Silent Warrior (6 page)

6

I
f Hark had an ounce of fat on his agile, toned body, he was hiding it remarkably well. Silence didn’t think that was the case. He was muscle and sinew and long bones. The prowling way he moved matched his voice—hypnotic and dangerous. Her heartbeat was a cannon firing over and over. She’d lost herself entirely when freeing a laugh and had been struggling ever since to find her center, her calm, her control.

That was impossible when Hark of Sath stood above her. The hazy yellow light shone down on him like a devilish benediction. Shadows hugged the underside of his pecs and the ladder of his ribs. They also hid his eyes. Without his words or the full extent of his expression, he was even more intimidating. She’d never admit as much, but her body responded. She fed off the fear and turned it into want.

She’d known fear, and it didn’t look at all like this man.

Hark walked toward her. He practically led with his rigid cock, and why not? It was magnificent. His build was streamlined and lean, which accentuated his thick tool. Few would’ve guessed this stark-raving joker was capable of staring down any opponent, and fewer would’ve guessed that he concealed such a fine specimen of a man’s most potent weapon.

He straddled her.

She’d done the same to him, but this was more intimate. He could grab her jaw and force her to taste what he had to offer. She wanted to be filled. Maybe he wasn’t particular where or how. She was surprised to find that she didn’t care either. Thick male thighs squeezed either side of her hips. He slipped his fingers beneath her clinging shirt and palmed her ribcage.

“Struggle,” he said roughly. “Let me see you struggle out of your tank top. Then I’ll help you with the rest.”

His blue eyes had darkened. They were savage. The grip on her hips and torso wasn’t going anywhere. Neither was the throb between her legs. She was slippery, restless, and sensitive nearly to the point of pain. She wanted this man to give her more. More of any of it. All of it.

Silence crossed her arms over her chest and grasped the cotton hem. He was right; it was a struggle. He’d pinned her in such a way that lifting her head and upper back off the ground became a fight. Everything a fight.

Always? Must everything be?

She yanked the top over her head and flung it aside with as much force as she cast aside those strange questions. She knew who she was, what she had to do, what she wanted.

Hark grinned, wide and maniacal. “Mmm, such a good girl. Anyone ever told you that?”

“Condescending bastards who no longer have dicks.”

“Probably because they met with some unfortunate accident.” He dipped low and licked from her navel to the valley between her breasts. She must taste of salt. He wet her skin with more lingering kisses and erotic touches of his tongue. Only when he reached her mouth did he add, “That accident having something to do with your shield and a wicked, nasty temper.”

“Not wrong.”

She shoved her fingers into his blond curls and pushed his face back down where she wanted it. A man who knew when to relax and do as he was commanded—she liked that. Because Hark took her nipple in his mouth and sucked. Hard. She arched toward him on an involuntary gasp.

“Again,” she breathed.

“More force. I want to hear your voice. No half-assed whispers.”

“
Again
.”

He complied instantly, this time adding the scrape of his teeth. Silence flexed her fingers in his hair. For a moment, it seemed he was going to pull away. Her forearms and biceps shook with the force of holding him where she wanted him. With his mouth fully engulfing her nipple and areola, he hummed a satisfied sound.

He managed to pull away just enough to growl against her wet skin. “Good girl and mean bitch. I love that.”

Silence shivered deep inside. When was the last time she’d heard the word
love
, no matter the context? She was feared, admired, appreciated, but nothing she’d ever done had garnered praise so simple and powerful.

Unsettled, she yanked his head to her other breast and gloried in being claimed with just as much passion. He circled that taut bud, nipped, drew it between his lips and tortured her with sure flicks of his tongue.

Hark pulled away as if she hadn’t been using all her strength to hold him there. He’d
let
her. He’d let her believe she had control.

His grin was a taunt and, now, surprisingly, a turn-on. “Oh, I know what you were thinking. You wanna see what happens when I hold
your
head where I want it?”

“I’d gag on your prick?”

“Dragon damn it, woman.” He said it without malice, only a smile and a shake of his head. “Never mind. Control seems a fluid concept here.”

He crawled back down along her body. Long, almost elegant fingers unfastened everything that remained of her clothes. He tugged her leather trousers down her hips, snagging her underwear with his pinky fingers as if to save a step. With his head between her knees, he flicked his gaze up to meet hers.

“You ever been on the verge of something really awesome, and you know it’s going to be even better than you imagine?”

“Not often enough.”

“If ever.”

She swallowed. His expression had sobered. “If ever,” she echoed.

With one last tug, Silence lay bare on the floor that was cool or warm, rough or smooth—she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that he could part her legs, plunge deep, and end this drawn-out seduction. But which did she want? Now . . . or more?

He made up his mind before she made up hers.

Hark stood. His strong thighs and defined calves turned the simple act into a fluid work of moving art. He surprised her by gathering their clothes. Dull, yellow-drenched boots and weapons looked skeletal where they lay across the floor, like relics left in the desert. One day the sands would wear them away to nothing.

Shaking her head, she shuddered at how often Hark brought the ways of the Sath back to the forefront of her mind. She hadn’t thought about them in years. A touch of thought . . . then shoved away. Now images of deserts and thorns layered over her vision, when she should’ve been focusing on how he spread the clothes out along the far wall.

“What are you doing?”

“Ah,” he said. “When I do mysterious things while stark naked, you ask questions out of the blue. Noted.” He tossed a grin over his shoulder. Bending at the waist, he artlessly showed off taut, lean buttocks and defined hamstrings that shifted with each movement. She wanted to bite just below the small hollows at the base of his spine.

So she stood. Walked to him. And did.

He braced his hands against the wall when her teeth sank into his flesh. He grunted, then exhaled a long breath. “Fuck off. Totally unfair for—”

Silence bit harder. He tasted of salt, too. Of adrenaline and the musk of sex. She dug her blunt nails into his flanks. They moaned together.

As quickly as if he’d been born to Clan Garnis, Hark turned and straightened them both. Their mouths collided. Silence indulged. His skin was hot beneath her palms, and his muscles as hard and resilient as her eyes surmised. In this case, touching was believing. He pulled them flush, with his forearm between her shoulder blades and his hand gripping her ass. They pushed for control.

Fighting became a quest for mutual pleasure. She didn’t know when that had started. She didn’t care.

Silence only knew that making him hiss, groan, cuss was as exciting as his kisses and fierce pinches. The trade-off was unlike any she’d known. When had anything in her life been mutual? The only glimmer that came to mind was the mutual desire to win when standing beside an ally in the Cage. What would it be like to stand with this man? She’d known briefly, there at the bar when squaring off against Konnor. Now she was learning they could share other excitements as well—this time purely carnal.

Her thighs trembled. She looped her arms around his neck and sucked the flesh between his throat and his shoulder. He’d never be able to kiss her there, where her collar was fastened. That knowledge made his skin particularly erotic. His fingers slipped between her ass cheeks and she bit down on a little squeal of surprise.

Hark cussed and tucked his lips behind her ear. “You’re wicked. And you want more.”

“Yes.”

“It hasn’t been eight months for me, and I’m dying here.”

She inhaled and licked along his jaw. “How long?”

“A couple weeks.”

A shard of something uncomfortably close to jealousy wedged between her ribs. A shiv. A blade meant to surprise and wound. “Was she this good?”

He laughed, pulled away, and devastated her with his smile. “You arrogant bitch. Of course she wasn’t.” Still laughing, he sank to the floor. There he knelt so that his prick thrust up from a golden thatch of masculine hair. “The phrase ‘open up’ could be ‘open your mouth and keep talking,’ but right now it means ‘spread your legs.’ ” He stroked a finger down past her navel. “Come on, blondie. Show me what you’re hiding. I bet it’s delicious.”

Her knees joined her traitorous thighs in shivering with giddy energy. Hark gripped her ass and tipped her pelvis toward his mouth. All she had to do was relax and widen her feet.

It was worth it.
So
worth it.

His mouth was as curious and insistent when he explored her pussy as when he’d kissed her mouth. Less of a battle now. She was running out of reasons to keep up the pretense of combat.

A moan escaped her throat when he stopped.

“I won’t tease you about sounding so damn sexy,” he said, his lips sly and glimmering with her wetness, “so long as you keep being real with me.”

“What do you want?” Her question whip-sharp. Frustrated. Angry at herself that she could
need
this much.

“Fine, fine. Maybe I’ll offer some advice instead. Bracing against the wall helps.”

She did. Hands flat. Weight given over to that solidity and to his guiding hands, his questing mouth. She looked down only to find his blue eyes raised to watch her. His chest lifted and lowered with the same urgent cadence. His neck was long, muscular, erotically bare. Every movement of his tongue and lips rippled down his throat. She stared at how his biceps bulged in time with his hands lifting and clenching her ass cheeks.

She could come that way. She knew it. He was that good and he was that insistent.

But she shoved free of the wall, his mouth, his hands. She dropped to her knees. In one sleek move, she sank onto his waiting prick. He cussed. He threw his head back so fast and so hard that he cracked it against the wall. The impact reverberated from his body into hers. The double sensation of being filled and being slammed with such force made Silence cry out.

Straddling him, riding him, she set a pace that Hark quickly controlled. He was more forceful. He drove up with his hips on a long grind—again, again, again—until her world centered on the next moment when he’d thrust and he’d pull her down and they’d start again.

“Was he this good?” he rasped.

Silence couldn’t make sense of words. Only sensation. She gripped his shoulders, still working her hips. He didn’t stop, but he grabbed her chin and forced their gazes to meet.

“The last man you fucked. Eight months ago. Was he this good? Was his cock this big?”

She shook her head—speechless, but not out of choice. Cascades of pleasure had made her mute. Her knees hurt where they ground into the hardwood floor despite the clothes he’d laid as makeshift padding. Her chest hurt, from breathing fast and shallow.

Everything else was flame and brightness.

And Dragon damn him, Hark wouldn’t shut up. His words were erotic, urging her on, pushing her closer to the epicenter of what would split her apart.

“Did he want you this much?” His sleek, seductive voice had turned breathless and desperate. Even better now. More honest. “Did he push you this far?”

She smacked her forehead against his and held it there. Face to face. “Shut up.”

“Did he ever ask your name. Has anyone?”

“
Never
.”

His blue eyes were so near that she caught flecks of silver radiating out from his dilated pupils. “I’ve been on the verge of coming for the last minute. I’ve held off for you. So that you’d go over first.” Words sped from his jester’s mouth. He was losing it, just like she was, but he could still form thoughts and threats. “I could let go. I could come. I’d be done with you then. Bored. Ready to shove you off. You’d try riding a little longer, to eke out what you want so badly. You’re slick with sweat and you want this,
hard
, driving you this hard. You don’t want to settle.”

She shook her head. Anger blazed through her. So did desire more intense than any she could remember—like breathing fire and bathing in molten metal.

“Answer me,” he growled.

“I’m not settling.”

He picked up the pace, their bodies brutal. Each stroke pushed his back against the wall. He was as solid as that brick, going nowhere. The perfect ride. “Then you better tell me what I want to know. Come now, baby. Come and cuss and whisper your name. Blame me later. Beat me for it. I’ll love it and so will you and we’ll fuck all over again.” He slapped her ass. “But this first. Tell me your name.”