Page 51 of The Truth-Teller's Bargain
“Of what I will do to you if you do not tell me to stop.”
His threat sent her spiraling into desire. She inhaled sharply when he drew her even closer.
“This is your last chance,” Nakir warned, and her entire body melted into him.
“Nakir,” she murmured, head spinning at the intensity of his touch, the way his words drowned her. His fingers at her throat shifted to the back of her neck.
He kissed her.
It wasn’t brutal, but it wasn’t chaste. It was sudden like lightning, burning like fire, coursing like water. She eagerly let it overwhelm her, hardly recognizing the moan he drew from her lips as he turned them and lifted her onto the edge of his desk, deepening the kiss until she could barely remember her own name, even as his echoed in every corner of her mind. When they broke apart, he moved his mouth to her neck and shoulder, exploring her as she clung to the fabric of his shirt.
“Tell me you want this,” he demanded, his tone low and dark. “I need to hear it, Alethea.”
A surge of desire rushed through her at his request for her consent.
“Tell me this isn’t just me.”
“Please,” she replied, chest heaving. “I want this. I wantyou. Don’t stop.”
Nakir groaned as if she’d released something within him, a feral beast eager to devour her. She was unable to think past this moment into a future where they would be parted one day; unable to think about the fact, either way, success or failure, she would say goodbye to this man she’d grown to respect and admire anddesire.
“You are so...fucking... beautiful,” he praised as he traveled down her body. Nakir shoved the contents of the desk away, papers and writing utensils falling uselessly to the floor. His hands found her chest, brushing lightly along her breasts through the fabric of her dress as he pressed his hips against hers. She could feel the evidence of his arousal, and it sent her spinning. “And so gods-damned brave.”
Alethea arched her back into him.
“You terrify me.” He pushed her dress off her shoulder, exposing her to him.
Any part of Alethea that might have been ashamed of her nakedness was banished the instant she saw his face. Gone wasthe cold, emotionless mask, replaced entirely by reverence and pure desire. He bent down, leaning her back and supporting her head while he brought his lips to the soft skin of her breast. Alethea gasped, drawing his gaze. Nakir watched her like a hawk as he made circles around the peaked center before taking it into his mouth. She whimpered, helpless, as he drew strangled noises from her throat. His lips were glistening when he released her, watching the way her chest heaved with each panting breath.
His expression shifted to something unreadable then, as if his emotions were twisting him a dozen different ways. “I thought you’d left,” he admitted. “Thatwas what I was angry about. The idea that I would never see you again. I didn’t understand why I was sopissed,and at the same time, not angry enough. I didn’t care that you’d cast a Sending. You could have told them exactly where we were and I wouldn’t have given a damn.Fuck, Thea. I... I can’t explain this.”
He was frustrated with his own feelings and desires, mirroring her own concerns about what was growing between them. She was meant to leave when this was all over. What were they even doing?
“I wanted to save you,” Alethea confessed breathlessly. “From seeing what I saw.”
Nakir buried his face in her neck, hiding his expression from view. He gently lowered her to lie back on the cleared desk and placed a hand by her side to hold himself up. His touch slid up her legs while he continued to watch her, pausing where the days of riding had left their marks—soft bruises that bloomed along her inner thighs—his eyes lifting to hers as if to ask the question his lips didn’t. He waited, as if searching for any sign she wasn’t burning for more.
“Nakir,” she moaned, finally remembering that she, too, had hands that could explore. They moved up his firm chest, his neck, until she buried them in his soft raven hair, finally daring to run them along the length of his horns.
He shuddered.
“Can you feel that?” Alethea asked in a whisper.
His response was a low growl, rumbling against her skin. “Yes.”
His own fingers arrived at the apex between her thighs, where he was confronted with her dripping arousal. Alethea writhed against him, desperate to feel him closer. Nakir swore again, lowering his head to bite her shoulder with a groan.
“Gods save me.”
The gods may not be able to save him. But Alethea wondered if perhaps she could.
He tantalized her with his touch, and she clung to him desperately, riding the waves of pleasure he brought to her with deft fingers. She moaned his name as quietly as she could, which only made his ministrations grow in intensity. Nakir gave another low growl, bringing his glistening fingers to his own lips. She watched in astonishment as his tongue lapped at the taste of her.The taste of her.She blushed down her entire body with the embarrassment and eroticism of it all, heat pooling in her center.
His eyes fluttered closed before he withdrew from her and kneeled between her legs. He took his time pressing the fabric of her dress up and over her hips, spreading her legs to bare her before him. Alethea’s breath hitched, but all nervousness was banished the moment he looked up into her eyes. Those amber pools burned. She’d never seen such unbridled desire—certainly never directed at her.
“Tell me you don’t want me to stop,” he growled, his grip tightening on her hips as he kissed his way up her thigh. Each place his lips touched sent her deeper into her own desire.
“I don’t want you to stop,” she begged, despite her own embarrassment.
