Page 140 of Artemysia
“I thought I did. But I was wrong.”
“About what?” He narrows his eyes. “About…me?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to hear this. I’m out,” he snaps. He moves toward the window, swinging a leg up over as if he means to climb back out again.
“No. I was wrong not to let you know… I should have said—”
My chest tightens as I struggle to get the right words out. The air is sucked out of my lungs, consumed by what I’m about to admit.
“You’re—you’re a good decision, Riev.Mygood decision. One who…I need.” I haven’t stopped thinking about his words during the carriage ride—how he needed me—because of how deeply they affected me.
I want him to feel the same.
He doesn’t respond at first, though his eyes drink me in as if he will never quench his thirst. Slowly, he drops from the window as I step forward.
My hand finds his without looking, and his fingers curl around mine. He’s already close, so I rise and press my lips against his warm cheek. Barely touching. I’m afraid he will retreat—that he won’t believe me.
The air practically crackles between us.
He closes his eyes, letting out a ragged exhale. Tension eases from his face, but he seizes both my wrists and presses them up against the cold, stone wall. His chest meets mine, grazing my breasts. His cock thickens against me.
My heart stumbles when his mouth devours mine, his tongue pressing my lips apart, consuming me.
“You’re just using me to forget about the world,” he says onto my bare skin, trailing kisses down my throat. “But fuck it, I don’t care.”
His voice rumbles deep in his throat as he drags down the hem of my neckline to expose my chest. He kisses harder as he glides his tongue over my breast, ever close to that aching peak. My nipple has already pebbled into a dark, rosy bead that I wish he would clamp between his teeth as he did at the cave pools.
“I don’t care,” he rasps. “Use me.”
Use him? Because everyone else in his life has used him for something, and I refuse to allow him to think I would do the same.
“No. I need you to understand…that…you mean something to me. You matter to me. You’re not someone to be used, but someone who deserves to be cared for. And I care, more than you know. I need you, too.”
He stops kissing the curve of my breast and staggers back. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it—”
“Don’t make a big deal out of it. I’m declaring my feelings for no other reason except that I feel them, and I want you to know. In a world like ours, there may not be another chance to say it. Just accept it.”
“That sounds like an order. You tell me that I mean something to you, then command me to accept it.” He grins wryly.
“You know how much I love giving orders. It’s how I save the world. One order at a time.”
He grasps my chin with his thumb and finger, tilting it up to him to meet the dark intensity he possesses at all times.
I’m molten inside from that simple touch.
“You don’t have to be the only one to save the world,” he says. “Let someone else do it. Or at least let someone help. Letme.”
“You said you don’t care about saving the world.”
“That was before you. For you, I’d burn down the world. Or save it. Whatever you want. Anything for you. It’s you I need by my side, Elphie.” With his breath hot on my ear, his words pierce my heart.
With a bruising grip on my waist that sends a rush of adrenaline through me, he swings us away from the window. He lifts me onto the high bed and sprawls over me, splaying my knees with his.
“Maybe for the next hour, you let me give the orders. You might like it,” his voice husky with desire. The lust behind his words goes straight to my nipples, which tighten into sharp points.
His hands slide down to yank up the soft fabric of my skirt as I sink deeper into the bed, his rough touch sending a spark of heat through me. “It’s up to you.” He hooks two fingers in the waistband of my underwear and drags it partway down my shins before lowering his warm lips to kiss away the cool air around my inner thighs. My eyespop open, and a moan slips out. A purr of approval rumbles in his throat. The need to spread my legs more increases, but his hands and my underwear keep me from moving.
