Page 29 of Needed in the Night
Isla’s mood had soured noticeably too as I escorted her upstairs to our floor. I supposed that was my fault for exuding frustration and anger during our walk. Guilt joined longing and loneliness as weight on my shoulders.
I had ensured she got safely inside her apartment, changed back into work clothes, and returned to the packed bar, where I worked at a frantic pace two hours longer than my scheduled shift, until 0500 hours when Zaa’ga closed. By the time I returned to my apartment, my legs were nearly leaden with exhaustion.
And yet sleep eluded me and I could find no peace.
My peace was alone in her apartment just three doors down the hall—so close, but just out of reach. The same as since the day we had met.
With heavy hearts and heavier steps, I rose and walked to the window.
From here, if I stood in the right spot, I could just see the towering pink waterfall Isla clearly loved. It was such a ubiquitous part of the skyline that I hardly noticed it until she confided it was her favorite element of the city’s eco-architecture, which she found wondrous. Now it held a very special place in my hearts. When I gazed upon it, I envisioned Isla doing the same, and that forged another connection between us.
Isla’s wide-eyed wonder during our walk to the market had made me look at Onat’ras more clearly and truly see it as both beautiful and an architectural marvel. Even our trees and water captivated her. Replaying every moment of our walk to the market again and again had kept me calm and sustained me during my unexpected extra-long shift.
In a long-ago conversation, she had told me she enjoyed swimming, especially in Fortusia’s fragrant natural lakes. It wasan offhand comment, but I had filed that information away. Everything she revealed about herself was a treasure.
Someday, I would swim with her. Someday, I would wrap her in my arms in warm waters and feel her body against mine. Someday, I would kiss her, and she would hold me tightly and kiss me back.
Someday my hearts would be at peace, but not today.
In the meantime, I had another source of comfort. I left my clothes in an uncharacteristically careless pile on the floor and lay on the basking stone I had installed between the bed and my window. Sensors activated the radiant warmth within the stone and the infrared heat from the fixture in the ceiling above, bathing me in the heat my reptilian nature craved.
I closed my eyes and tried to relax despite the vicious ache in my right leg. My extra-long shift and our trip to the market had made the pain much worse than usual.
To distract myself, I thought about my walk with Isla to the market—especially our stop at the pink waterfall. After the feeling of Isla’s hands in mine in Madame Ycari’s back room, those minutes at the water’s edge were my favorite memory of our too-brief outing.
Most clearly of all I recalled Isla standing beside me near the lake, her eyes closed and her face turned up to feel the waterfall’s mist. Her damp skin had shimmered under the soft lights and her lips had curved up in a rapturous smile I would see in my dreams.
Gods, what I would not do to be the cause or recipient of such a smile.
I had longed to kiss her in that moment—so much so that my need had felt as strong and irresistible as the pull of gravity itself. Despite the presence of Nubo’s spy and the knowledge doing so would put us both in terrible danger, I had come perilously close to thinkingfuck itand kissing Isla with all my pent-up need, and then kneeling at her feet to show her and allthe world she was everything to me. Resisting the urge had taken every last shred of willpower I had.
I took a deep, shaky breath and licked my lips to imagine what Isla’s might taste like. She would be sweet, surely, but with that edge of spice and heat that so uniquelyher. Her lips would be softer than even her skin, but her kiss would be fierce, even if it were tender.
Thinking about tasting her was a mistake. My cocks responded immediately, beading with lubrication along their lengths, hard and ready to please my mate. My nipples tightened too, aching to feel the heat of her lips and the sweet pain of her bite. My body did not care about Nubo’s threats or that Isla remained oblivious to my dilemma. Gods, I craved her.
The more I fought to think of anything else, the more longing drove me to the edge of despair and desperation. With a resigned groan, I gripped my cocks in my hand and stroked.
Isla. Her full lips, her violet eyes, her nebula-colored hair. Her voice and sweet scent that calmed my rage and soothed my hurts. Her fearlessness that made my blood rush.
The way she had palmed a dagger and stared at the Hardanian as if deciding whether to let him live.Yes, my fierce mate.
I groaned again, bracing my heels. My hips lifted from the hot basking stone to thrust into my hand, which was now Isla’s sweet body.
I could fight beside her. I could feed her berries and every delicacy her heart desired from my own hands. I could make love to her. I could live every moment of my remaining days in bliss as long as I was at her side.
Blazing heat rolled through my body. With a growl, I let my beastly hearts feast on carnal fantasies.
With my tongue, my fingers, my cocks, I would draw cries from her, hear my name fall from her lips. Make her thighs squeeze my head or hips. Pin her hands above her head into thebed or against the wall and bring her to release until she could take no more.
My movements became a frenzy.
The way Isla had let her head fall back tonight to feel the waterfall’s mist on her face…but instead it was my own release falling on her lips, her cheeks. Streaming into her mouth and over her tongue?—
Growling and then roaring, my hips bucking and balls clenching, I came in great spurts, first from my upper cock, and then the lower. Oh, gods…
My vision grayed and my hearing faded. I knew nothing but my thundering hearts and the sensation of every muscle going rigid, then warm and relaxed.
Lost in a haze of pleasure, I envisioned beautiful Isla beneath me, her eyes closed as she gasped for air, adrift in her own release as I filled her doubly with mine.
