Chapter 26

26

Arwen

Dragging me behind him, Kane hurried us down the rickety steps before giving either of our friends a chance to reply. We slipped down into the darkened bedroom below and Kane closed the contraption with a flick of shadowed power.

"You can't leave them up there all night so you can bed me."

"Can't I?" Kane arched one elegant brow, and a slant of city light glowed across his ridiculously carved jaw. The portrait of kingly male arrogance.

I hid the curve of my lips as I pulled my boots off one by one. Then I lifted my blouse overhead. My hands found the waistband of my leathers and I shimmied them down around my ankles and then off entirely, tossing the garments into the corner beside our bags.

Through the red-hued room, lit only by one steady oil lamp under a crimson shade and the glow of the city through the dusty windows, I realized Kane hadn't moved.

Not a muscle.

He only looked me up and down, noting every curve of my body, every rise of my chest.

And I didn't meet his eyes. I knew, if I did, it would be over. Twin dams bursting at once.

So I just listened to his slow, rough breaths as I removed my bodice and let my breasts fall, full and aching. And then I knelt, the vertebrae of my spine pebbling as cool air slithered across them, and fished my nightdress from my pack.

When I stood and slid the silk fabric over my head, Kane stalked leisurely behind me.

And though I could smell him—his sweat and leather and the mint on his breath—and could hear his labored breathing, I still didn't turn.

"Bed?" My voice was thin. I swallowed.

Kane said nothing at all. No witty retort or sexual innuendo.

He only wrapped one warm, broad hand across my neck to gently cradle my jaw, the other snaking around my waist like a hot iron band, his fist bunching in the material as if he were one swift tug away from shredding through it—and pressed his length into my back with a heady, rough groan.

I shuddered out my own moan and liquid heat gathered between my legs.

"I thought you didn't sleep in undergarments," he muttered against the shell of my ear before sucking the lobe into his mouth. Teeth nipping, then licking the spot.

I couldn't gather a response around my blaring need. It was all I could do to shimmy the thin, now dampened fabric down my hips and to the floor.

"Good girl." The words wrung a whimper from me.

His hand drifted from my waist to my hip, lazing across my low stomach, and gathered the fabric of my nightdress until he'd grazed my bare flesh. I shivered, and he kissed my neck indulgently, the way he would my mouth. Tongue and teeth and lips. Slow, soft, suckling. He muttered something—

"Bird?"

"Huh?"

"I said," he purred, "are my hands cold?"

I nodded into him. "A little."

"Can I warm them against you?"

I nodded again, his silken voice like a drug. I would have nodded if he'd asked to swallow me whole.

Kane let those chilly, calloused fingers drift down. Down and down and down until he swirled them across the place I'd been waiting for.

I bucked against the feeling and he held me to him, easing me against his chest, helping me to weather the light brushing of his thumb and forefinger and the slow, wet circles.

"Oh, Stones," I breathed as my knees went weak.

Oh, Stones, oh, Stones, oh, Stones—

The creak of the stairs unfurling across the room was like the breaking of glass. I sprang from Kane, who hesitated to release me, whose lips briefly lunged back for my neck as if he were a man possessed—

But I shoved him away just as Mari scrambled down the stairs and Griffin after her.

Kane chuckled darkly as he turned away to adjust himself.

I knew I was fifteen shades of pink when I opened my mouth to apologize but Mari only scooped up her canvas bag and brushed past us both, slipping into the washroom and slamming the door loudly behind her.

Griffin made his way down the stairs slower, and when his boots touched the floor, he closed the rungs manually and locked them tight.

"Sorry to interrupt."

"What got into her?" Kane asked, jerking his chin toward the washroom. His voice was still a bit like gravel.

Griffin shrugged, but his eyes were hard. "Fuck if I know."

I wasn't sure which of the two of them could stand to be alone together less. Being up there, even for ten minutes, had likely been one impressive game of sexual-tension chicken.

I crawled into the tufted green bed and it sighed under my weight. Fluffy soft sheets enveloped me like the petals of a rose. Griffin pulled his shirt overhead, revealing a broad swath of hefty, chiseled muscle. Swiping a pillow from the bed across from us, he lay down on the floor.

Kane pulled his shirt off, too, and I watched through red-hued lamplight as he traded his dark trousers for thin cotton pants that hung low on his hips. The significant V where his waist cut down to his groin was highlighted by sharp shadows.

My toes curled under the sheets.

That body…That beautiful face…That even more beautiful soul—

Mari's intrusion was for the best. Letting things go further with Kane, while they had been right above us…completely inappropriate. I had no idea when I'd become so lust-addled—I'd been driven half-insane.

Kane's body compressed the bed beside me, shifting the sheets and sending a woodsy warmth across my skin. I tried not to hum when his large hands slid over to me and pulled me into his chest, one flattening down my back and drawing easy, slow circles there. My stomach pressed against the hard planes of his side, his neck only inches from my lips. He looped one leg across both of mine, the pressure soothing aches in my calves I didn't even know I had, and I inhaled masculine mint and cedar.

The washroom door opened with a noise that told me its hinges were in desperate need of oil, and Mari slipped out in her own dark cotton nightgown and matching robe.

She had to step over Griffin to crawl into her bed.

"Where is your shirt?" she whispered at him loudly, defeating the purpose of the whisper.

Kane, who had been stroking my back as we snuggled, snickered into my hair.

"I'm sleeping , " Griffin said calmly.

"Without a shirt?"

"Yes."

Mari huffed, her body's plunge into the bed sending the sound of creaking coils and rustling linens through the room. She leaned over to extinguish the oil lamp and drowned all four of us in darkness.

I turned over, pressing my bottom into Kane and wrapping his broad hand tightly around my middle. Sleep was what I needed. Sleep to quell the frenzied way Kane was making me feel. He slid his other hand under my neck, tugged me closer to his chest, and nuzzled me from behind with his nose.

Arching into him a bit, my legs tangled with his. Our bodies, separated only by silk—

"You don't have to sleep on the floor," Mari muttered quietly.

Kane exhaled into my shoulder, the noise edged with frustration.

Across the room, Griffin sighed, too. "It's fine."

"I'm serious," Mari continued. "This is silly. What if I have to use the washroom in the middle of the night?"

"Then you'll get up and do so."

"It's too dark. What if I step on your face?"

"I'll live."

"Well, it can't be comfortable down there. And to be honest, I know this is selfish, but I feel a lot of pressure to offer you this blanket, because I know you're going to be cold."

"Keep it. I don't—"

"No, I knew you were going to say that, but now I'm supposed to say, No, you have it, Commander, I insist. But the thing is, there's only the one. And without it I will freeze. I'm not Fae like you three, so I really don't want to give it up, but I also don't want to be—"

"Go to sleep, witch. Please."

The silence that followed was a mercy.

For Griffin. For Kane and me. For Mari, who I feared would wring herself out completely if she spoke anymore.

Kane squeezed my thigh once. Just high enough that what was meant to be a playful gesture, poking fun at our friends, sent a shiver across my skin.

I stretched my legs, elongating my back, using the movement to bring us so close that there was not a single space left for doubting what either of us wanted. The warmth from his bare chest permeated into the silk of my nightdress. His breath fanned across my neck in hot, ragged bursts.

His length had hardened thickly against my backside. Need spun within me and my mouth watered with it. Those arms had become bars of pure heat across my chest and stomach, and his hands had begun to roam…

He stroked my collarbone gently, just his thumb brushing back and forth. Caressed the silk of my dress across my stomach, right below my navel.

Slow, indolent circles.

I ground my backside against his hardness, movements small enough that the mattress never shifted, nor the duvet wrapped around us. But each nearly imperceptible drag of my bottom up his length or press toward his own chest tightened his hands against my skin.

And drew more moisture between my legs.

Kane's lips hovered over my cheek. With each fluid movement his breath grew rougher. More raw. I nearly begged him, as their king, to order Griffin and Mari to busy themselves outside of this room for just an hour. Just ten minutes.

Fine, five minutes. I wasn't greedy.

Kane's fingers traveled down until they slipped easily under my short silk dress—skin touching skin at last—and all other thoughts eddied from my mind.

A moan lodged in my throat as he dragged a knuckle across the aching bud, swirling his finger over the utterly sensitive flesh, circling, teasing—

His breath ebbed and I felt him grin against my ear as he squeezed not quite gently. Bucking his hips—that throbbing length like granite—against my backside as if he weren't even aware he'd done it.

And then his fingers…

Finding what I knew would please him so—slick, slippery wetness pooling between my legs. His hand paused there, and a silent breath shuddered from his lips across my neck and ear.

If Griffin and Mari weren't asleep, they'd hear us for sure. And Kane—

Kane was done for. Dipping in and out of my plump, swollen folds. Running his fingers so lightly across that spot I craved I nearly cried out in desperation.

If someone were going to stop this, it would have to be me.

But the way he was touching me…

The ache that had built in my core—almost more pain than pleasure now—threatened to sweep me away like a whirlwind. I was seconds away from climbing atop Kane and finding my release regardless of Griffin and Mari. At this point the entire city of Revue could watch and I'd let them.

His finger finally curled up and inside me—

Before a truly wanton moan shot through my lips and echoed across the room, I shoved Kane's hand away. His fingers, soaking wet, fell to my thigh and remained there. He flexed his hand as his breathing echoed in my ear.

His entire body was as tense as my own. His cock pulsed against my bottom.

Griffin stirred on the floor and city lights painted his back as I watched him turn closer to the edge of Mari's bed. I took a shaky breath and blew it out quietly.

"Soon," Kane growled against my ear. His voice as rough as gravel and laced with unwavering promise.

Soon, indeed.