AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Her head jerked up and she blinked rapidly at him. “My … body?”
“You know my story,” he said. The words, even vague, were awkward. He’d sworn he’d never tell a soul, never speak aloud the truth of what had happened. “You know that the soul inside me today isn’t the one this body was born with.”
Her brow pinched as if in distaste, just for a second, then she shook her head. “I’m me. This is the same body I had before.”
Aric frowned. “How can you be sure?” Clearly her circumstances were different than his. Though there was no guarantee his transition had had anything to do with the explosion, let alone anyone’s death. Whereas she had woken up far from anything and entirely bare. To say nothing for the fact that she came from a world obviously not his own, since his story was a form of entertainment in hers. Still, he couldn’t assume. If she was confident she remained in her own skin, he hoped she could convince him.
“I—” She dropped her gaze and moved a hand as if she had thought to grab her side. “I have a tattoo. A very specific tattoo.”
He let her hear the low hum of acknowledgment that rumbled up his chest in response. Tattoos—generally called inks or inkings—were not easy to acquire. And as he understood it, Zrynian women were forbidden from marking their bodies. All of which meant that if Rochelle still possessed the exact design in the precise location she should, then he was inclined to agree with her conclusion.
Rochelle sighed and curled her arms around herself. “I’m sorry, Aric. I know I should have told you sooner.” Her voice was choked and she wasn’t able to meet his gaze.
Aric lowered himself to the vacant side of the sofa. “I understand something of that particular burden,” he said. “I know it’s hard to hold in, and harder to let out.” He wrapped an arm around her back and pulled her into his side. “From here on, we’ll keep each other’s confidence, all right?”
She drew a slightly shuddering breath and angled her head to look up at him. “You’re … still willing to trust me?”
He smiled at her and brushed the tear from her cheek with a thumb. “You haven’t lied any more than I have, really. The difference is that you came clean.”
She burst into a fit of watery laughter and dropped her forehead to his shoulder. Her body shook against his side, and he tightened his arm around her. If only he could leave it at that, or indulge the desires that roused in him with her so close.
“I’ll think of something to work as your adjusted origin story, if it should come up,” he said. Mostly in case Cecilia ever decided to interrogate Rochelle about that off feeling she’d mentioned a couple of days after they’d returned from Corast. Cecilia was good at recognizing lies, but as Rochelle had said, she’d only lied by going along with assumptions. And Cecilia seemed to have warmed up to her, so he hoped it wouldn’t come to that. “In the meantime, we need to worry about Denham.” Whether he liked it or not. If the Prince was their enemy, they couldn’t afford to delay long.
Rochelle sighed, the sound weary. “I don’t want to put you in a bad position,” she said.
Aric frowned and ignored her words entirely. “Does he know you recognized him?”
Her fingers latched onto his shirt, and her head dragged over his collarbone when she nodded. “I had no clue I was seeing something I shouldn’t have been seeing,” she said. “So I called him out and tried to get him to tell me why he bothered kidnapping me and tying me up, instead of just ordering me to the castle for an interrogation.”
His lips twitched despite the situation and Aric let his hand slide up her waist, then back to her hip. “Then we can’t assume we have much time.”
Rochelle twisted in place and pushed herself up, just enough to look him in the eye. She didn’t actually pull away and her breasts pressed against his chest. “This could blow back really bad, Aric. Especially if King Jensen’s involved. I can’t do that to you. I have no damn idea what he wants to learn from me, but if I leave soon enough you could still convince them I didn’t tell you anything.”
Her words were steady. Her tone was resolute. But her eyes were so openly broken and desperate that it stole his breath. She was trying to push him away, thinking she was doing the right thing for him or perhaps both their sakes, but she was doing so at her own expense.
Aric locked his arm around her waist and curved his other hand around the slope of her cheekbone so that his fingers disappeared in her hair. Her expressive eyes widened as he pulled her in until their noses nearly touched. “If you run away from me,” he said, “I’ll be the next man who kidnaps you in the dark of night. Do you understand?”
She gasped quietly, her lips parting with the motion.
He chose to take it as an invitation and crushed his lips to hers. He’d become addicted to her ever since that first taste of her kiss. His tongue swept into her mouth, once again in search of her sweetness. She leaned into him with a vibrating moan, one of her legs slipping between his and her hands dragging almost roughly up to his shoulders. Her tongue pushed against his as if challenging him.
Aric hauled her properly into his lap, adjusting her leg so that she was straddling him and letting one hand curl tightly over her ass while his other settled at her nape. Ravishing her soft, distracting body on the sofa in his office hadn’t been his plan. Nor was it ideal for their first time. But he wanted her with a burning hunger he’d never experienced before. Walking away from this moment didn’t seem possible.
A groan lingered in the air as the kiss broke, her hands half buried in his hair and braced around his throat. Each of her ragged exhales tickled his skin. “Aric…”
His dick twitched at the breathy sound of his name on her tongue. He hummed low in his throat, gave her ass another squeeze, and trailed both of his hands over her back. He tipped her pelvis forward enough to make sure she knew what she’d done to him and kept his voice hushed when he spoke, never breaking eye contact. “I want you, Rochelle.” He watched her eyes widen, as if she were for some reason surprised. “I want to rip these clothes from your body and trace your curves with my tongue.” He licked his lips. “I want you screaming my name in uncontrollable bliss while my face is buried between your thighs.” He dug his fingers into her hips. “I want to make love to you until the sun comes up and there’s no doubt left in you that you are mine.”
She dragged in a long breath and pulled her lip between her teeth as she studied him. Her cheeks had flushed and her hips had rocked against his as he’d spoken, as if she were aroused by his words. “The sun’s already up,” she finally said. The heat in her sultry whisper shot right through him.
Aric smirked and slipped his fingers beneath the hem of her shirt. The soft warmth of her skin only enticed him further. “Exactly.”
The blush on her face darkened and he expected her to pull away, to snap out of their mutual daze. Instead, she leaned forward and angled a kiss to the back of his jaw. Her kisses slowly took her up to his ear where she whispered, “If you want to keep me up that long, first you have to prove yourself.”
She really should have known better than to challenge him.
****
Her world was on fire. There was no other way to describe it. She had embraced the moment and said what she was feeling, and Aric was not a man who held back. She hadn’t known it was possible to be attacked with pleasure until those words had left her lips.
