Nova (The Renegades #2)

by Rebecca Yarros

  I don’t know how long we sat there, but the next thing I heard were the chants of the incoming Dani men. As they entered the hut, in ceremonial clothing and faces painted with bright colors, I lifted my head and reveled in the beauty of a different culture.

  “Amazing to think they’ve never met before,” Landon whispered as the women entered, their faces painted with the same bright colors. I knew from class that they only married outside their own villages, but that both parties had to consent before the matchmaker would agree to their union.

  I looped my arm through Landon’s and drew my knees tighter to my chest to give the men room to circulate. They chanted and sang what I knew were tribal songs about marriage, rotating between the women in their official ritual of courtship. Around and around they moved, the excitement palpable in the air as one by one, they sat next to the woman they intended to court.

  “Imagine that,” I whispered. “No dating, just finding your person and saying yes to the rest of your life.”

  Finally they were all seated, cross-legged, hands intertwined as they sang.

  “That’s a huge decision for a split-second meeting,” he noted.

  “Not as much for the men,” I added. “They can take more than one wife, but the women can’t.” I looked over and watched him as he studied the ceremony. “Would you want that? More than one wife?”

  He looked down at me, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I can barely keep up trying to chase you. So that’s a no.”

  Softly laughing, I looked back to the men and women who sat next to the person they would marry. The hope in their eyes was enough to overflow into me.

  “But I would have sat next to you,” Landon whispered into my ear. “I would have fought off any man who thought he was a better fit and paid whatever price your father demanded, and then some.”

  Chills raced over my skin, prickling and warming me all in the same breath.

  “No price would have been high enough, no challenge big enough. But I would have won.”

  “So sure of yourself?” I asked, just loud enough for him to hear me over the singing.

  “Yeah. I am. Because I know you would have fought for me, too.”

  My chest filled with the sweetest pressure, and I pushed it down, knowing exactly where it led—knowing that I wasn’t ready. “In an alternate timeline,” I said, remembering our earlier conversation.

  He tipped my chin up but didn’t kiss me, simply looked deeply into my eyes until I was sure that I would melt into his. “In every timeline.”

  I looked away when I couldn’t take it anymore, when the force of our connection threatened to override my common sense.

  His words stayed with me long after the ceremony, and I couldn’t help but realize that we’d sat there in the same position as the newly intendeds—arms intertwined, ankles crossed.

  In every timeline, indeed.

  “It’s like you’re twelve and back at Camp Sunnyville,” I muttered to myself as I walked down the path of bungalows our class had taken over for the night. Of course Camp Sunnyville hadn’t been in the middle of a rain forest or had its accompanying humidity.

  Between the ceremony and the hike back to our residence, it had to be at least midnight. If we were in the States, I would have texted Landon. Or Facebooked him. Hell, Twitter might have been an option.

  The minute my temporary roommate’s boyfriend showed up in our little thatched cabin, I got the hell out of there. No chance I wanted to hear whatever was going to happen on the other side of our room.

  I wasn’t even that close with Leah, nor did I ever want to be.

  With the full moon above me, all the bungalows looked the same. Crap. Which one was he in?

  “Rachel?”

  I spun in the darkness toward Hugo’s figure. “Hey. What are you doing out here?”

  “I could ask you the same.” He laughed.

  “I’m looking for Landon’s room. My roommate needed to put a sock on the door handle.”

  “Ah,” he said with a deep head nod. “I understand. I’d say that you’re welcome to come back to my room, but I have a feeling you’re not just looking for an escape.”

  “Yeah…” I sighed. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. You two have some weird magnetic pull that I’m not stupid enough to get between. I have a feeling whoever does gets crushed.”

  Like Wilder.

  “Yeah, we’re…us,” I said, failing to find a better word.

  He laughed. “You and Leah and those Renegades. I think he’s in the last one on the right. I remember him being alone, too.”

  “Thank you!”

  “Want me to walk you down?”

  “No worries, but thank you for offering.”

  “Okay, but I’ll wait here until you get inside.”

  With a wave, I was off. I tightened my hands on the straps of my day pack and walked the distance to Landon’s bungalow.

  As I walked up the steps, I turned to see Hugo watching, and I waved in thanks.

  A soft light shone from under the door, and I paused, my hand raised to knock. What was I doing here? Other than avoiding the sexcapade in my own room? Maybe I was looking for the same thing. I rested my forehead against the smooth wood of the doorframe and took a deep breath.

  I’d already let him get so close. Despite my best intentions, he was right there, close enough to my heart to break it again, and I was a breath away from surrendering everything to him. But Landon had always been about the chase, and that’s still where we were—he was still chasing me. What happened if he caught me?

  You won’t be so bright and shiny, and he’ll move on.

  The thought rocked me, because the more time I spent with him, the more I knew I didn’t want him to move on.

  But how much worse would it be in a few weeks? Months? Wasn’t it better to get the breaking done now, when I was only losing the possibility of Landon?

  Oh my God, how long was I going to stand out here debating?

  Don’t be a chicken.

  I knocked.

  “Come in,” Landon called out, and I sighed in relief. At least I wasn’t knocking on some stranger’s door in the middle of the night. Even worse, it could have been Dr. Messina.

  I opened the door and found him lounged on his double bed, mouthwateringly shirtless with a book perched in his hands.

  “Rachel?” He sat up fully, putting the book down next to him.

  “What are you reading?” I asked.

  “A Moveable Feast,” he answered. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. My roommate is currently getting some, which isn’t anything I wanted to be around for, and it was either Hugo’s room or yours. I chose yours.”

  “Good choice,” he said.

  “So, Hemingway? Is that on your reading list for Lit?” I dropped my bag and sat on the corner of the bed, since there was nowhere else to sit.

  “No,” he answered.

  That simple word told me that part of him—the book lover—hadn’t faded in time. “How is it?”

  “Good,” he answered. “Kind of makes me feel a little like a voyeur, though.”

  “Because he never meant to publish it?” I asked.

  Landon smiled. “Ah, the journalism major knows her Hemingway.”

  I shrugged.

  “God, I’ve missed you.”

  My eyes shot to his, and I held them there, refusing to look at the yards of inked skin that he had on display. One look at those swirls of color and I’d ache to trace them with my fingers—my tongue.

  “I have,” he reiterated. “Not just the sex—though it’s the best I’ve ever had—just being around you. Not feeling the pressure to live up to some hype.”

  “You weren’t as big of a deal when we first met,” I reminded him.

  He didn’t deny his current status or feign being humble. “I’d trade it all,” he said, ripping his hand over his hair with a self-deprecating laugh. “God, Rach. Lo
oking back, I would trade everything to have you in that apartment. I know I don’t get to complain, not after what I did, but it’s been so empty. Nothing filled the void you left. No amount of tricks or medals or mountains or girls touched it. If anything, it grew until I was one giant pit of empty.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Don’t say things like that.”

  “Like what? The truth?” I felt the bed move as he did.

  I covered my face with my hands. “Things that make me…feel things I’m not ready to.”

  “Okay,” he said softly as he pulled my hands from my face. “What are you ready to feel? Just tell me that.”

  He sat a breath away from me, his eyes luminous and so very green in the lamplight. My chest felt like it would explode or I was going to fly; one way or another, things were changing…but one thing had stayed the same.

  I hadn’t fallen for Landon—I’d never recovered, never unfallen, never gotten over him—and that spark in my heart told me there were much bigger words and emotions at play. Emotions that would crush me with their weight if I let him in and he repeated our past.

  “Rachel?” he asked softly.

  Without letting myself examine it too much, I moved, straddling him easily with one knee on either side of his hips. His eyes were wide, but I saw the barely leashed hunger there as I cupped the back of his neck.

  “You. I’m ready to feel you.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rachel

  Papua New Guinea

  I kissed him with a hunger I hadn’t known I was capable of. There was no sweet preamble or soft intro. No, there was tongue, heat, and the sweetest groan I’d ever heard out of him.

  “Rachel, baby,” he said against my mouth.

  “Touch me.”

  His hands ran up and down the back of my tank top, like he was relearning the line of my spine. Then he filled his hands with my ass and squeezed. “I am touching you.”

  My tongue traced the line of his ear. “I want more. Don’t make me beg.”

  Faster than I could blink, Landon spun us, moving so I was on my back in the middle of the bed. God, yes.

  I’d almost forgotten what he looked like above me, his hair falling rakishly near his eyes, the need in him palpable. “You’re beautiful,” I told him.

  He grinned. “Nothing compared to you.” He ran his finger across my collarbone. “This skin, so soft.” His hands traced the outsides of my breasts. “This body, so fucking perfect.”

  Both of his hands skimmed my curves until he cupped my face. “But this face…the stuff of dreams. I would know, since you’ve haunted mine.” His mouth crashed into mine, and I met him, kissing him back with everything I had.

  To think I’d almost never had this again.

  I was going to enjoy every second of him, because even as I lay there beneath him, I knew my allure would fade the moment he’d caught what he’d been so diligent in chasing. In that moment, I didn’t care. I was doing this for me, and if this was the only time I’d hold him, then I was going to relish it.

  He abandoned my mouth, raining kisses down my jaw to my neck, where he licked and sucked his way toward my collarbone. I moved restlessly beneath him, running my hands down the smooth, inked skin of his back.

  He looked up at me and reached for the bottom of my tank top.

  I nodded, and he took it off, slipping it over my head before throwing it somewhere. His breath left in a quiet hiss, and then he set his mouth to my stomach, kissing every curve and hollow with a soft nip or soothing stroke of his tongue.

  His hands ran up my back, and I arched to accommodate him so he could get his fingers to the strap of my bra. I nodded again when he wordlessly asked permission, and with a snap of his fingers, my bra disappeared.

  “Damn. You’re just as exquisite as I remembered,” he said as he carefully cupped both of my breasts. “You fill my hands exactly, like they were made only for holding you.”

  I looked down at the erotic contrast between my pale skin and the colorful tattoos that decorated his, and a wave of desire washed over me, warming me from head to toe.

  How had I almost forgotten the way my body called for him? I hadn’t been abstinent. I’d had two lovers since Landon, but neither of them made me feel this primal, screaming need. Only Landon.

  His lips replaced his hand, licking and finally drawing my nipple into his mouth. My back arched off the bed as every nerve begged for more. Pleasure swept over me at the feel of his tongue, the caresses of his fingers, the scratchy material of his shorts on my freshly shaved thighs. Even his weight on top of me was inflaming me.

  I wanted to flip him over, to run my mouth along the carved lines of his chest, to worship him as I’d dreamed for an embarrassingly long time now. But I could do that later. For now, I’d let him do whatever he wanted to with me.

  He knew I loved everything he did.

  I whimpered when he ran his tongue over my nipple, the feeling good, but I needed so much more. Every wave of desire he brought was washing over me, crashing and pooling right between my thighs. “Landon,” I pleaded.

  “What do you need?” he asked as one hand stroked the skin of my stomach to the button of my shorts. “Here?”

  “Yes,” I said when he flicked open the button.

  “This?” He unzipped the fly.

  “Yes,” I said through a gasp of breath as he rolled my nipple with his other hand.

  “What about here?” he asked as he braced his weight and slid his hand into my shorts, running his finger along the edge of my panties.

  “Yes!” I cried, my hips rocking up.

  His breath caught, and I looked into his eyes. If I wasn’t already aching for him, the open, ravenous look of need on his face would have gotten me there. As it was, the way he ran his tongue over his lower lip had me squirming.

  Eyes still locked, his fingers finally slipped under the silk fabric and found my center. He groaned at the same time I did.

  “Fuck…Rachel. You’re…God, you’re so wet.”

  My hips bucked as he swirled his fingers over my clit. Sparks raced through me, pleasure spinning my senses until there was only Landon above me, his fingers on me…inside me.

  “Take them off,” I ordered. I needed him—needed to feel him inside me, filling the emptiness that no one else could.

  His jaw locked, like he was steeling himself. For what? And did…? Yeah, his hands shook as he drew both my shorts and my underwear down my legs. Seeing him so lost for me only revved me up another notch, until my body was humming, need coiling in my stomach.

  He closed his eyes for a second, and two deep breaths later, he opened them, looking over me like I was everything he needed—like I was the ridgeline he was desperate to ride, the trick he’d spent every minute prepping for.

  In one simple look, he made me feel like I was beautiful, precious, and so very desired.

  He rose over me and then kissed me, his movements leisurely. He only pulled back when his hand stroked down my body, watching my every expression as he returned to my core.

  Then his fingers… Oh. My. God. His fingers found me.

  “Yes,” I whimpered. “Landon!”

  He pressed kisses to my jaw, my cheeks, my lips as he stroked me, pressing and swirling in rhythm. My hips rose for his touch, and my hands threaded through his hair to hold his mouth to mine.

  My breaths stuttered, gasping as my heart pounded. He groaned as he sank one finger inside me. “So. Fucking. Perfect.”

  The pressure in my belly wound tighter and tighter as he worked me over, using his fingers to stroke just right inside me as he rubbed over my clit with his thumb. He played me like an instrument, knowing every note he could wring from me, exactly how I liked it.

  “I can’t wait to taste you again,” he said against my lips, and I began to quiver. “Not this time, because I’m saving it. But soon. I can’t wait to feel you shuddering around me, coming apart under my tongue.”

  His words pushed me over the ed
ge and I flew, the tension within me bursting into radiant stars with an intense orgasm. He covered my mouth with his when I screamed his name, then kissed me back down until I was shuddering with aftershocks beneath him.

  “That was…I don’t…there’s no words.” I couldn’t even string a sentence together as I floated inside my own body.

  I ran my hands down his torso toward where he strained against the material of his shorts, and he caught my hand. “God, no.”

  “What?” I asked, not understanding.

  “That’s it. Only you.” His voice was strained, his breathing labored with mine.

  “You want me,” I said defensively, feeling the sting of rejection.

  “More than I want to breathe right now. Yes. I’m dying to bury myself inside you.”

  “Then why?” I asked, wrapping one of my legs over his hips.

  He groaned, his hand running along the curve of my thigh. “Do you love me?”

  “What?” I dropped my leg and sat up, scurrying back until I reached his headboard and drawing my knees to my chest. He did not just say that.

  “Do. You. Love. Me?”

  “Why? What does any of that matter?”

  “It matters.” He sat back on his heels, the delicious lines of his abs tightening with each breath as his erection distorted his shorts in a way that firmly disagreed with what he was saying.

  “What? It never matters to you. Why should it now?” He would sleep with every girl he came into contact with but me? What the hell was this?

  He closed his eyes as his jaw flexed—the classic Landon getting his shit under control look. His eyes were just as fierce when he opened them. “You’re it for me, Rachel. You are the only woman who matters to me. No one mattered before you, and no one has mattered since. Only you.”

  “But you won’t sleep with me.” God, I wanted to believe him. But he’d said it all before, and that hadn’t exactly gone well for me.

  He shook his head. “No. Because I want to make love to you, not sleep with you. I want to look into your eyes and tell you that I love you with my words, not just my body.”

  The orgasm had made me boneless, but his words melted me. “Landon…”

  “You can’t say them yet. I’m okay with that. I’m okay with waiting, because the first time I slide inside you, you’ll love me. You’ll know that I’m not going anywhere, that you’re my choice and my first priority. And until you know that, I’m not doing this, no matter how badly I want to.”