Page 44 of The Gathering Storm

He dragged a hand over his face. Fuck. No way was he coming out of this without somebody taking a chunk out of him, especially if Sigrid managed to lose during her fight with Chana.

Friggin’ Daughters and their friggin’ honor.

On the bright side, Ethan would get a chance to have a go at Levi now, which would at least be more entertaining than watching two women fight over a man.

Sigrid paced from one end of her living room to the other. Though she’d spent two hours training after leaving The Omega and should be exhausted, sleep eluded her. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Will standing with Chana, his hands on the other Daughter’s arms as if he were pulling her closer.

Clearly they’d been discussing something, else why had Chana been standing just so, with her palms flat on Will’s chest and her body soft and willing?

Something ugly and mean shot through Sigrid. That one would receive her dues come the day of the exhibition. Rebecca would insist on non-deadly combat, and as long as the contest was held within Tellowee, Sigrid would abide by the Blade’s rules.

Outside of Tellowee was another matter.

Will was her lover, hers, but perhaps he had forgotten that. Perhaps the night they’d shared had meant nothing to him beyond a pleasant reprieve from duty and work.

A sharp ache pierced Sigrid, very near her heart. She placed a hand over it and dropped onto her couch, in front of the embers smoldering in the fireplace. Was that all she was to him, a pastime? Did he still long for this nebulous other woman Moira had alluded to?

A hard fist hit the front door. Sigrid gathered her composure, walked to the door in measured steps, and opened it on Will.

His expression was impassive under the fatigue etched into the lines around his mouth and the shadows under his eyes. He stepped inside and closed the door, flipped the lock, and dropped a backpack on the floor next to the wall.

Words lodged themselves in her throat, refusing to be spoken. Had he had a rough night? How could he betray her with another woman? Did he need anything, water, tea, a soft bed, her touch?

Concern, anger, and something too ephemeral to define warred within her, and finally, she inhaled a slow breath and let it out on the demands she had planned to make of him. “You will please me now.”

“Hunh.”

His gaze slid down her body, taking in the tightly fitted workout clothes she hadn’t bothered changing out of and the touch of pink splashed across the toes of her bare feet. Heat lit his spring green eyes, darkening them as he shrugged his coat off and hung it up, and his gaze bore into her, raking desire through her as surely as his touch.

“Take it off,” he said gruffly.

Her hands fluttered along the hem of her sleeveless athletic top, but before she could act, he brushed her hands away and stripped the top off her, leaving her naked from the waist up. He hummed under his breath and cupped her breasts, flicked the pads of his thumbs across her nipples. Heat curled into her through the unfamiliar emotion filling her and she shuddered under the slight weight of his hands.

“More?” he said, and she arched into him, unable to resist the husky need in his voice.

Her tights melted away, replaced by the rough graze of his palms along her skin, the warm heat of his mouth, the rasp of his tongue, the sharp bite of his teeth. He suckled her nipples, dragging her swiftly through a passion so strong, she could only gasp and clutch his shoulders and open herself to his every touch.

His hand slid into the juncture of her thighs, then his fingers plucked her clit, rubbed in gentle circles around it, and she bit her tongue, silencing her need to beg, to plead, to do anything if it meant having him inside her.

His mouth grazed her ear, and he whispered, “Say it.”

She swallowed past the raw heat clogging her throat. “What?”

“Say you want me.”

His finger slid into her and out, then a second joined it, filling her. The pad of his thumb flicked over her clit, and she cried out, “Yes!”

“Say it,” he insisted, and the dark, dangerous tone did nothing to stifle the pleasure he was giving her. “Say you want me.”

“I do.” Her head fell back and her eyes drifted shut, and in that moment, if he had asked her to face an army of a thousand well-trained men with nothing but her sword, she would’ve done it for him, only for Will. “I want you so much.”

His mouth latched onto her throat, sucking the skin over her pulse, and his fingers moved inside her as his thumb stroked her clit, and she lost herself in his touch, lost herself to everything he was doing to her, to the heat of his mouth and the roughness of his touch and the hard strength hidden under his work clothes. Perfect, glorious Will.

“Come for me,” he said against her throat, and she did, peaking so hard, she shuddered against him and would’ve fallen if not for his arm around her back.

The world shifted beneath her and she was lifted high, so high, and tucked against his chest. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the swiftness of her release, in his compliance, in the tang of his aftershave tickling her nose.

A moment later, he laid her down on the rug in front of the dying fire. “Have I pleased you, lover?”

---