Ghar’s hands flex once at his sides. “So do not accuse me of wanting easy ignorance, Anita. There has never been anything easy about what I believe. There is only what remains after war burns the rest away.”
The last of my anger collapses under the weight of what he has admitted.
I stare at him, unable to find a clever answer. That alone should terrify me. My whole life, I have used language like a blade, shield, lockpick, and escape route. Now every useful word scatters because the man in front of me has just handed me the wound beneath his armor.
“I didn’t…” I stop, because saying I didn’t mean it would be a lie. I did mean it when I said it. I meant to hurt him. I meant to shove him away from the work, away from me, away from the dangerous place where concern feels too much like control and attraction feels too much like surrender. “That was cruel.”
“Yes,” Ghar says.
His honesty makes me wince.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
My hand moves up almost of its own accord, fingers spread and trembling. I touch his chest, feeling the hard lines of muscle beneath the supple, textured scales. His heart thumps strongly against my palm.
“You have a good heart, Ghar.”
“Nonsense,” he grumbles, but there’s no venom in it. His eyes hold me with their steady warmth, like twin suns in the sky. “You barely know me.”
“Not true.”
He tilts his head to the side, and his hand covers my own. The others are a good distance away, the closest to privacy we’ve had in a while.
“I wish it were,” he says softly.
Then his mouth is on mine. I warm up to his kiss, the taste of him filling my senses. He’s so much bigger than me, but I’m unafraid. Even though the top of my head barely reaches his clavicle.
Powerful arms encircle my waist, pulling me tightly to him. My heart skips a beat, then thuds like mad as he takes full control of the kiss. I surrender to his embrace, allowing the last of my defenses to come tumbling down.
“Anita…” he breathes my name like it’s poetry. Then he steals my breath with a harder, deeper kiss. A tingle between my thighs soon becomes an increasingly insistent cry. I want him. I want him now.
And the feeling seems to be mutual. His hand slides down the crook of my back, over the slope of my bottom. I gasp into his mouth as he clutches my cheek firmly, like he owns it. His cock twitches between us, eager to join the fray as a battle happy Odex.
My fingers graze his member through his trousers. It’s all the encouragement Ghar needs. He tugs at my garments, pulling them away and baring my flesh. His eyes take in the sight of my breasts, then he pulls me into his embrace once more and kisses me. The feel of his scales on my bare skin is intoxicating.
I swim in the sea of molten embrace, my hands unbuckling his belt. He squirms out of the last of the barriers between us. His mouth travels down my neck, over my breasts, while his hand cups under my thigh.
Ghar lifts my leg and pushes me against the wall, hard yet not violent. I kiss him with renewed ferocity. His crown presses against my wet, wide open pussy. I hitch my hips enough to ease his entry.
I’m so ready for this, yet my mouth still flies open in a sharp gasp as his length and girth stretch me. I clutch at his shoulder, nails finding no purchase on his scales. My legs wrap around his body as he leans into the first thrust.
“Oh God,” I groan, eyes rolling back into my head. I clutch him tighter with all four limbs, letting him know I want more.
Ghar obliges.
His powerful, red scaled body moves with sinewy grace as he pumps his hips. Every intake of his cock pushes me closer to the edge of climax. The air fills with my moans and sighs, and with his heavy grunting pants. I bury my face in his thick shoulder and scream as I stampede across the threshold.
Ghar gasps, his body taut against my own as he empties himself inside of me. I cling to him as I writhe through a shockwave of delight. He clasps me tighter, murmuring my name into my hair over and over.
Destiny and fate seem far away. His heaving body against mine feels real and immediate.
A sharp whistle cuts through the air. I see Brakk’s shadow splashed on the wall, projected from where he stands just outside the chamber holding Ghar and I.
“Ahem,” he says. “If you could just pull yourselves together…”
He not so patiently waits for us to hastily don our clothing. Then he steps inside the chamber and arches a brow. “Great. We have moved from the knife fight portion into the emotional accountability portion. I would like to formally request that nobody fucks until after I fix this relay.”
My entire body reacts to the word fucks before my brain can murder it.