27. Hector

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

HECTOR

I n Urial, fucking wasn't something to be done in public. Perhaps, at winter fêtes that broke up the monotony of the long, cold nights, young couples fumbled in the halls, tucked inside nooks and behind tapestries. If you stumbled across them, the polite thing was to pretend you hadn't.

With the entirety of the Crane gathering aware of what was about to happen, my skin tingled.

I . . . liked it?

Gods, what had Nemeda made of me, that I wanted every one of them to know that Killian was mine, that I wanted him so desperate for me that he'd stake his claim in front of everyone?

No, I didn't want to bare my ass to all of them for his pleasure, but I wanted them to know.

Most particularly, I didn't want to leave myself with any more space for doubt.

In Killian's tent, I was tugging hastily at fabrics before he even set me down. His shirt was all too easy to loosen and push off. His trousers were a little more complicated, but soon, I had him bare as I'd ever seen him, his cock flushed and thick in a thatch of silvery hair.

He didn't even look human—some other kind of ethereal being. Like the gods we worshipped in Urial, maybe.

He pushed me back onto his bedroll to remove my trousers too, and I was too busy staring up at him to feel self-conscious. Too busy reaching for him to care that I was anything but godly.

His next kiss pressed me down into the bedroll, and I groaned, dragging my hands at anywhere I could reach. This, this, this was what I'd been waiting for.

With a huff, I rolled him over and straddled his hips. The Crane had another think coming if he reckoned I was simply going to lay back and let him have me.

Killian's long, strong body spread beneath mine as I kissed him, exploring his chest with abandon, dragging fingertips across his battle-scarred thighs. How had anyone ever gotten so perfect?

"How do you like it?" Killian rasped against my hungry kiss.

His hands on my hips were familiar, and still, a spark swept up my neck at knowing that this time, it'd be different. He wouldn't hold himself back. Just knowing that felt like soaring.

"How do you like it?" I shot back at him.

Beneath me, Killian scowled. Strangely enough, the idea of telling him directly didn't feel so foreign and impossible as it would've that morning.

"I want you," I mumbled, rolling my hips and leaning over him for another kiss, "to fuck me hard enough to make up for making me wait so long. I don't want to be able to sit upright without knowing you've claimed me."

A possessive glint lit in his eye that stole my breath. Had I pressed too hard?

Before I could worry he was having second thoughts, he grabbed the back of my neck and dragged me down to him. His tongue thrust into my mouth, demanding entrance, staking his claim to territory I was all too willing to surrender to him, so long as he fought for it.

"Turn around," he growled. The command flashed through me, and without consciously thinking about it, I'd turned in his lap, my legs spread across his thighs. When I sat back, my balls pressed into the dip between the base of his cock and his sack and—fuck, all I wanted was to grind down on him until I came.

But that was—that was for before. Today, I was getting more. Everything I wanted.

My breath hitched as I looked over my shoulder. He'd oiled his hand—I caught just the flash of light against all that slick before his fingers teased down my crack and he pushed one inside.

While he fucked me on that long finger, I rocked back. I wanted more.

With a growl, he reached over my leg and gripped the inside of my thigh, dragging me back and—and there, between my knees, his cock was flushed and full. If I shifted back just a little?—

There . Though I couldn't sink down and take all of him in, I sucked the tip and used my hands on his shaft that I couldn't reach. The effort curved my body awkwardly over him, but the sound he made was worth it.

Better still, the stretch was—was more. Another finger, delving hungrily as I sucked the bitter drop from the tip of his cock.

Fuck, I could come like this, grinding against his belly with his fingers inside, the taste of him on my tongue.

Not enough. It wasn't enough.

One whimper from me was all it took for Killian to sit up, sending me toppling forward onto the bedroll.

I fell onto my forearms, ass high in the air, as he adjusted behind me. How was the man so damnably graceful, even now? He slicked his cock, and I felt the blunt intrusion pressing against my hole. There was resistance, sure, but the ache of it was so fucking sweet.

I whined into the bend of my arm, pushed back, and as he thrust forward?—

"Oh fuck!"

"Good, Hector," Killian growled, trailing one appreciative hand up my side soothingly.

He held himself so still, every impressive muscle in his beautiful body absolutely rigid, even as I shook beneath him.

I was so full. It'd been—gods, it'd been so long since I'd done this, and never while knowing that every sound I made could be heard, just beyond the tent. Something about it was so damned delicious that I didn't bother trying to hold back. When a low, needy moan climbed up my throat, I let it out.

Killian indulged me by starting to move. He was slow at first—deep thrusts that ensured I knew the shape of him claiming me. But soon, the wet, hard sounds of his hips hitting my ass filled the tent.

I gripped the bedroll and chased the feeling, rocking back to meet his every move, certain my world would blow apart every time his dick rushed into me.

Didn't care. Didn't matter. The only thing in the world that mattered was fucking him, sucking every bit of pleasure and pain and life that I could get from this moment I'd never thought would come.

When my strength began to fail, Killian reached around and his hand pressed flat against my chest. He drew me up and up and up. My lower back arched dramatically. My shoulders hit his chest. I craned, turning my head as much as I could to catch his lips in a messy kiss that drifted toward the corner of my mouth.

He left my lips as slick and swollen as the head of my cock, bobbing obscenely each time he rocked his hips.

"Is this what you wanted?"

The sound that escaped me was more whimper than word. I held his eye, steady as I could while he thrust into me, and I nodded.

In case he had the ridiculous notion that I was lying, I reached up and placed my hand over his. My fingers slipped between his when he spread them, and I held on, pulling his arm around me tighter.

I wanted him everywhere—covering me, surrounding me, filling me—all of it. As if he knew my every thought, he pulled me closer. His thrusts got shorter, but gods, so deep, like he meant to bury his way inside and claim every inch of me.

He let his free hand drift lower. At first, his grip around my cock was loose, but inside it, I was hot steel, needy and leaking and, fuck , he tightened his fingers and began to move. The slap of skin on skin, the jolt of every thrust, the oily slickness of his palm on my cock—it was all too much. My balls drew up tight and I spread my legs, bearing down and meeting each thrust, trying to push him deeper than his hips would allow.

Ecstasy crashed over me like a landslide, bowling me over.

I sobbed as my cock jerked in his hand, a string of sticky white shooting across his bedroll, coating his fingers. Gasping for air, even the sound of his groan, right below my ear where his teeth pressed into my neck, sounded muffled and distant, but his hips flexed, shoving his cock deep inside me, and he?—

He came, and I let out the relieved puff of a laugh. I hadn't forced his hand; he'd met me here, in the middle of all my wanting, and matched it on his own.

Shivering, the strength in my limbs gave out. I toppled forward and Killian fell with me. His dick slid out of my ass, but when I bent to avoid the mess we'd made, he wiggled close behind me. My ass fit in the crux of his hips so perfectly, and his arm was there, still wrapped around my chest, his fingers spreading and closing slowly in the most blissful kind of petting motion.

I had him, could lift his hand to my lips and kiss his fingers while he rumbled contentedly against my back.

I didn't have words, but neither did he, and in the hazy aftermath of pleasure, it didn't matter. His arm around me was enough, his familiar skin against mine all I wanted.

Now, all I needed was to keep him—convince him that, love or not, whatever we had was better for both of us than the loneliness that'd proceeded it.

Since I'd won this victory, all I wanted was more. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

I couldn't think about what happened if our tomorrows ran short. Even with the threat of Avianitis, I had too much now to give up an ounce of joy.