Page 73 of Meteor Storm

“Yes, Penny. You can sleep with me.”

That time, his tone was almost relieved. He stayed put as if unwilling to make the first move, so I stepped to the side and carefully crawled onto his bed behind him. It was much more comfortable than the metal slab in his cell, fitted with a strange gel mattress just like mine. I stretched out across it, my teeth starting to chatter, and propped my head on the long, firm pillow laid out across the top. Thilar remained, his back turned, until I was finally settled. Then he turned around, peering down at the way I was cocooned in my blanket, my hands tucked under my chin. And, as always, he was quick to want to fix a problem when he saw it.

He stood only to slide his silk shirt off his shoulders and drape it across a chair. His bare upper body was a sight. Strong. Built for battle and yet his capacity to be gentle was beyond even mine. With the backdrop of space behind him, he looked godly and my shivers transformed into needy trembles. Thilar climbed onto the bed beside me, reaching out to uncoil me from my banket. The cold air licked my skin for only a moment before he draped the blanket over the both of us, trapping his heat inside. I thought that would be it. I thought he would simply try to fall to sleep then. Instead, he urged my head up, sliding his arm beneath it just like the last time we slept in the same bed.

“Come,” he said softly, easing me closer until I was nuzzled against his chest.

Heat poured over me like a warm bath. I sighed deeply, my muscles instantly relaxing, but I knew it was not only because of the warmth. Thilar’s presence—his embrace—soothed me like I never thought someone could. I melted into his body, closing my eyes to savor the feeling of his arms around me. His strong legs tangled with mine. The sound of his powerful breaths echoing in his chest.

And that was when I realized I’d never felt safe in my life. Never. No one had ever made me feel protected and I knew that because that feeling—there, with Thilar—was foreign to me.

“God, this feels good,” I muttered.

A low, rhythmic sound vibrated in his throat. A chuckle and a handsome one at that.

“You are a curious thing,” he whispered, his thumb absently stroking my shoulder.

“Because I get cold?” I paused a moment, purposefully letting my breath trail along the front of his neck. “Or because I want you to warm me?”

“Both.” He drew back a little to look down at me. “But why, Penny? You have made it clear you do not hate me for what I did in the arena, but some part of you must consider me a factor in that unfortunate period of your life.”

“Yeah. The only good part.”

The way his eyes bore into me, I imagined he was seeing more than a human could. He stared like he just noticed something about me that I didn’t even know myself and despite that it made me feel utterly naked, I didn’t care. I welcomed it.

His hand lifted from my shoulder and gently moved to sweep a strand of hair from my face with the tips of his fingers.

“Penny,” he whispered. “You’re—”

“Kiss me.”

He did not flinch at those words, almost as if he expected them. That same, conflicted look washed across his gray features.

“I’m sorry. If you don’t want to, I understand. But I can’t stop wanting you to. And I know—”

I couldn’t finish my sentence before Thilar’s lips were on mine, moving with abandon, hot and direct. I sucked in a breath, surprised, but not at all upset. Instantly, my hand hooked the back of his neck, my fingers weaving through the loose strands of his coarse hair. Instinctively, my body followed, nudging closer to his and chasing that precious warmth and security. Thilar’s thigh slid up between mine, rubbing teasingly against my sex. I rolled my hips, moaning into his mouth as his tongue pushed past my lips.

So, he did know how to kiss. He knew how to kiss well. Better than I did.

And I loved it.

I opened my mouth to his control, craving more, and the more I took, the less I cared that I was human and he was not. I swept my tongue across his teeth, pricking it lightly on his fang, and suddenly my nipples were pebbling under my night shirt. He pressed his thigh between my legs again and I knew at that point, his pants would be soaked. I thought I would have been embarrassed, but I wasn’t. Not with him.

My hands slid further back around his neck and then down the back of his shoulder, feeling every ripple of his hard muscles flex under my palm. My stomach fluttered as waves of dizzying warmth flitted through my veins. When I felt his large hand slide over my hip and along the curve of my waist, bringing the hem of my nightshirt with it, all I could do was hope. Hope that this was real and I wasn’t going to open my eyes and realize I was back in my mossy cell or on an operating table somewhere.

“Penny,” Thilar whispered between kisses. “I thought you needed sleep.”

“I thought I did. Turns out I just needed you.”

He drew back, balling the hand on my side into a fist.

“We cannot. Not until all of this is through. I need to be sure I am not going to be convicted for all that has happened. And if I am, I will have to answer for it.”

“I don’t understand how they could possibly blame you for anything,” I sighed. “But… I understand that I don’t understand it.” Licking my lips, I tried to get my body under control, wishing I could turn off everything that Thilar so unconsciously and easily turned on. “If you were free to do as you please, with no harm to your honor or your laws, what would you do?”

His eyes settled on mine, bright with unanswered hunger, his pupils thin and almost predatory.

“Tell me what you’d want me to do,” he whispered gruffly. “If my honor and my laws held no sway.”