Page 58 of Rogue Elves of Ardani

“What use would it be?”

A soft breath went out of him, deflating his chest. He leaned forward, resting his forehead on the wall beside her. If she were brave enough to turn her head, she might have been able to touch her cheek to his. But she remained still.

“What use, indeed?” he murmured.

She could feel his breath against her ear. He was close enough to touch the curtain of hair that fell to her shoulders, but never quite met her skin.

His hands still held her wrists as his face edged closer to her neck to inhale softly, taking in her scent. But his grip had loosened, no longer painful. And now Crow could definitely have leaned close enough to touch his face and force him away from her, but she didn’t.

He pulled away slightly. Crow met his gaze. She didn’t move when he slowly bent to hover his lips a hair away from hers. He hesitated there, not quite touching.

Crow’s heart raced. Her skin began to burn with the anticipation of the touch that never came.

When she could wait no longer, she tilted her head up, ever so slightly, until her lips brushed a feather-light touch against his.

He waited, as if expecting her to flood his mind with commands. As if he were testing the heat of hot water, he carefully grazed his lips against her, then pulled away, then pressed in again, until he was certain there was no danger, and then he dove in.

Heat bloomed in her core and flooded her body as his mouth covered hers. It was gentle and tentative and desperate and hungry all at once. It was the kiss of a starving man, and of a suspicious one. It was Vaara, distilled. It was the only thing she could have expected of him, yet it was more than she could ever have guessed he would give. She could not have known how a simple kiss from him would set her on fire from the tips of her toes to the ends of her hair.

At his insistence, she let her jaw loosen and open, letting his tongue dip inside her and lap against her lips. Warmth gathered on her cheeks and between her legs and pulsed through her, warding against the cold air.

His fingers flexed on her wrists as his tongue made love to her mouth. Every part of her was covered by his body, and still, she wanted more of him. When his thigh came between her legs, pressing against her groin, she writhed helplessly against it.

Now that they were touching, she could feel his lust, and his grief and loneliness and anger, but the lust was the strongest. And she knew she was feeding her own fervor back to him with her uncontrolled empathy. It formed a never-ending loop, rapidly driving each of them wild with carnal desire, and she was far past being able to do anything to stop it.

She arched against him, pressing her hips to his. With a jerk, he pulled away from her. He released her wrists only to plunge his hand under the waist of her pants and beneath her underclothes. She gasped, shocked, as his fingers dipped brazenly into the wetness between her legs.

He paused. Crow felt faint surprise in his mind. He hadn’t expected her to be so wet for him. A part of him hadn’t fully believed she wanted him until then.

His fingers stroked through her folds with tortured slowness, producing a deep ache inside her.

“Gods,” she whispered, the word almost becoming a moan. She was close already.

She gripped his shoulders to steady herself. She could hardly believe this was happening. It was all so sudden, so absurd. It surely was not wise, for either of them. But at that moment, all she could think about was how badly she wanted to let him do everything he wanted with her.

She looked up at his face, and it all became too much. She came—loudly—on his fingers. He rushed in to kiss her, catching her moans with his mouth.

He didn’t even wait for her to finish shuddering before he started pulling at her clothes, loosening ties and unbuckling belts. He yanked her leggings down over her hips. She took a startled breath as he roughly turned her around and bent her over a stack of firewood.

His hands gripped her hips, and she could feel the raw need running through him as he slid himself inside her. Whatever hatred he’d had for her, it had disappeared in that moment, replaced with something that almost resembled affection. It wasn’t just that she was a warm body. It was that she was Crow. Some part of him had been craving her since the day he’d met her, just as much as she had him, and now, that craving had built to a near uncontrollable hunger. There was an exquisite rightness to the tight fit of his body inside hers, as if they’d been built to match. And judging by the sounds he was making, he thought the same.

Through her empathy, the desire between them grew to grotesque proportions, wild and beyond control.

She knew when he reached his own peak because she felt it. Through his skin she felt the euphoric rush almost as if it were her own, and she couldn’t be completely sure whether it was just his mind she was feeling, or if the sensation of his pleasure had triggered a second climax of her own.

His fingers clawed into her as he hugged her against him, his hips bucking. Every muscle in his body was rigid and tight and grasping at her.

As the waves of lust finally began to fade, Crow heard footsteps, and abruptly recalled that they were standing in an alley in the middle of the city, where anyone at all could walk by. Her head jerked up toward the sound. “Shit,” she whispered.

Vaara’s hands clenched on her. He leaned down to press himself against her back and faded them both as a figure appeared at the end of the alley. Crow held perfectly still as the stranger walked past.

It was around that point that she awakened from whatever temporary madness had taken her and wondered, truly, what in the hells she’d just done.

They didn’t move until the footsteps had faded. Vaara let out the breath he’d been holding. He untangled himself from her and quickly straightened his clothes.

Crow did the same, hurriedly pulling her leggings back up to her waist and her neckline back into place—it had fallen during his rabid fondling of her. She felt heat spreading over her face. When she got the courage to look up at him, he was wearing a faintly horrified expression.

There was an uncomfortably long silence, neither knowing what came next.

---