Page 94 of The Traitor Queen (The Bridge Kingdom 2)

“You can barely stand.”

“Please,” she choked out. “I know I have no right to ask anything from you, but please don’t take away my chance to see this through. I have to make him pay. I have to force him out of Ithicana. I have to. If I don’t—”

Aren’s fingers flexed slightly where they gripped her, as if he knew what she’d left unsaid. He understood her like no one else ever had. “We’re not going anywhere until morning,” he finally answered. “We’ll see how you are then.”

Exhaling a shuddering breath, Lara nodded into his chest, waiting for him to step away from her and go back to the others. But Aren didn’t drop his hands. Didn’t turn his back on her. Instead he pulled her closer, his fingers sliding under the hem of her ruined camisole, stroking the small of her back.

Lara’s heart accelerated, the fog of blood loss and exhaustion receding, her focus sharpening as her breasts pressed against him. Her hips. She slid her arms around his neck, his hair brushing against her bare forearms and sending a shiver through her body even as fear reared its head. Fear that this was a trick or a delusion, and that if she moved, she’d shatter the dream and he’d be gone.

But she refused to allow fear to rule her, and so Lara looked up.

Aren’s eyes were closed, but she could see the rapid flutter of the pulse in his throat. Could feel the raggedness of his breath against her cheek as he lowered his face, one hand sliding up her body to tangle in her hair.

His lips a hair’s breadth from hers, he whispered, “Awake or asleep, all I see is your face. All I hear is your voice. All I feel is you in my arms. All I want isyou.”

Lara was trembling. Or he was. She couldn’t tell. Not when it seemed the world was tilting, her body aching in a way that had nothing to do with the injury to her leg. “Aren—”

His lips silenced her, mouth closing over hers with a fierceness that made her knees buckle, only his arm around her waist keeping her upright as his tongue chased over hers, tearing a gasp from her throat. She clung to his neck as he devoured her, teeth scraping over her jaw, catching the lobe of her ear, biting at her throat.

In one swift motion, he pulled her camisole over her head and tossed it aside, his hands encircling her ribs, then rising to cup her breasts. He pushed her back against the table, eyes dark with desire as they raked over her nearly naked body.

Lara gripped the table for balance, watching as he tugged his tunic over his head, revealing the tanned skin and hard lines of his chest, his body somehow more perfect for the scars that marked it.

He unbuckled his belt, the weight of the weapons hanging from it pulling his trousers low. Dragging them down to reveal paler skin, then hipbones, thenallof him, and the sight nearly undid her.

Lara started to slide to her knees, but he caught her by the hips, his thumbs hooking the waist of her undergarments, easing them over her bandage. He knelt, kissing her navel as his hands chased back up her legs, fingers teasing her thighs apart.

“You’re perfect,” he growled, and she could feel the heat of his breath against the slick wetness of her sex, dragging a whimper of anticipation from her lips as he spread her wide, fingers sliding inside her even as he lowered his face to consume her.

Lara sobbed as pleasure stole over her, need that had long been denied building in her core as his tongue teased over her sensitive flesh, his fingers stroking deeper, her body turning liquid beneath his touch. She ground against him, her fingers caught in his hair, the world spinning faster and faster until she was on the brink, and then in one swift motion, Aren was back on his feet.

“Not yet,” he murmured, bending to kiss one of her breasts, his mouth hot as he sucked one nipple, then the other, her body shaking as his teeth scraped over them.

She wrapped one arm around his neck, kissing him. With the other, she caught hold of his cock, smiling as he groaned against her lips, his muscles flexing as she took hold of his length. She stroked it from tip to stem, stoking his desire as she pulled him toward the edge of breaking. Then she breathed into his ear, “I need you in me.”

He turned her, his mouth tracing lines of fire down her neck, nipping at her shoulder. His fingers interlaced with hers as he bent her over the table, neither of them caring as their hands slid through the mess of blood, knocking her weapons to the floor with a clatter.

“There is no one in the world like you.” His chest pressed against her back, and she could feel the thud of his heart. Could feel his cock between her thighs, turning her body to fire as she pushed back against him, needing him to fill her. Needing him to finish her. “You are my goddamned damnation, but there will never be anyone but you.”

Then he drove into her.

A scream of pleasure ripped from Lara’s throat as he thrust into her, over and over, the feel of him in her somehow both familiar and new, the sensation driving her to madness. Her shoulders shuddered, elbows giving way beneath his strength, the only thing keeping her from collapsing his arm around her torso, the other braced against the tabletop.

There was a wildness to it. A desperation, as if they’d both been deprived too long of water and needed to drink. Lara screamed as her pleasure built, then climaxed, every ounce of strength left in her used up by the intensity, even as it pulled Aren over the edge. He slammed into her, gasping her name, both of them collapsing against the table.

Spent past the point of endurance, Lara barely felt him as he lifted her and carried her to the bed. His arms wrapped around her as she slipped into oblivion.

* * *

When she woke hours later,she found herself curled around him, her face pressed against his chest, the steadythud thudof his heart beating in her ear. She inhaled, the familiar scent of him filling her nose, his hand pressed against the small of her back. It was the place she was meant to be—the place she hadn’t dared hope to ever find herself in again. Yet instead of contentment, a sense of trepidation crawled through her veins.

Aren was awake; she could tell from the sound of his breathing. And yet he was entirely still, his hand stiff against her back rather than moving with the gentle strokes and caresses she was used to waking to.

Something wasn’t right.

She lifted her face. Aren was staring at the ceiling, his expression barely visible from the light of the lantern across the room. But at her motion, he shifted, easing out from under her and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

“Where are you going?” Her voice rasped and she coughed to clear her throat.

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