“Caelith does not care for you.” His palm stayed there, rubbing slow, deliberate circles. “He cares for none but himself.”
“You—you can’t just—” She gulped down air, nails clawing into the nearby grain sack, but it did nothing to cool the slow, unbearable flush creeping over her.
“You are so lost in your obsession that you can’t see what’s right in front of you,” he continued, thencrack. His hand came down again against her bare skin, harder this time. The bite of it sent a shock straight to her core, morphing into something dangerous, something unbearably good.
She gnashed her teeth, hating the way her body reacted, hating the throb between her thighs. Hating even more the broken little noise—half protest, half something else—that trembled from her throat at his touch.
“Ah.” Deyric ran a thumb over the spot where his hand had landed, fingers circling ever closer. “There it is.”
“There what is?” she barked, trying to focus on anything other than the way her body screamed for him to swat herflesh again.
His fingers flexed into her hip, holding her still as he leaned in, a low exhale stirring the fine hairs on her neck. “That sound you made.”
She froze, every muscle locking tight.
No. He was imagining things.
But then his lips ticked up, his voice dark with certainty. “The one that told me I finally have your full attention.”
Another strike landed, and her body betrayed her—her back arching, her lips parting in a moan she couldn’t swallow fast enough.
Deyric laughed, and everything felt too hot. Her body too aware, too exposed.
“I hate you,” she hissed.
“Hate me all you want,” he murmured, dipping a finger deeper between her legs, slipping under the hem of her underthings, then bringing it back to his lips, savoring the taste. “You’re still dripping for me.”
A whimper caught in her throat. She fought the urge to shift toward him, to find even the slightest friction, but he sensed it, the way her body tensed beneath his hold, betraying her need.
“Oh?” His fingers curved into her ass hard enough to mark. “Is that what you need?”
Her breath stuttered, a sharp, traitorous sound, and pride warred viciously against the pulse of raw, aching need burning inside her.
“Say it, Emmaline.”
She felt the rough calluses of his hands trail up the inside of her thigh, barely skimming, hovering just shy of where she craved him most.
“Fuck off,” she growled.
Humming, his thumb traced lazy, teasing strokes over the damp fabric barely covering her, a whisper of touch that wasn’t enough. She could feel him now, the length of him pressing against her stomach, the hard thickness taunting her even through the barrier of his leathers.
And then—
He pulled away.
The loss of contact was immediate and cruel, leaving her cold as he leaned back against the wall, completely at ease, as if he hadn’t just had his hand buried between her thighs.
“Oh, you’re worse than a skitterrat, Deyric.” She writhed in his lap, desperately seeking relief.
He grunted, his own breath coming faster now, and his hands clenched at his sides as if fighting the urge to touch her again. “Say, please.”
Goddess, he was awful—merciless and arrogant. But she couldn’t stop herself.
“Please.” The word fell from her lips, soft, needy, mortifying.
His head tipped back, jaw tightening. “Please what?”
“More. Please, more,” she whined, hating him, hating herself more.
