Page 162 of Artemysia
Sizable pay raise. I could help my father start his elk farm more quickly, now that the Syf attacks have subsided. Diplomacy. Colonel. Crimson. I’ve made it. All the blood, sweat, and tears it took. I’m going to start sobbing again.
“Blink once if you heard me,” Riev says, making me laugh instead.
He drags a thumb across my jaw, swiping away the last of my tears. “You’re the only one the colonels trust to do the job. I also reminded them that you and Throg are the only humans the Artemysian Syf will deal with.”
I clasp my arms around his shoulders, clutching him to me. My hands skim against hard knobs on his back, where his scars crisscross over his spine. His sharp intake of air tells me they’re sensitive.
My eyes widen, questioning him.
He rotates, showing me iridescent segments that press out of hemmed cutouts in his shirt made to accommodate them. I count the colors that shimmer in the light:
Violet, blue, green, gold, crimson.
“The healers think it’s possible my wings are growing back—in more colors than normal for Syf they said,” he says proudly.
He turns back to me. His face cracks into a sly, crooked grin. “And I found out what they’re used for…
“Wings?” Oh gods.Along with those ridges that stretch me…
My throat catches when I think of the tantalizing details of his massive erection. A throb of pleasure pulses between my legs, making me bear down on the emptiness.
His hands run along the waistband of my pants, unhooking my belt, unbuttoning the top buttons so that his finger pads drift over the silk of my underwear, caressing me hesitantly as if this were all brand new to him again.
I’m already yearning and wet for him, but he has yet to find out. I press a hard kiss to his lips and feel his cock hardening against my belly.
I grip his steely length with both hands as he lets out a ragged groan.
“Is your heart healed?” I ask, even though being practical lies at the bottom of my priorities right now.
“Almost. The healers said it took longer than normal.UncleFoss keeps ‘joking’ that my heart must be more human than Syf—as much as that guy can joke, that is. He’s trying his best to bond with me. I gotta give him credit. Unlike King Galke, Foss doesn’t keep me at arm’s length like a dangerous guard dog.”
Riev’s gaze flicks up through dark lashes, and his voice grows ruinously raw as his knuckles stroke my low belly. He drifts lower, until his palm cups me roughly between my thighs.
“But my heart will never completely heal if I can’t be with you.” Atyou, he thrusts aside the hem of my underwear and slides a finger into me.
I know what he wants to hear, and I say it from the depths of my every being.
“I’m yours, Riev.”
His cock against my hip twitches at my words. “That’s all I need to hear.”
He spins me around by the shoulders and bends me over the storage trunk by my feet, lowering me to my knees. He leaves my pants around my thighs, so that I can’t spread my legs as wide as I want, leaving me to squirm with need. But as he pushes in, he feels larger, thicker somehow.
He’s on one knee, his other foot planted beside me in a kneeling lunge so he can drive into me, leaving no spacebetween us.
With a hand splayed across my right breast, he grasps me to him. My hips rock back to his, hitching up to meet him. His cock slides in the rest of the way between my folds, hard and fast.
“I’m going to fuck you like I own you—,” he breathes into the back of my neck, nipping to find the most tender spot, perhaps judging by the volume of my whimpers. He bites me there, holding me in place, while his thumb teases a nipple. My body jerks as he holds tight, and I moan out his name, relishing the edge between hurt and ecstasy.
“—But we both know I belong toyou,” he growls between his teeth. “You burn through my veins like poison. Don’t ever stop.”
He sucks in a breath as I meet his movements, as he withdraws almost all the way before pushing back in. “I love you, Elphie.”
“I love you,” I pant out, breathless at how fast I am about to find release. I’m wet as hell and it seeps down my thighs as I come. “Riev!” I cry out for him, knowing exactly what I want, body and soul.
Him.
He’s what I want, and I’m not afraid to tell him, to show him, to be with him.
