by Jack Whitney
The knot in her stomach didn’t waver as she followed him back to camp.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
HER EYES DANCED with his above the firelight the rest of the afternoon and into the night. Each time she would look up from her laughter with the Venari people around her, she would meet the fire in his eyes as he spoke with people across the clearing, hands stuffed in his pockets, shoulders rounded always in her direction. Her cheeks hurt from laughing with the Venari race since darkness had approached, hearing stories of their own inner squabbles, of their dealings with the traders, their weekly food fights they liked to get in.
She watched Draven retire himself after a while, going so high up to the roof above his home that she could not see him. It wasn’t too long after that she found her nerve, and she rose from the ground, hugging the blanket around her shoulders as she walked past Lex’s figure snuggled up with a few Venari and Honest women. Lex raised her cup to Aydra and gave her a wink upon her passing. Aydra resisted the urge to kick Lex as she stepped over her to the steps of Draven’s home.
Draven was leaned against the banister when she finally made it up the grand winding staircase to the roof. His figure was illuminated in the moons’ light, hands pressed into the railing overlooking the whole of the forest below him. She paused at the top to take in the scene.
Moons light danced off the darkening leaves on the trees. There were only two more Dead Moons cycles left in the year, and she knew after the last that the leaves would be gone, and a frost would take the bare forest over, if only for a short period of time.
The only tree taller than the one they stood in was Duarb’s great tree to the south.
She hugged her arms around her body at the slight wind breezing through the treetops.
“Did you get lost?” she heard him ask without turning around.
She crossed the space between them and stood at his side, gazing down at the scene below them as he was. “It’s beautiful up here,” she said, admiring the stars above her.
He didn’t say anything, and she felt her brows narrow at his silent figure.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
“Why did you come here?” he asked suddenly, turning to face her. “I mean… why come help me after blatantly ignoring me the last time I went to Magnice?”
Her brows narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You acted as though I didn’t exist, as though—”
“I was being followed,” she interjected. “Belwarks watching my every move. The last thing I wanted was for them to go back and tell my brother anything that would have inevitably brought harm to you. I needed to make sure to give the illusion of our usual aversion towards one another. Anything different would have been flagged.”
“Our usual aversion towards one another usually includes at least the common decency of acknowledgement,” he argued.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me why you came here. The truth,” he demanded.
“I told you I would come when there was another ship. I told you I would be here. I don’t give my word lightly,” she answered haughtily. “Is that not enough?”
Something flickered in his eyes that she didn’t recognize.
“Is that truly is the only reason you are here?”
Her heart began to throb in her chest. “What do you want me to say, Draven?” she managed breathlessly. “Do you want me to say I am here because I cannot stop thinking about you?—”
His eyes snapped forward to hers. She should have stopped talking, but the words came vomiting from her mouth quicker than she could stop them.
“—That I am here because having to ignore you in the hallways and act as though you are still my enemy King was tearing a hole through my being? That as fearful as I was about there being another boat on our shores, the thought of getting to see you again in a realm where I could freely be myself filled my core with a joy that I hardly understand?”
His brows raised, and she hated herself for admitting everything she’d just said.
“Because I won’t,” she added quickly. Her chest was heaving at this point, and she shook her head. “I won’t say it. I will not allow you to look upon me with that stupid glint of satisfaction that—”
The rising smirk on his face made her fists curl, her teeth set. She wanted to slap the look off his face as much as she wanted him to fuck her into oblivion.
She pointed a finger at him and stepped back. “—that! That look there.”
He bit his lips together, amusement dancing in his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said in a sultry growl that made her knees limp.
She pointed a finger at him again. “No. Draven. I came here to help you with the ships. Nothing more.”
He paused before her, and his eyes squinted down at her. “So leave,” he shrugged. “Leave if that’s all you came here for. Your horse is ready. Your bags are packed. Go back to Magnice.”
A huff of an exhale left her.
“Maybe I will,” she managed.
He stared at her a moment, and she stood her ground in front of him, fighting the pull towards him that her core begged for.
“So go,” he said with a nod towards the stairs.
“I will,” she managed.
His arms crossed over his chest. “You’re still here.”
“Oh, I’m going,” she warned.
“Okay,” he said nonchalantly with another shrug.
She pushed past him then, knocking into his shoulder. “Goodbye, Draven.”
“Have a safe trip back,” he called after her.
She paused at the steps and looked back at him. He wasn’t watching her any longer. Instead he’d turned to face the moons. She stared at him, expecting him to turn and tell her not to leave.
But he never did.
“That’s it?” she called out.
He turned and leaned his hips against the banister, arms crossing over his chest, but he didn’t speak.
She balked at his quiet figure. “Have a safe trip back?” she repeated. “That’s all you have to say to me?”
He shrugged again. “You said you didn’t come here for anything else except the ships. I shouldn’t like to make assumptions about the Sun Queen’s intentions for traveling.”
“Assumptions…” she almost laughed at the word. “This is a game to you, isn’t it?”
“No games,” he replied.
She felt herself stepping towards him, annoyed to her bones with his frustrating antics. “You think you’re so irresistible. So powerful. You, with your perfect hair, your strong arms, your stupidly handsome face—”
His brows raised. “Handsome?” he repeated, hands shoved in his pockets as he slowly, yet deliberately, began crossing the space between them.
“Oh, shut up,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
A quirk of a smile rose on his lips at her frustrated figure, long hair falling over his eyes. He paused in front of her and pushed his hair back and over to one side before looking her over once more.
“I thought you were leaving,” he said softly.
Her heart throbbed in her ears at the feeling of his warm body so close to hers. “Why don’t you shut up and kiss me instead.”
His brows raised. She could feel her breaths shortening as he paused a moment, apparent that he was working out whether she was serious or not. But a moment later, when his hands gently wrapped behind her throat, thumb stroking her jawline, her knees liquified. The tickle of his fingertips made her eyes flutter, the heat of his skin against her own cause her a deliberate tingle from his touch down her neck and over her shoulders. She could feel the sweet of his breath on her open mouth as he leaned down. And then, he pressed his lips to hers.
Curses of Duarb, she’d missed him.
Every pore of her being surrendered to his embrace. She grasped his shirt in her hands to steady her balance, relishing the warming feeling of his lips once more on hers. Nothing had compared to the flut
tering of her heart in her chest, the heat radiating from her chest to her stomach, and between her legs just from his kiss.
He pulled back but a few seconds later, and she felt herself waiver on the spot in his absence. His callused fingertips tickled the back of her neck, and she looked up to meet his gaze.
“Like that?” he whispered.
The amused glint had left his eyes, leaving behind a dark smolder that made the hair on her arms raise.
“Like that,” she breathed. “But everywhere.”
She grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him down to her, her lips capturing his so quickly that he grabbed her waist to stay on balance. Kissing him made her mind blank of everything. She felt as though she were in a hidden shadow dimension. As if the realm around them didn’t exist. She groaned into his mouth as she felt his hands grasp her hips, his already hardening length pressing into her lower abdomen. His mouth moved to her throat, and she heard herself curse at the nip of his teeth on her, the ferocity in which he clinched her waist and backside in his fingers.
She tugged at the bottom of his shirt, and he allowed her lift it over his head. It fell to the ground, and he paused a moment, entwining her fingers with his as gloves that fit he and only he at their sides as the swell of a genuine smile rose on his lips. Not snarky. Not arrogant. Not mocking.
But a real smile that made her heart flutter.
She felt her own smile rise on her mouth, and with it she pressed her lips against his, softly this time, savoring his strength around her, memorizing the callus of his fingers as they trailed her sides. He fumbled with the strings on the back of her dress, and then she pushed her arms out of it, allowing it to fall to the ground at her feet.
He paused again and swallowed hard as he stared at her.
“What?” she asked.
He stepped forward and cupped her neck gently in his hand again. “I didn’t get to see you last time,” he whispered. “Even your face… the darkness of the Berdijay…” His voice trailed, and she realized the Berdijay’s fog had not lifted completely in the forest.
He’d been as blind as her.
The tips of his fingers trickled down her throat, over her shoulders, and against her sides, causing a shiver to rise on her skin when his thumb flicked her nipple and then caressed her ribs. Her breath caught, and she found herself doing the same, allowing her own hands the liberty to finger the hair on his pectorals and down his taut abdomen to the V at his hips. She could see his length hardened beneath the fabric. But just as she reached for him, he grasped her hips in his hands, squeezing the jiggle of her flesh in his long fingers. His head bent low into the crook of her neck as he continued to massage her skin, and then pulled her up off the ground.
Her legs instinctively wrapped around his waist. She felt herself laugh, and she kissed him again, feeling his smiling lips against hers. Her bare body pressed into his. She could have simply stayed there in his arms, pressed against him, kissing him, the rest of the night, and been incandescently happy with it.
But he laid her down on the bed, his mouth tugging and kissing her throat, and she felt her eyes roll into the back of her head as the wind brushed over the wet on her skin that his mouth left behind. Her thighs bucked at the feeling of his fingers raking the inside of her leg, and when his finger traced her folds, her breaths hitched. His mouth was on her breast, and she threaded her hand in his hair, the other gripping the bedsheets as he barely tickled her clit. Her entire body shuddered into the mattress upon his fingertip pushing inside her, and she couldn’t help the moans escaping her throat.
His mouth removed from her flesh, and her eyes opened to see him standing over her at the end of the bed, his finger still slowly moving in and out of her, and his other hand stroking his own elongated length. She sat up and pulled his hand off his cock, only to replace it with her lips.
A great exhale and, “Fuck, Aydra,” left his throat. She pulled back just enough to look up at him as her tongue swirled his tip. Just as her fingertips touched him, and she raked his length with her tongue, he gasped hold of her hands. Her eyes narrowed up at him, but she didn’t pull her mouth from him, continuing to keep his gaze locked with hers as she sucked on his tip. Watching his chest still with his breath, and then cave with a deliberate exhale made her suck him deeper into her throat. He let go her hand, his fingers reaching for her chin, and he pulled her off of him with a weighed swallow.
His thumb brushed her bottom lip, and she wrapped her mouth around it. His eyes fluttered. A low groan escaped him, and he grasped her arms in his hands, tugging her up onto her knees so that she was level with him. He was still holding onto her wrists when she leaned closer to him, her nose brushing his. She started to reach for him again, but his hands tightened around her.
“I want to touch you,” she whispered against his lips.
He swallowed hard, leaning forward to bite her lip, and then he placed her arms around the back of his neck. “You’ll have me undone before I can see you,” he breathed in her ear.
“Would that be so bad?” she managed in a pleading tone.
His fingertips began to trickle down her arms slowly, to her underarms, to her ribs, down her sides. And then, he grasped her hips with such ferocity that she gasped.
“Later.”
His breath licked at her flesh, and the chill that ran down her spine made her muscles weak.
“Tease,” she muttered against his lips.
The sly smile he met her with made her mouth dry. She couldn’t hold herself from kissing him any longer, and her lips slammed into his, passion spreading from her core to his. His fingers grasping at her hips and butt made her moan into his mouth. She loved how he grabbed her flesh as though it were saving him from falling off the edge of a cliff. His arms wrapped around her body, torsos flush together as they made out, making up for the time they’d missed these last months trying to deny the fire between them.
His length was so close to her wetness that she only had to open her legs to feel it brush against her. He groaned into her mouth as she moved her hips back and forth atop him, feeling herself shake at the thought of it inside her. She pulled back just enough to whisper, “I want you inside me,” against his lips, to which he nudged her nose with his in response.
“Say it again.”
Her hips bucked against his length, and she started to move her hand between them, but he grabbed her wrist and placed her hand around his neck again.
“Draven…” she felt herself bite her lip as he hooked his arm around her waist, grasping her butt cheek in his fingers, his other hand curling beneath her bent knee and pulling it up off the bed around his waist. “I want to feel you inside me,” she managed again.
“Soon.”
She wanted to hit him.
But the moment the words left his lips, he pushed her backwards onto the bed. Her hair fell over her face. For a brief second, she couldn’t see him.
And then she gasped at the sudden feeling of his tongue against her clit.
“Fuck, Draven—” Her entire body melted into the mattress, mouth agape with ecstasy as she surrendered to the suck of his mouth, the flitter of his tongue, her back arching into the air. Her legs were over his shoulders, his hands once more grasping at her hips. She managed to look down, and her eyes met his through strangles of his hair. The intensity of his gaze nearly sent her over the edge. His tongue flicked her clit quickly, followed by a deliberate tease, alternating between the two and sucking at her wetness as her head hit the mattress again. Her lip was almost bleeding at the strength in which she bit at it, and as she felt her body reaching and reaching, her hands gripped white at the sheets. She tried denying her release, enjoying him between her legs far too much to let herself go.
But her high-pitched moans and strain of her muscles were no match for his tease. And she came apart on his lips with a full shudder of her body and cry of pleasure that she was sure woke every person in the forest.
He didn’t stop. Her legs were s
haking, thighs squeezing, the sensitivity of herself radiating through her core as he continued to suck on her clit. She made herself sit up and she grabbed his hair, only to reveal the ravenous Venari grin that made her heart skip. He rose from his knees, and she pulled his face to hers, kissing him hard and tasting herself on his lips. His arm around her waist tightened, and she managed to take his length in her hand this time before he could push her away.
“Inside me,” she growled against his lips. “Now.”
His hands grasped her hips and he pulled her off the bed onto his waist. “Yes, my Queen.”
Just as swiftly as he pulled her onto his waist, her back hit the mattress, and his thick length filled her. And audible gasp left her lips, and her thighs squeezed around his waist. They both paused a moment, allowing the familiar moment to wash between them just as it had the first time—the warm chill, the raising hair, the arrested breath in their throats. His groan filled her ear, and she felt visible goosebumps rise beneath her fingers on his arms. Her legs clenched around him, and then he began to thrust in and out of her, his breath tickling her neck. Her fingers curled in his hair, and with every move, she felt herself once more coming to her end. Her vision blanked, eyes rolling into the back of her head, and her entire body tensed. Air couldn’t penetrate her lungs. And then—
Their cries filled the still forest air.
The explosion of it made her core shake. Her breath barely returned as he stilled atop her and then collapsed onto the bed at her side. The stars above them danced in her spotty vision. She couldn’t move, body exhausted from the pleasure of simply him. She closed her eyes for a moment to let it wash through her, calm her heartbeat.
After a few minutes, she felt the bed move, and she opened her eyes. Draven was stood from her side, and she watched him go to the table on which his pipe was sat. She turned over on her side, head resting in her hand as she watched him pack it with Blackened herb of his own garden. Her heart swelled as she stared at him, rippled back and taut bare cheeks illuminated in the moonslight above them.
