Sadie

It wasn’t long into the night before I heard the shuffle of sandaled feet coming down the steps. The Songkeepers who’d arrived during the day seemed to retire early after their travels. Navin swayed down the steps, wine seemingly loosening his limbs, and he whistled a low tune to open my cell door.

I leaned against the cave wall, using it to leverage my feet under me and rise to stand. I wandered over to him, his eyes filled with fire as I approached. Before I could open my mouth to speak, he bent down to kiss me. His tongue swept into my mouth, his hands pulled my hips into him, he breathed deeply as if he’d been waiting all day for this moment. My lip stung as his mouth worked over mine, but I couldn’t stop, just as desperate for him.

“Come with me,”

he murmured against my lips. “I’ll untie you once we’re out of sight.”

I followed him up the stairs, a little bounce in my step as I padded barefoot toward his room. I knew my glee was ridiculous given the circumstances, but all my good sense had vanished the day before. I was already on fire—I might as well dance in the flames.

We skirted through the atrium, the stars just beginning to twinkle overhead. “Is everyone asleep?”

I whispered.

Navin’s hand touched the small of my back, guiding me. “At least an hour ago,”

he whispered back.

“Impressive you could wait that long,”

I snarked.

“I was about to combust,”

he added with a chuckle.

We snuck down the hallway toward his bedroom when we heard a door shut.

“Shit,”

I hissed and bolted toward his room. The chains around my legs rattled as I awkwardly tried to tiptoe down the hall.

Navin whirled around as he shut the door behind me. I listened through the door as he removed a strand of keys from his pocket and jangled them around, covering my sound. The voices were muffled through the door, but I knew from the baritone rasp that it was Rasil.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

I darted into Navin’s room and leapt over the back of his couch, falling hard on my shoulder as I rolled. I bit out a gasp as I inched to the column beside the couch and sat with my back to it, praying that Rasil wouldn’t enter. But the Gods weren’t listening, and the door rattled open after a ridiculous amount of fumbling from Navin. My chest rose and fell in giant heaves. If Rasil discovered me here it would ruin everything.

“I think that wine has gone straight to my head,”

Navin slurred.

“Whoa!”

Rasil exclaimed with a chuckle. “How many glasses did you have?”

“Too many it seems,”

Navin said. Shuffling sounded as he stumbled around. “I should go to bed. Good night, Raz.”

“I was thinking . . . ,”

Rasil hedged and I cringed.

Navin stumbled forward and dropped onto the couch right beside me. I knew the second he spotted me from his periphery, but he hid it well. His eyes widened ever so slightly as he put his arms over the back of the couch, his right hand so close it nearly skimmed my shoulder.

“I have a feeling I know what you’re thinking, Raz,”

Navin said. “And the answer is always the same.”

My shoulders bunched at the nickname, suddenly feeling like a voyeur to this intimate moment between husbands. Even if their history was long in the past, they still had a history.

“Things have changed,”

Rasil said from where he lingered in the doorway. I heard the careful snick of the door shutting, but I didn’t hear his footsteps approach. “I’ve changed.”

“You still seem like the same ambitious boy I once knew,”

Navin said. “Just with more facial hair.”

Rasil chuckled. “You’ve certainly grown more confident, too,”

he said. “I think we make a better pair now than we ever did when we were young.”

“I don’t think that—”

“I know that there were others,”

Rasil cut in and I tensed. I couldn’t believe he was saying this out loud. “I know we both indulged in other dalliances. But you’re still mine, Navin.”

Navin’s hand dropped behind the couch, skimming over my collarbone, and it took everything in me not to jolt and rattle my chains. His finger trailed over my shoulder as he said, “I haven’t been yours in a very long time, Raz.”

His hand drifted down, skimming over my chest, and I bit my lip as his thumb circled my nipple, rolling it into a peak.

“I could be,”

Rasil offered. “You still look at me with lust in your eyes.”

Navin’s hand dipped lower, down the plane of my belly, and bunched the fabric of my shirt in a fist. “That look in my eyes is exhaustion,”

he said. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.” He tugged up on the fabric until my whole lower half was bare.

My breathing hitched, and I thanked the Gods that Rasil couldn’t hear as well as a Wolf. He’d probably be able to taste the current in the air, hear the pounding of my heart in my chest, know the pulsing that was building between my legs. All the wanton desire that had grown and grown over the course of the day all came to a head. Being touched by Navin, being nearly discovered, I was already wet and desperate for him.

“Why didn’t you get much sleep last night?”

Rasil asked carefully, and my pulse quickened even further.

“The bitch was yowling from her cell about her sore arms,”

Navin said without missing a beat. His fingers trailed up my leg, making my skin tingle. I wanted to spread my legs wider, wanted to shift and wriggle into his touch, but I knew one sound and I’d be found out. Maybe facing the samsavat would be worth it just to be touched by him again.

“Wolves,”

Rasil spat. “Are you sure you’ll be all right to take her unaccompanied?”

“She’s beaten and nearly starved,”

Navin said as his finger trailed up to my center and brushed through the dusting of hair between my legs. I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood. “And if she’s shackled, she can’t shift. She’ll be a good dog for me.” As he said the words, he trailed his finger down my folds and plunged into my wet heat.

I choked on air, my chin stretching skyward and toes curling as his fingers pushed inside of me and massaged my inner walls. I was already dripping for him. He slid his fingers out again and circled my clit, and I swore to all the Gods that my soul left my body as I tried not to moan. Let me just die here with his fingers inside me. I couldn’t care beyond that.

“Will you please just do me a favor,”

Rasil said.

“It depends,”

Navin purred as his fingers slid in again, massaging me in tortuously slow movements.

“Will you think about us while you’re in Rikesh,”

Rasil said. Navin’s thumb circled my clit as his fingers pumped in and out. “Will you consider leaving Galen den’ Mora and joining me here and being by my side?”

Navin’s thumb pressed down harder on my throbbing bud, and I let out a short whine. He coughed, covering the sound. “Pardon me,”

he said, coughing a couple more times for good measure. “I will think about it, Raz,” he said in a lazily bored tone that I knew was his attempt to curb his own lust. “But I think my conclusion will be the same as always.”

“That’s all I ask,”

Rasil said, and the door clicked as he opened it. “Good night, Navin.”

“Good night.”

Navin circled me faster again.

He waited after the door was shut for a good few seconds to make sure Rasil was gone. Navin pulled his hands from my aching flesh and stood from the couch. He sidled over to his door, and I heard the lock click.

I let out a panting breath, resting my head against the cool column. When Navin turned around the column, he dropped into a crouch beside me.

“You’re evil,”

I groaned, my cheeks and chest feeling flushed with heady desire.

He grinned, searching his pocket for his ring of keys to unchain me.

“Fuck me first,”

I said, my legs shaking as I balanced on the teetering edge, so close to coming. My orgasm was barely tethered down and begging to be unleashed.

Navin’s smile turned to pure mischief as he flipped me so my chest landed on the ground, my bare ass up in the air. “You need me that bad, hmm?”

I heard the rustle of fabric, of buttons popping free, and then the head of his cock dragged down my wet sex. “Yes,”

I moaned. I tried to spread my knees wider but the cuffs bit into my ankles.

Navin slid his cock up and down my folds one more time, coating himself in my wetness before placing the head at my entrance again. Writhing, I tried to push back but I couldn’t move. One hand landed on my shoulder, holding me in place as he slowly fed his cock into me. I groaned at the sensation, my pussy already fluttering around him.

“Esh,”

he rasped, the angle making my eyes roll back as he pushed deeper and deeper inside of me. “So tight like this.”

When he was fully seated, his hand grabbed my hip and paused.

I let out a desperate, pleading whine. “I need you to move,”

I begged. “Now. Please.”

Navin let out a dark chuckle and pulled out of me and slammed back in. I cried out, unable to contain the sound.

Navin tsked. “Last night I loved hearing all the ways I could make you scream,”

he said. “But tonight you need to be quiet.”

“I can’t,”

I heaved, pushing back to move him deeper.

“Here,”

Navin said, grabbing a cushion from the couch. “Bite this.” I bit into the woven fabric as he commanded, frantic to do anything that would make him move again. “Good girl,” he rasped, pulling out and thrusting into me again, and I moaned into the cushion. “That’s right. Take it for me.”

He slammed into me again and my vision spotted, a climax building and building inside me. He picked up a punishing pace, driving me hard into the tiled floor. My pussy was already clenching around him, the tension growing endlessly higher and higher as he rode me. With each thrust I cried out into the pillow, spurring him onward. The only sounds were my muffled cries and the wet slap of our flesh.

“Fuck, ,”

Navin grunted as his fingernails dug into my hips. His finger trailed down between my cheeks, pressing the tip to my back entrance. I screamed, my orgasm tearing through me as his finger pushed into me.

My entire body spasmed as he fought my tight channel, battling his last thrusts into me until he was coming, spilling his heat into me as I clenched around his cock. He kept moving, kept pulling the ecstasy from me until my voice was hoarse and my limbs were spent.

Only once he sucked in his first deep breath did he remove the keys from his discarded pants and unbind my hands. My stiff shoulders barked as my hands were freed and came around to brace on the floor beside my head. His cock still twitched inside of me as his hands massaged up my arms and shoulders, soothing the sore muscles.

He pulled out of me, coating my legs in sticky heat as he unlocked my ankles. When I was freed, I collapsed onto the tiles and he picked me up in his arms and cradled me to his chest, the tenderness of the action so soft and gentle compared to the brutality of what we’d just done. He brushed a kiss to the top of my head, his hands soothing my aches. That small action made my eyes mist.

He was everything I never knew I wanted or needed. I was prepared to fight him, but now all I wanted to do was fight for him, fight for us. And the first step to doing that was getting the fuck out of this place.