Page 46 of Hearts Lost

I hear the smile in his voice, and stars, I really am going to melt. This is too much, the way he combines kindness with sexuality, the way he makes me feel respected and desired at the same time. I’ve always enjoyed sex, but it’s been something to enjoy in furtive, stolen moments with others who were best left anonymous.

Something tightens low and hard in my core as Aloserin runs his delicate fingers up my arm. I’m playing with fire, my mind whispers. There’s a reason I never dared to blend sex and friendship, that I never wanted to get too close to the men who got me off. And now here I am, burning it all down.

Aloserin moves closer, wrapping his arm around my waist and running his teeth down my neck. My lips part and my head falls back against his chest.

“Assassin,” Aloserin rumbles, his voice rougher and deeper. “Put your hands up.”

I hesitate, and he sinks his teeth into my neck, hard enough for me to gasp in surprise. I raise my hands. Aloserin grabs my wrists and holds my hands over my head, then wraps his shirt around my arms. It’s not much of a restraint, it’s hardly even a knot, but the soft pressure of the fabric around my wrists makes my breath catch in my throat anyway.

“Good,” Aloserin whispers against the curve of my neck. “Now, lie down.”

He moves to the side and helps me shuffle onto the soft warmth of his cloak, my hands above my head, my fingers knotted together, my body humming with the intensity of his gaze.

“Assassin,” Aloserin says again, his dark eyes tracing a line up my body that’s so hot I could swear it burns. “Tell me. How many people have you killed?”

I open my mouth, and Aloserin brings his fingers to my leg. Whatever I might have said vanishes as he pulls the hem of my dress up with agonizing slowness, his fingers lingering on the inside of my thighs.

“Yes?” he says, and stars, his finger is so close to the heat between my legs. “How many?”

“No—None,” I stammer.

He makes a purring noise and leans closer, his eyes dancing. His finger brushes the spot between my legs, and pleasure shoots through my body like lightning.

“Really?” he says. “Then what kind of an assassin are you?”

His thumb presses between my legs, circling gently, almost casually. My hips rise to meet his touch.

“N-Not a very good one,” I manage to say, my words choppy and strangled as his hand sinks deeper between my legs.

“What did you come to the Lands Below to do?” he asks, a smile dancing across his lips as his fingers play me, drawing out ecstasy, making my entire body sing.

My hips kick against his hand, and my mouth opens, gasping. The words dance across my lips; promises and bargains, silver spheres of malevolent magic and hatred and white light swelling inside the teleportation hub.

“I— I came to—” I begin.

Something hot and angry flashes inside my mind, and fear pulls tight across my chest. I knot my fingers together, forcing my hands into fists beneath the hot fabric of his shirt.

Stars, I was so damned close. So close to the trembling lip of an orgasm. So close to opening my mouth and telling him everything.

I squeeze my eyes closed and sink my teeth into my bottom lip as Aloserin wrings pleasure from my trembling body. Fuck! I’ve had lovers before, I’ve had men who made me come with their hands and mouths and bodies. But I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never felt so close to losing it, to losing everything. If he asks me one more time why I came to the Lands Below, then stars help me—

“You realize I’m going to have to search you,” Aloserin growls, his breath hot against my neck, his fingers dancing inside me, bringing me closer and closer to the crest of my own wave, one that would bring me, gasping and desperate, to the other side of something.

I try to speak, but my voice is gone, completely destroyed by his fingers and his lips. I gasp something panting and incoherent; Aloserin’s fingers pull back. My legs flex against the emptiness as my eyes flicker open, and stars, I was so close. So damned close.

Aloserin grins at me like the fox who sang to the mice, and then he dips his head between my legs. His beard rasps against the inside of my thighs as he drags his lips over my skin.

Searching. Oh, stars help me.

His tongue finds the place between my legs, the hard, aching nub he’d just played so masterfully, and I explode. Every part of me falls to pieces, pulled tight and gasping and then blown apart by the force that is Aloserin, crashed against the black shores and washed out to some strange new sea. Aloserin sinks into me, devouring me even as I fall apart, and the velvet obliteration of my orgasm lasts so long I think I might actually be dying.

I collapse against the soft heat of Aloserin’s cloak, panting and exhausted, every muscle in my body wrung out. I’m dimly aware of Aloserin untying the knot in his shirt and releasing my arms from their soft restraint. Then he’s kissing my neck, moving his lips gently across my skin, and somehow my body is still responding to his touch.

I blink open my eyes and watch the world drift into focus. Aloserin is staring at me with an expression I’ve never seen him wear, something that looks too soft and too kind for either of our worlds. It’s gone almost as soon as it appears, vanishing so quickly I’m left wondering if I imagined it.

“Wow,” I say, and the word comes out in a shaky little sigh. “That’s how your Royal Guard’s interrogations go?”

“Well,” Aloserin begins as that wicked grin spreads once more across his lips. He rolls over, then comes to his knees and begins to tug at the lacings of his pants. “That’s how we begin,” he finishes.

“Fuck,” I moan as he slides his pants down and frees that gorgeous, gorgeous cock. “I’ve been missing out.”

Aloserin leans down and runs a finger across the curve of my cheek.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he whispers. “The Royal Guard of the Kingdom of the Fall is going to interrogate you very thoroughly today.”

I sigh with pleasure, settle back into the soft folds of his cloak, and surrender to my fate.