Kinked (Elder Races, #6)(41)

Until that happened, he was here and now, squarely in the middle of tourist season, hard again with hunger and already plotting the details that he would offer for their next bargain. If he wasn’t concerned about the guards who were supposed to be on watch at the passageway, he would have walked back inside and offered her new terms immediately. But he was concerned, and they didn’t have time to hole up at the cabin for a day or two and play.

Afterward, though. Dragos had given them a time limit of a month, and a lot could happen in that span of time.

When he went back inside, she had already moved her sleeping bag to the top bunk and climbed into it, turned to face the wall. In the dying light of the fire, he stood and looked at her sprawled figure. Here was another way she was atypical. They’d had sex, but there was no cuddling, no soft words, no clinginess or seeking reassurances afterward. Hell, she was probably already asleep.

He grinned, climbed into the lower bunk and fell asleep almost immediately too.

The next morning they ate a quick breakfast and headed out early. Snow had fallen, a good three inches. The snowfall wasn’t enough to do much more than slow them down slightly, as the ground was slick and wet, but it was pretty. The evergreens and the bare branches of deciduous trees were painted in white.

This time Aryal didn’t take to the air. She chose instead to hike with him, and he didn’t question her decision. She had finger combed her hair into some semblance of order, and her expression was distant and thoughtful. He wondered what she was thinking.

At first he was loath to break the silence and simply enjoyed the beautiful surroundings and the animal movement of his body as they hiked. Then the fact that she didn’t say anything started to irk him.

About an hour into the hike, the final irritation from the cut faded as it finished healing. Aside from his broken iPhone, there was nothing left as evidence of what they had done.

And his internal whip came back, always driving, driving him.

Since she had scouted out the area yesterday, Aryal had taken the lead in the hike. He quickened his pace to catch up with her and took hold of her arm. She stopped and turned to face him, her head angled in inquiry.

Not that long ago, she would have swung around fighting if he had dared to touch her.

He moved to stand right in front of her, just to get as close as he could to the heat from her body. It licked along the surface of his skin.

Her expression was closed, revealing nothing. A single black strand of hair blew across her eyes, and she raised a hand to brush it back. The angle of her slim wrist and those long, dexterous fingers pulled at the whip inside of him.

“Half an hour,” he said.

Her sleek eyebrow rose slowly, and the expression in her eyes turned assessing.

She was surprised? He didn’t buy it. “Oh come on,” he said. “You can’t tell me you haven’t been thinking the same thing.”

“That’s a double negative,” she told him.

Even though he knew she did it on purpose to needle him, it still drove him crazy when she turned pious. If there was anyone who had no room at all to pull off that attitude, it was she.

He put a hand at the back of her neck, a deliberately possessive hold, and pulled her even closer to him. He did it to needle her back, but she allowed it. Look at how far they had come in such a short time.

Not far enough. They had so much farther to go, the end of the road lost in a tantalizing, mysterious distance.

“Admit it, sunshine,” he growled. “You want another bargain too.”

She yawned a little and scratched at her ear.

Wasn’t anything straightforward with her? The reason why it didn’t matter that he knew she was trying to rile him? Because it was working.

His gaze focused on her fabulous mouth. The image of her sucking on him flared in his mind, as searing as a flash fire. Those lips, closed over the thick rigidity of his cock, her throat working to take him in.

His entire body pulsed with urgency. He pulled her the last of the way toward him and fastened his mouth over hers, succumbing to the urge to ravish and take.

She met him halfway, and they ate at each other. She gripped his hips, and he ground his heavy erection against her as he circled her neck with one hand. She felt as if she had a fever, she was so hot. As he lifted his head to look down at her, a violent tremor shook through her body.

He could not keep his lips off of her. He ran them along her cheek, amazed at how soft her skin felt, and sucked the tender lobe of her ear into his mouth. He told her telepathically, I want to put a collar on you.

A leather collar, with a buckle. It would show darkly against her light skin. And her hands chained behind her back. She wouldn’t be able to shapeshift in that position. Her wings would have no room to materialize. All that wildness, that fierce freedom, claimed and owned by him.

Mine. Mine.

Her answer was a telepathic snarl. Dream on, motherf*cker.

Where’s your spirit of negotiation, sunshine? He hadn’t even gotten the chance to feel her wetness last night. The lack disturbed him greatly. He pulled the hand from her throat and ran it down the front of her body to cup her between her legs.

She hissed and arched her hips, rubbing against his palm. She said, I don’t even know what you would have to give up in order to make that happen. Maybe your soul for all eternity.

He laughed, the sound rough in the early morning air.

I wasn’t joking, she told him. Her telepathic voice had turned uneven.