Page 103 of The Endless War

“You know him?”

“All my life,” she whispered. “He’s my aunt’s bodyguard, and foras long as memory, the rumor has been that it was Welran who sired Bermin.”

“Fuck.”

“An apt assessment.” The boots were coming closer, the drums now silent, and Zarrah stared at the door as she listened to the shouts of protest as trysts were interrupted. The search progressed down the hall, her heart throbbing faster and faster.

“If it doesn’t work,” Keris said, a loose strand of his hair brushing her thigh, “you get out that window. I’ll hold them off.”

“We are allies,” she answered. “That means we stand together. And if it comes to it, we die together. Now make this convincing.”

Threading her fingers through his hair, she pulled him against her right as the door exploded inward.

Zarrah screamed with outrage as two soldiers strode inside. “What is the meaning of this?”

“A would-be assassin attacked General Welran,” one of them answered. “A Maridrinian. We are searching the quarter for him.”

“Well, he’s not in here,” she spat. “Get out!”

“We need to search the room.”

“Then be quick about it. And you”—her fingers tightened in Keris’s hair—“finish what you started. I didn’t pay a fortune for your tongue to watch you gape at soldiers.”

Said soldiers were staring, obviously considering his fair skin as reason for further investigation, and Keris was not helping the situation. His lips were pressed against her sex, his breath ragged and hot, but he remained unmoving. Unconvincing.

Tightening her grip to the point it probably hurt, she said, “Did you hear me?”

He lifted his head ever so slightly, soot-rimmed eyes meeting hers. Despite their lives being on the line, there was no fear in his blue gaze, only pure masculine lust. Lust that Zarrah knew was only held at bay by the promise that he’d made to her. “Finish me,” she ordered, hearing the breathiness in her voice.

His gaze darkened, but for a heartbeat, Keris didn’t move. Then he lowered his head between her legs, a gasp tearing from her throatas his lips pressed against her in a kiss that turned the embers in her core to an inferno.

“Your officers will hear of this outrage,” she hissed at the soldiers, but they only smirked, one of them leaning forward to catch at the edge of her mask even as Keris parted her with his tongue. “I doubt it,” he said. “Will mean you admitting you had a whore between your legs rather than your husband.”

Zarrah pushed the soldier’s hand away, her other still locked in Keris’s hair.

The soldiers laughed, and Zarrah’s pulse roared, partially with rising panic that they weren’t leaving and partially because of the effect Keris’s tongue was having on her body.

He knew her. Knew her body and everything she liked, and on her order, he was making use of that knowledge. Sweat beaded on her brow, tension building as he sucked and teased her, fingers trailing lines of fire along her naked thighs.

The soldiers made a show of slowly searching the room, but their eyes never left her naked body. Keris’s naked body. She needed them to leave. Needed them to shut the door, or else … or else …

“If you wish to watch, you must pay,” Miri said from the doorway. “Else it is theft, and I’ll report you to the guild.”

“Consider it a bit of goodwill toward us, Miri,” one of them said, but the house’s matron crossed her arms, dark eyes narrowed, and they grudgingly backed out of the room. “Apologies,” she murmured, then shut the door.

Keris lifted his face, and a scream of frustration threatened to rise from Zarrah’s throat. Like an addict deprived of her drug of choice, her bodyneededhim. Needed this fix, and though her mind shouted at her that it was folly, her lips whispered, “Don’t stop.”

“Zarrah …” His voice was strained, as though he battled his own inner war, and she held her breath, eyes squeezed shut, waiting to see what part of him won. Waiting to see if they’d both succumb, proving that what lay between them burned as hot as it ever had. A desire that had always been wrong, always been forbidden, yet left every barrier in ash.

Even those they built themselves.

Her soul felt his will bend to lust a heartbeat before his tongue flicked over her, Zarrah’s back bowing as a sob of pleasure tore from her lips. All the world fell away as his fingers pressed inside her, curving to stroke her core even as he sucked her clit. As he pulled her to the edge of climax, every plot and plan and strategy falling victim to her undying need for his presence, his touch, his—

Love.

The word, and all the truths that came with it, pulled her over the edge, only some hidden reserve of self-preservation keeping her from screaming his name as pleasure broke her apart, reforming her heart and soul, only to shatter them again because she had to give him up.

Keris shifted, resting his cheek against her hip, and she moved her hand from his hair to trace a finger down the side of his face.Say something,she silently whispered, not knowing whether she was speaking to Keris or herself. “I’m sorry.”

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