34. Kiera

Chapter 34

Kiera

I sighed, turning to face him. “You didn’t need to follow me, Aiden. I would’ve come back for you.”

He stepped close enough for me to see him in the faint, silvery light. He carried something lumpy on his back. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

I’m not.

I gestured around me. “I’ve never been in the woods before. I can see why you and Maz love it so much.”

His smile gleamed. “The forests of Twaryn and Dagriel are different than here. But it does always feel a bit like coming home.”

Crickets chirped and leaves rustled as we stood gazing at each other. These silences between us were always different, as well. This one had a warm familiarity that made me want to close my eyes and rest in it.

“Why did you rescue Garyth’s family?” Aiden asked.

The warmth faded. I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. “I was there, and Melaena couldn’t do it.”

“But you insisted on coming along.”

I gritted my teeth. “Yes, I see that was unnecessary now. But I simply wanted to ensure they reached safety.”

“You are never unnecessary.”

My heart galloped like that damn horse at the vehemence in his voice, the heat in his nearness.

“Why do you continue to risk yourself for others? Why do you insist on staying in danger?” he whispered.

“Perhaps for the same reason you do,” I breathed.

The truth tasted sweet on my tongue, like fresh rain. I might have helped Aiden escape prison so I could get in his good graces, but saving Ruru and helping Garyth’s family flee the city were born of a desire to help, not harm.

A desire Aiden praised me for while Renwell punished me.

I swallowed hard. “Should we check the other inns? See if a room opened up?”

He shook his head. “I asked the bartender, and he said it was likely no one would be leaving this late.” He slung his pack to the ground. “But he did lend me a tent and a bedroll.”

A tent. A bedroll. Did he expect us to share?

“I’ve never spent the night in a tent,” I said, my voice uneven.

He smiled up at me as he unpacked. “It’s fairly easy. If you know what you’re doing. Unless... you don’t feel safe?”

There seemed to be another question hiding underneath his words. We were truly alone out here, but he wasn’t worried about that. He was worried about the danger I might feel between us.

But, despite everything that awaited us back in Aquinon, being with him outside the city was where I felt safest of all.

“This is the only place I want to be right now,” I whispered. “With you.”

“You stole the very thought from my mind, little thief.”

A silence stretched between us again, but this one was like the rope in his hands—taut, rough, burning against the skin.

Thunder rolled above us in the night sky, which was mostly hidden by the canopy of trees.

“I should raise the tent before it rains,” he murmured, gazing up at me from his knees.

The look on his face—raw, unrestrained hunger—tied my tongue in knots. It was how he’d looked at me during the heist. And on the Temple roof. Like his control was hanging by a thread.

Mine was fraying faster than my heartbeat.

“I—I have to... er...” I gestured wildly in the direction of The Twisted Tail and bolted from the clearing . I used their lavatory with shaking hands and tried to calm myself down.

But I couldn’t. I wanted him to look at me at like that. I wanted him to steal my control.

I wanted him .

By the time I returned, Aiden had the tent up and ready with a thick blanket rolled into it. The white canvas tent was hardly tall enough for me to stand up in, let alone Aiden, and wide enough for two people to lie side by side very close together.

My cheeks warmed as I looked up at him.

He brushed his knuckles over my cheek and sighed. “Get some sleep, Kiera. I’ll keep watch outside.”

“We can share it,” I blurted out. “The tent, I mean. You need sleep too, Aiden.”

He hesitated, the darkness making it difficult to decipher his expression. But there was no misunderstanding the warm growl in his voice. “Sleep is the last thing I need right now.”

Delicate chills coated my skin. “Then I’ll keep watch with you.”

“Come with me a moment.” His fingers twined with mine. “I want to show you something.”

I allowed him to lead me away from the tent, stepping over winding roots and between bushes.

Thunder rippled once more, and the air grew warmer, but we walked on.

“Look,” Aiden whispered. “Just there.”

I glanced to where he pointed. A golden spark floated through some bushes, then died. But then another flared. And another and another.

I gasped. “Fireflies! I read about them in a book once.”

“I found them after I set up the tent.” Aiden’s thumb stroked the back of my hand in that comforting way of his. But the touch felt too small for the spreading ache in my body.

“When I was young, I caught them in my hands,” he continued. “I tried to put them in a jar, but Nikella told me to set them free. She said their light would die in captivity.”

My heart trembled. I couldn’t look away from the dance of light. But our fingers had started a dance of their own, stroking and pulling at each other. His callused finger scraped over the sensitive skin of my palm.

“You make me feel the same way,” he said softly. “I’m never sure if I should reach out and catch you. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to.”

My breath stuck in my throat. Wave after wave of thunder rumbled overhead.

His hand cupped my jaw and gently turned my face to meet his. I was exquisitely powerless under those smoldering eyes.

“I crave your light, Kiera,” he murmured, “yet I would hunt for you even when you’re one with the shadows.”

Fireflies wove around us, making this moment feel surreal. But fear still whispered in my mind.

“You don’t know me, Aiden. Not truly.”

He placed a hand above my pounding heart and guided my hand to feel his as it drummed steadily in his chest. “I know this. I trust this. Everything else is just choices we made in a world where our hearts didn’t know each other.”

“Aiden . . .” I rasped, pressing myself against him.

He saw me as the woman who risked her life to save others, as he did. He saw the woman I desperately wanted to be, but couldn’t be all the time.

Tonight, I wanted more than that. I wanted to be his.

I closed my eyes, feeling the storm of our heartbeats as I felt the storm gather strength around us.

“I feel as though I’m back on the roof of the Temple,” I admitted in a ragged whisper. “Arms outstretched, floating on the wind, coming back to you.” Lightning flared, and I opened my eyes.

Aiden pressed his forehead against mine as the first raindrop fell. “Then let me catch you, Kiera.”

I curled my hand around his neck. “You already did.”

I kissed him in a burst of lightning and thunder. He kissed me back in a torrent of sweet rain.

My whole body sang with relief, then tightened with need as his lips clung to mine, capturing, savoring, keeping.

His hand trailed from my heart to my breast—where it lingered for a breath-shattering moment—then found a home on my hip.

He pulled me flush against him with a groan that dove straight through my core. His other hand wrapped itself in my braid and tugged my head backward.

I gasped, and he deepened the kiss, his tongue searching my mouth, his thumb skimming my exposed throat.

Gods, I wanted to drown in this feeling, in this kiss. I wanted it to last forever. It was like we’d never stopped. Like our last kiss had just been hovering in the air between us, waiting for us to find it again. To finish it.

We broke apart, panting. Rain dripped from his hair and jaw.

“No interruptions this time,” I said.

A dark chuckle rumbled from his chest, sending a shiver down my spine. “The gods themselves couldn’t keep me from you.”

He grabbed my hand, and we sprinted through the rain back to the tent. The air had cooled, and the fireflies had disappeared, leaving a blanket of darkness slashed here and there by blades of lightning.

We dove into the tent. I wriggled to the back while Aiden tied the flaps shut. I tried to keep my mucky boots off the blanket.

“Allow me,” Aiden murmured.

He knelt and gently pulled off each of my boots, raking off my stockings with them.

“You did this for me once before,” I whispered, untying my cloak and tossing it aside.

I could hear the smile in his voice. “I remember. So beautiful, I thought. So proud. So dangerous.”

Heat fluttered in my belly.

Two thumps told me he’d cast aside his boots as well. “It’s your turn,” he said.

My mind blanked as he drew us into a kneeling position in front of each other. “Wh-what?”

His breath warm on my face, he slowly unbuckled my knife brace and slipped it off. He took it and his knives and dumped them in a corner. “Tell me what you were thinking in the bathhouse. When I undressed and sat down behind you.”

Every inch of my skin burned, banishing the cold.

I bit my lip and caught the hem of his thin shirt, peeling it over his head. “I thought about how god-like you looked. How much I wanted to touch you. How easy it would be to lift myself up to you with my hands on your thighs.”

I pressed my hands into his taut stomach, then trailed them over his rain-slicked chest.

He groaned, his body shuddering. “I could see it in your eyes. The desire. You have no idea how tempted I was to give in.”

“Show me,” I whispered.

His warm, rough hands slipped under my shirt and started to lift it. When he hesitated, I raised my arms above my head. He tented the wet material on his fingers, dragging his hands along every inch of my skin on his way up.

His hands cupped my breasts, caressing my hardened nipples through the cloth that bound them. I gasped, my head falling back.

Aiden swore and ripped the shirt from me. “I wanted to wrap your naked body around mine.” He flicked the hook on my breast band and tore the cloth away. My hands quickly covered my breasts. “I wanted to lick the water from your skin and fill my mouth with your taste.”

He kissed my lips hard and fast, bending me backward over the muscled arm he braced against my lower back. His hand fisted in my braid again—something he seemed to like—and tugged on it as he drew his mouth down my jaw, throat, and chest. Sometimes, it was a soft kiss. Others, he slid his tongue along my damp skin. When he reached my breasts, he nudged my hands with his nose, kissing my fingertips as they fell away.

Then he sucked my nipple into his mouth and swirled his tongue over it.

Lightning flashed over the tent and behind my eyes as I arched back with a strangled whimper.

His deep growl of satisfaction echoed in my very blood.

Fucking Four, this was what he’d wanted to do weeks ago? Had I known, I might’ve flung myself out of that water and climbed onto his lap, bathhouse rules be damned.

He held me upright as he kissed one breast, then the other. Heat pulsed from his ravenous mouth to a blazing orb between my legs. I whimpered again when he pressed his hard, thick length to that exact spot.

He pulled away, drawing me upright. Even in the flickering darkness, I could see the raging desire in his eyes.

My aching breasts heaved against his bare chest with every breath. “Why did you stop?”

“I need to taste all of you, Kiera.” His lips stole a kiss from mine. “If you’ll let me.”

My heart thundered louder than the storm. “Yes. Please.”

He smiled against my mouth. “Gods damn it, those are beautiful words coming from you.”

I growled and crushed my lips against his, slipping my tongue between his teeth, showing him I could take what I wanted too.

A chuckle rumbled in his chest as he kissed me back just as savagely, laying me down on the bedroll. I nipped his lower lip, and that cut his laughter short. Groaning, he devoured my mouth like a starving man.

All the while, his hands stripped me of my pants and undershorts until I was completely naked beneath him.

He tore himself away from me, kneeling between my legs as his gaze dragged over my body.

“Fucking Four,” he breathed. “You will always be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Something deep in my heart shimmered with joy.

“Now,” he said, lifting one of my legs over his shoulder. “May I please...” He pressed his lips to the inside of my ankle. “... please ...” The side of my knee. “... soak my tongue in your taste?”

My breath hissed through my teeth as my thighs clenched. “Aiden!”

“Yes, my little thief?”

Desire ripped through me like a hurricane. “Do anything you gods-damned want to! Just do it now .”

“Mmm,” he purred. “I like those words even better.”

I opened my mouth to yell at him, plead with him, command him. But then his mouth sank onto my throbbing center. A moan trailed from my throat.

Gods, his mouth was so warm, his tongue so sure and strong as he tasted me.

I shuddered beneath him, but his hands held me steady, gripping my hips and lifting them.

“Aiden,” I gasped, my voice thready with need.

He sucked hard, and I cried out, bucking against his mouth. He steadied me. But then his tongue pierced the neediest spot.

Pleasure stabbed through my body. “Yes,” I panted. “M-more.”

He growled, sounding only too happy to oblige. His tongue attacked me over and over, and I welcomed each thrust. He was wreaking havoc over my world. Ripples of fire enveloped me until my whole body burst in a shower of sparks.

I must have cried out again—perhaps many times—because he covered my mouth with his, wet and warm.

“Sweeter than honey, just like I thought,” he murmured.

His favorite. I let out a choked laugh and kissed him.

I’d never felt so wild with desire for someone before. I’d never felt this raw happiness that made me feel vulnerable and powerful in equal turns. I’d also never been so desperate to make someone feel the same way.

“I need you, Aiden,” I said between kisses, reaching for his pants and freeing the heavy length within. “Let me make you fall apart. I want?—”

“Gods damn it, Kiera,” he grunted as he hastily kicked off his pants and undershorts. “The only place I’m falling apart is inside you.”

I groaned my approval, wrapping my legs around his waist. He stilled for a moment, his eyes darting to mine with a question.

“I take the tonic,” I whispered. “Melaena had some.”

His face smoothed, and he bent down to give me a long, lingering kiss. The kind that restoked the fire building inside me once more.

I slowly reached between us and gripped his hand where it fisted his cock. Then I guided it inside me. We both groaned as he pushed all the way in.

Holy Four, this would be what destroyed me.

He rocked into my body, lighting it up like the storm outside. Then he began kissing me again. Even if my soul were to pass a thousand Ages, I would never forget the way Aiden kissed me.

My hips rose to meet his fluid movements, and he groaned into my mouth. He abandoned my lips to suck on my neck and bite my earlobe. His greedy hands cupped my breasts and pinched my nipples.

I gasped and twisted my body hard.

His eyes widened as I reversed our positions. But then his lips curled with satisfaction. I pinned his wrists by his head.

“Don’t touch me until I tell you to,” I whispered in his ear, flicking my tongue against it. “It’s my turn.”

Goosebumps swept over his skin, and I sat back, grinning in triumph. But my grin faded to something else as I swirled my hips over him. His eyes were hooded with desire. Every muscle in his body was rigid. His fingers curled into fists as if to force himself not to touch me.

I braced myself on his abdomen, enjoying the languid pleasure I wrought between us.

“Gods, yes, Kiera,” he groaned. “Dance on me, beautiful.”

I nearly lost myself.

“What did you think?” I scraped my nails over his skin. “When you saw me dancing that night?”

He hissed, thrusting up into me. I saw stars.

“I thought”—he thrust again—“of all the treasure I was there to steal that night...” And again. “I wanted to steal you instead.”

He drove upward once more, and this time, I shattered over him. I cried his name to the sky. I fell back over him, barely catching myself on his shoulders.

“Release me, Kiera,” he murmured in my ear. “Command me to touch you.”

I nodded, everything in my body feeling soft and warm. “I’m yours, Aiden.”

He uttered a fierce cry and swept me up in his arms. We rolled together, and he leaned over me, his beautiful face desperate with desire.

“Say it again,” he ordered, his hips flexing faster and faster.

Pleasure ricocheted through me, stealing my breath, my thoughts.

“Please,” he begged, even as his body showed no mercy to mine. I relished in the wildness, the power, the need . “Please say it again.”

I tangled my fingers in his hair, yanking him closer to me. “I’m yours, Aiden.” I gave him a scorching kiss before he ripped away.

“Mine,” he growled. “Mine.”

The possession in that word, the immediate truth of it, hit me just as he struck a spot deep inside me that sent me flying off the edge into a world of golden light.

Aiden’s body shuddered, and his voice shattered over my name, like a wave over sharp rocks.

Then his arms were around me, catching me and guiding me back to him.

Our breaths gasped together. I held him to me, loving his sweaty skin against mine.

He gave me a gentle kiss on my forehead. “And I... am all yours. For as long as you wish to keep me, little thief.”