He grimaced, as if he’d just been kicked in the honeypots, but said, “The bunker is yours. If you want them here, they are welcome.”
She’d offered the bunker to Nola, and Nola alone, but her sister had refused to part with the guys. “Let’s be real. You can’t play nice with the other kids on the playground. And that’s okay. I trust Bane with Nola’s life, but not ours. While I do trust Zion, I could change my mind.” Better safe than sorry. “You once mentioned a backup crib.”
His eyes brightened. “Yes. Erik didn’t find it. I doubt anyone did. Shadows are stationed there.” He rushed to the table, swiped up a map and brought it to show her. “It’s here, under a temple.”
A temple that was hidden in the jungles of Guatemala, and probably in ruins. Mayan? Maybe visited by tourists, and oh, wow, Knox smelled good. Growing dizzy with desire, she hastened on. “I’m meeting with the group in about an hour.”
The map floated to the floor as he studied her face. Those crystalline irises projected reverence, hope and a passion so vibrant its glow would shine inside her for years to come.
In a gravelly voice, he said, “What should we do while we wait?”
Easy. “Each other.” Why fight her attraction to him? What good would it do? “I’m not saying everything’s perfect between us, but I want you. That hasn’t changed.”
She reached out. With a flick of her wrist, she removed his towel. Suddenly he was gloriously bare, all that muscle-cut bronzed skin on display.
He’d been irresistible before. Despite everything that had happened—heck, because of everything that had happened—he was necessary now.
“The hunger in your eyes humbles me.” He traced her lips with a single fingertip.
“These markings,” she said. The tattoos she longed to trace with her tongue. “They’re like scars. A testament to everything you’ve overcome—everything you will overcome.”
He trembled beneath her gaze.
She peered at his erection. How could she not? It was pointing directly at her, the tip glistening with moisture, just the way she liked.
“See what you do to me.” He gripped the base and stroked up, and her inner walls clenched. “This is for you, valina. Only, ever, for you.”
“Then give it to me. I want it.”
He exuded male satisfaction as he shucked off her shirt. When he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra, he groaned, as if in pain, then ripped at the waist of her pants.
The second she was naked, except for the gorgeous necklace she never wanted to take off, he wiped a hand over his mouth.
“I will never tire of looking at you, valina.”
And she would never tire of the way he looked at her, as if she were a miracle come to startling life. The object of his fascination and obsession. That look did something to her, acting as a soothing balm, beginning to heal the hurt in her heart. Combined with his willingness to give a safe house to an enemy, just because she’d asked...yeah, she was a goner.
With a curse, he crashed his lips into hers, plunged his tongue into her mouth, and demanded total surrender.
She gave it, feeding his passion with her own.
The kiss was wild right from the start, untamed and unstoppable, a prelude to every delicious thing to come. Helpless to do otherwise, she clung to him.
There had been times he’d made her blood seem like a fine wine or smooth single malt. Today it was hard liquor, one hundred proof, and she got drunk fast.
Her knees weakened. He held on tight and leaned forward, urging her onto the mattress as the pheromone enveloped them in a rapturous haze. There was no stopping it. But it didn’t change the tone of the kiss—the sizzling chemistry between her and Knox was all their own.
His muscular weight settled over her, pinning her. The width of his hips forced her legs to spread and make a place for him. Naked flesh met naked flesh. Heat met heat, male met female. She sank her nails into his tree of life tattoo, leaving her mark.
He ground his erection against her slick femininity, which only made her greedy for more. As his big, calloused hands alternated between kneading her breasts, strumming her nipples and stroking her stomach and inner thighs, she licked the bands around his neck, just as she’d fantasized.
He stiffened. When she purred her approval, he relaxed, angling his head to give her better access.
“You want to come?” he demanded.
To silence a plea, she bit the cord that ran along his shoulder. The words escaped, anyway. “Pleeeease, Knox. Yes. Get inside me. Let me come.”
“What do you want inside you?” He slid a finger into her aching core. “This?”
Her thoughts were fragmenting. Dizzy with need, too much, not enough. “Need this...” When she wrapped her fingers around the base of his shaft and attempted to draw toward her entrance, he shifted his hips, denying her.
“Ah, ah, ah.” He tsk-tsked. “I’m showing you how much I love you. A process that takes time and attention.”
He’d become a hedonist, torturer, and everything she’d ever desired. Slowly, almost lazily, he sucked on her nipples, then tongued her navel, her body his personal playground of sensual delights.
The heat...the pressure... Streams of pleasure drove her to the brink again and again, and yet the diabolical man somehow circumvented her climax every time.
He slid his finger out of her to circle the heart of her need.
“Knox!” Need screamed inside her.
“Do you want me to finger you deeper, sweet valina?”
“Yes, yes! Deeper.” Eager, she spread her legs wider, expecting him to give it to her, plus interest. He would stretch and prepare her for penetration but...
He drew tantalizing circles around her clitoris, again and again, never quite making contact. She shifted her position, trying to lead him where she wanted him, but he merely shifted with her.
Circle, circle.
Breathless with longing, she praised him. She cursed him. She begged and bargained. She commanded. Through it all, he remained steadfast in his determination—but he did not remain unaffected. Sweat trickled from his temples, tremors rocked him and his inhalations shallowed.
He kissed her jaw...ran her earlobe between his teeth. “I was born and bred to kill. You were born into this war and given the ability to seduce. Physically, I am stronger, but it is you who wields the power. You bring me to my knees.”
Circle, circle. “Knox. Please.”
“I plan to strip you of sanity, love. I want my devotion to you branded inside and out. Want every part of you to crave every part of me.”
She beat at his shoulders, crying, “Every part of me craves you, I swear. And I know you love me. I do. Now get inside me!”
“But do you know how much I love you?” He flicked his tongue against the pulse that tripped at the base of her neck and finally, wildly, wantonly thrust two fingers into her feminine sheath.
“Knox!” She arched her hips, chasing those fingers as he drew them out. “Make me come.”
“Do you know how much I love you?” he repeated. Another inward thrust. Another hated exit. In. Out.
Need became madness, pleasure soon tinged with pain. A girl had to give as good as she got. Vale reached between their bodies, and this time he couldn’t move away fast enough—or maybe he hadn’t tried. She squeezed his erection, earning a groan from him, and said, “If this is my measuring stick, then you want me more than anything.”
“That’s right. More than anything.”
She stroked him. Then she let go. Cruel to be kind.
He lifted his head to meet her gaze, and if she’d been standing, her knees would have buckled. His irises were alive with longing, burning, burning, no longer cold, calculating pits of malevolence. She saw every ounce of love he professed to have for her, adoration and affection, too. Everything she’d ever wanted to see
from a man.
Beneath it, she saw regret for the way he’d treated her, determination and lust, so much lust.
This warrior would die for her without a moment’s hesitation. He wouldn’t leave her again, she knew it, felt it. The knowledge cauterized the last vestiges of hurt in her heart.
Vale flattened her hands on the muscle and sinew decorating his chest. Pushing him back, rising to straddle his waist, she said, “All right, baby. It’s my turn to show you just how much I love you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
PRIMAL NEED HAD reduced Knox to his most animalistic self. Arousal heated his skin, hotter and hotter. Vale’s slick core pressed against his shaft, drenching every inch, daring him to thrust inside.
He’d never experienced anything like this, an all-consuming need to possess and be possessed, to own and be owned, to surrender everything but take everything, too.
His ferocity on the battlefield couldn’t compare to his ferocity here, in this bed, with this woman. His woman. He planned to spend the rest of his life—however long or short—attending to her every whim.
Then her words registered, and he lost the ability to breathe. She loved him?
“Tell me again, valina.”
“I love you, Knox. Your strength and courage are without equal. No one has ever protected me the way you do. And the way you make me feel...as if I’m something special, and you can’t live without me... I’ll never get enough.”
“You are. I can’t,” he said, framing her radiant face with his hands. “You are everything I ever wanted, everything I ever needed. A prize among prizes. The greatest treasure in this realm or any other.”
She was poised above him, the length of her bicolored hair streaming over the pillow, her features soft and her nipples hard, the necklace glittering around her neck. Need for her strengthened him in ways he’d never expected.
Having loved ones wasn’t a liability, he decided, but a privilege. This exquisite woman had given him a reason to fight. Not just to live, but for a better life.
Love conquers all, she’d said. And she was right. Love was a far more stalwart motivator than hate.
“I had no cause to laugh. Until you,” he said. “I didn’t look forward to anything but the possibility of freedom. Until you. I never experienced true pleasure. Until you. My life begins and ends with you.”
The smile she gifted to him would fuel a thousand fantasies. “As my life begins and ends with you. You are mine, my man, and I’m never letting you go.”
Knox marveled. She did love him. Despite the past and the complications, this brave, beautiful woman loved him. “We’ll find a way to overcome. Nothing will separate us again.”
“Nothing,” she agreed.
{Protect her, no matter the cost.}
The command surprised him. The eyaer understood now. He’d had nothing until she’d become his everything. With her happiness, he’d found his own, her life the reason he woke in the morning, and dreamed at night.
“I love you, so much. There’s no one more beautiful. No one smarter, wilier...” He traced a fingertip down, down, between her breasts, along the flat plane of her stomach, then circled the little bundle of nerves between her legs with more force, making her cry out.
Her eyelids fluttered as he brought the finger to his mouth and licked away her wetness.
“There’s no one more delicious,” he said.
Moaning, she leaned down to claim his mouth in a searing kiss. Her breasts smashed into his chest, her nipples hard little points that rubbed against him, sparking friction between their bodies.
Lost in her and hoping never to be found, he met each thrust of her tongue with one of his own. He made promises with that kiss. An eternity of love and dedication. To find a way to be together forever. His life given for hers, if necessary.
He wound his arms around her, one draping her nape, the other resting on her lower back, both holding on to the most precious part of his heart. Tongues dueling. Moans rising. She rolled her hips, moving her feminine heat over his erection.
He nearly came apart at the seams. “Again, valina.”
She understood. “I love you, Knox.”
As a reward, he delved his hand between the beautiful globes of her ass, angled his wrist to find her feminine sheath—the center of his world—and thrust three fingers deep inside her. Scalding hot, soaking wet, tight as a glove. He moved those fingers in and out, in and out, propelling her toward the brink.
“Yes,” she cried. “Yes, yes, yes.”
Mimicking sex, still thrusting those fingers in and out of her, he planted his feet on the bed and lifted his hips to grind his erection into her clitoris. Her next cry broke at the edges, and her inner walls quivered.
She would have climaxed if he hadn’t withdrawn his fingers. Somehow found the strength to croak, “Not yet, love.”
“Knox!” She nipped at his bottom lip. “Put those fingers back inside me right this second or pay the price!”
He maneuvered her to her back and loomed over her. “Going to give you something else to come upon. Something bigger, harder.”
“Yes.” She nodded, eager, and wrapped her legs around his waist. “That. Give me that.”
“But since you complained...” He slid a single finger inside her, bent his head and sucked her nipples with enough force to leave a mark.
Teasing her was both a delight and a torment.
Her head thrashed. “How about this,” she said between gasping breaths. “You give me what I want, what I need, and I won’t kill you.”
“You need it, then? You’re desperate for it?” For me. He gripped the base of his erection and dipped the plump head into her tightness. “Like this?”
“Yes!” Her back arched, and she tossed her arms overhead to grip a vine. “More.”
“How much more?”
“All of it, baby,” she said, her voice thicker, throatier than ever before. “Please.”
Baby again. An endearment. She was the first to ever use one with him.
Just like that, his iron control snapped.
“Yes. I will give it to you. All of it.” Frantic, Knox thrust his hips and plunged deep into his woman, filling her, giving her every throbbing inch of his shaft.
She screamed. He roared, the pleasure almost too much. He willed himself to last. This would not end until she’d come apart in his arms.
Gritting his teeth, he moved in her, sliding out, then in. Ah! Had anything ever felt so right? Her body had been made for his. She gloved him tighter than a fist. Was so hot and wet. Perfect.
In, out. He tried to go slow, tried to savor. Tried to make love gently, tenderly. Tension coiled inside him, ecstasy and agony.
“Harder! Faster,” she commanded, clawing at his back. Tension coiled inside her, too. Never had she looked so anguished.
Knox quickened his tempo. Soon, he was slamming inside her, rattling the entire bed. The potted trees that acted as bedposts shook, leaves falling from limbs.
On his next inward glide, he rotated his hips in a circular motion, gyrating, hitting Vale deeper, harder. Hips a piston, he pounded into her, nothing held back, his testicles slapping against her ass. Not once did he temper his strength. Tomorrow, she would feel him every time she moved and breathed.
He hooked his arms under her knees, lifting her legs, and another scream burst from her. Her inner walls squeezed his length, again and again, demanding more of him—demanding all of him.
Resistance was futile.
Succumbing to bliss, Knox threw back his head and bellowed with satisfaction.
* * *
AFTER KNOX CLEANED their bodies, he cozied up beside Vale for cuddle time, and it thrilled her.
Breathing in the sweetness of their mingled scents, she enjoyed the paradise known as aftermath.
Vale had
never experienced such mind-blowing pleasure. Knox had upended her entire world. The planet could have imploded, and she wouldn’t have cared.
Knox traced the ridges of her spine. “BTW. Earth men are idiots.”
She snorted at his adorable use of the acronym. “How so?”
“No one snatched you up while they had the chance. Now they’ll die if they attempt it.”
“Well, like you said, I’m beautiful, smart and wily, which means I’m way overqualified for the job of girlfriend.”
He chuckled and kissed her temple. “This is true.”
Despite the moment of amusement, familiar worries spread like a virus. Diagnosis: terminal.
“What are we going to do?” she asked softly. “The war rages on. Only one winner can be crowned. Until you’re free of the slave bands, your king has unmitigated power over you. He can command you to betray me, and you’ll be forced to obey.”
To stop himself from hurting her, Knox might try to off himself. Might? Ha! He would, definitely. He’d already threatened it. Face it, the man was gaga over her. As stalwartly as he’d always fought on the battlefield, he now fought for Vale.
Could she do any less for him?
For the first time in her life, she had a man who loved her unconditionally, who put her first, who loved her, yes, but liked her, too. He’d learned from his mistakes and would never again abandon her. She was keeping him, now and always. Final answer.
“We are going to love each other,” he said. “We are going to be honest and open with each other. Help each other. Trust each other. Fight side by side. Fight for each other and Earth. No other realm will rule this land, we’ll make sure of it. But we’ll prepare for invasion, just in case. And after we escort your sister and her guardians to the temple, we’ll return here, drain me of blood and bind me to Gunnar’s sword.”
The risk unnerved her. What if the sword failed? They’d never put it to the test. What if he died? “Maybe we should wait. A day or two won’t make a difference, right?” She’d just gotten him back, and she wasn’t ready to lose him again. Or ever. “We can research the sword. Maybe Celeste knows more, and I just haven’t tapped into the right memories.” But in her heart of hearts Vale knew there were no more recollections about the sword.
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