end with his cock inside me. My body has been ready for this since 3:41 p.m. two days ago.
“I watched you today,” he says, and the words are an unhurried rumble. “I walked past the hearing room. You were sitting in the corner holding every word they said, and no one looked at you. I looked. I have been saving words,thess’venna,and I am going to spend them now. And you are going to stand still and listen.” He raises a hand to my hair and takes hold of one of my hairpins. “Shall I tell you what I’m going to do?”
Shall.Who taught the mountain the wordshall? At this point, I don’t care. My body has priorities. He doesn’t pull the pin, instead trailing his fingertip down my cheek to the nape of my neck. My skin lights up at the caress, and I shiver.
“God, yes.”
“First, your hair. I have wanted it down since the hearing room.” He takes the pins out slowly, setting each one on the coffee table. My hair falls to my shoulders in loose waves, and he leans down and inhales against it. I’m shivering from being this close to him, and it’s good he’s the one speaking because I don’t know how much I can say.
He groans softly, and my clit throbs. “There. Now I’m going to take your clothes off you, and I am going to take my time. Your clothes are your armor. I want to feel how soft your skin is without them.”
His knuckles graze my skin along the collar of my blouse, and the shiver that runs through me gives me away completely.
“You’re shaking.” His mouth is close to my ear now, and the words pour warmth down my neck. “I can smell how wet you are. I’ve been smelling you all day and thinking about doing this. You soak through your panties every time you’re around me or think about me. You press your knees together under the table and keep your face calm, thinking no one knows.” He pauses. “Tell me you want this. I need the word. Yours.”
“I want this,” I moan. “Badly.”
“Badly,” he repeats, weighing the word. “Then I’ll tell you the rest. When your blouse is off, I’m going to kneel, because you should see what I look like on my knees for you. And I’m going to take everything else off of you, and lick your pussy. I am not going to stop until you’ve come twice and forgotten how to spell your own name. And then, if you ask nicely, I am going to pump you so full of cum you’re going to feel it dripping down your legs.”
Everything south of my navel clenches hard, and my brain just stops, every thought gone but one — he was savingthat?
“What does it mean?” I manage, as the first button on my blouse gives.“Thess’venna?”
“Later.” Second button. Third. “You’ll earn the translation.” Fourth. “Look at that,” he rumbles, dragging one knuckle down the strip of bare skin he’s opened. “Your breath changes every time I touch you.”
The last button gives, and he slides the blouse off my arms slowly, letting the fabric drag.
“Now this.” One finger under my bra strap. “Pretty, but in my way.” He unhooks it and lets it drop.
“Your breasts are going to be heavy in my hands,” he says, before he’s touched me at all, in absolutely no hurry. “Heavy and perfect. And when I get my thumbs on your nipples, you’re going to make a sound that’s just for me to keep.”
