on my tail. Then she rested her cheek on my pectoral, the tip of her nose pressing into my flesh.
“You always smell so good,” she whispered.
Affection bloomed, the emotion as foreign as my laugh.
“And with the exception of the first night I met you, leikavi,” I rumbled to her, hearing her gasp when I pressed the little bud harder and made little circles, “your scent always drives me mad.”
She huffed out a small laugh. “It was filth from the stream. Perhaps it was also meant to keep you away, though it obviously didn’t work.”
“How did you get into Dothik that night?” I asked, pressing my forehead against her, gritting my teeth when her hips rolled to meet my touch, when my cock rubbed against her backside.
“I will never tell,” she whispered. “It’s my secret.”
Maddening female, I thought.
That deep, raspy chuckle rose from my throat again. “You and your secrets.”
“You and yours,” she replied softly.
My chuckle died and I sighed, though I began to circle my fingers faster over her. A cry tore from her lips, her nipples tight against my arm.
“If I fit my cock inside you right now,” I whispered in her ear, “will I find you wet and ready for me?”
“Yes,” she replied, almost immediately.
“Do you still ache from two nights ago?” I murmured. “I wasn’t too rough?”
“I can take you,” she responded and I felt her lips curl against my chest.
“Oh, lysi?”
“Lysi,” she said.
My nostrils flared, lust riding me hard.
“You think to tease a Vorakkar and come out unscathed?” I growled in her ear.
She bit her lip and stifled a moan when I began to rock against her backside, grinding my aching cock against her.
“Nik, I want to hear your sounds for me. Your gasps, your moans, your screams,” I said. “Do not hide them from me. I own them. They are mine, Vienne.”
Her eyes blinked open, her gaze half-lidded as she regarded me, that tantalizing, familiar flush creeping up her neck.
Vok, I wanted her. I’d thought about her every spare moment of the day and when I’d seen her walking with Lokkaru this afternoon, all I could think about was dragging her back to my voliki and burying myself inside her until I felt the peace she’d brought me. I had never felt this consumed before. Not even by—
I cut my thoughts off before they took me somewhere I didn’t want to go, a place that made it hard to be gentle when I wanted to be for Vienne.
Growling, I took my hand from between her thighs and turned her until she was facing me, straddling my hips. Gripping my cock, I slowly fed my length inside her and I groaned as she wiggled down over me. She was still so fucking tight that every time I entered her, I needed to be careful. But eventually, she relaxed around me, letting me in, letting me stretch and fill her.
Her arms looped around my neck and I guided her hips over me, rocking against her, fucking her with short thrusts that got me deeper.
She leaned forward and pressed her lips to my brow. Then they trailed over my eyelids…down my cheek. My scarred cheek. My chest felt tight as she kissed me there and panic and warmth and desperation filled me—all those emotions pulling me in different directions—and above all, I thought that she was just so damned sweet. That I didn’t deserve to be with her, that I didn’t deserve her touches or kisses, that I didn’t deserve to be inside her body, or feel the peace that she brought me.
But vok, I wanted to deserve her.
It was a dangerous thing…these emotions that were beginning to build in my chest, stacking and filling all the empty spaces inside me. For the first time, I wondered if I could be whole again.
We came together in a dizzying rush, our cries and groans filling the voliki until she collapsed against me, keeping our lips pressed together, and I could feel the rapid thud of her heartbeat against my flesh.
She didn’t kiss me so much as breathe into me. And I was breathing into her, trying to calm the thundering boom in my own chest.
Afterwards, she pulled back, gave me that small, shy smile that made my cock twitch inside her, and I groaned.
She was playing with my hair, threading her fingers through it. Then her eyes drifted down and her lips thinned, her jaw clenching.