The plane. The crash. The cornstalks and his seax at his hip.
Kavya.
The strange contortion of his body registered next. He had shifted again. Kavya was curled into him, her spine curved to make the letter C. Her head was tucked beneath his chin and her knees were drawn up to his hips. One foot negligently draped over his thigh. He still lay on his back, mostly, but he’d managed to encircle her with both arms. In the heat, she’d kicked free of silk from the hip down, exposing lush bronze skin.
The sole of Kavya’s foot was blistered, her socks and slippers victim of the elements. Slices stepped like ladder rungs up her arms and down her legs—the physical trauma of flight after flight. That he was only noticing now set a strange current to work inside of Tallis. He should’ve noticed. And that set off an argument. Why was it his obligation to notice? She’d been proselytizing for years before his arrival. She didn’t need a keeper.
He didn’t want to be her keeper. With his arms filled with the soft, voluptuous heat of a woman’s body, he wanted to be her lover.
He’d given her pleasure. He’d shown her the explosions of light that came with sexual release. The triumph was his. No other man would claim to be her first. That meant he would claim her virginity, too. In Tallis’s mind, it was a given. They would be lovers in all ways. Holding that firmly in mind had been the difference between tasting her feminine sweetness and burying his prick within her willing body. They’d been too tired. Too edgy. And he hadn’t trusted himself to be gentle. He wanted their first time to live up to the adventures they’d already shared, but he didn’t want to scare her. Dragon damn, he didn’t want to hurt her.
He wanted to make her gasp his name.
Just the thought aroused him. Eyes open. Hands tightening. Cock ready.
As a youth, so serious and proud of his intellect, he’d wanted to be Sath or Indranan—Dragon Kings whose minds ruled the day. He was beginning to see what a blessing his fury could be. There was no one stalking around the corner to take it from him, manipulate it, keep him from sleeping out of fear it would be used against him.
So, enough of that. He was a Pendray. He harbored a nasty beast down deep where most men stored ugly things. Fantasies about inflicting pain. Fantasies about rape and murder and theft and running away, because cowardice was just as ugly, just as worthy of concealing. Those uncivil fantasies glimmered like a distant mirage—moments where the mind took a backseat to very old instinct.
He opened his eyes fully. The sun had dipped toward the western horizon. Maybe three hours of daylight left. He stared. He didn’t blink. He felt a part of himself open to that dare, man against nature against beast. At his best moments, he was all three.
The beastly little bastard inside him wanted what it always did. Food. Fighting. Fucking. The order didn’t matter.
What did Tallis want?
I want to go home.
“Do you want to think about something else instead?” Kavya spoke directly against his throat.
“I thought you were sleeping.”
“No.”
“Lying here being bored?”
“Just resting.”
“Wait, think of something else,” he said. “What did you mean by that?”
Her gaze fixed on his. Wide. Unblinking. Did she see a fool? A killer? A lunatic?
What Tallis wanted, apparently, was for her to see someone else entirely, because he wanted her to see him as a good man. With his hand moving up and down her arm, then slipping lower to caress the span of her ribs, he wasn’t a good man at all. The beast’s dark thoughts spilled into his rational consciousness, twining sex and violence and tenderness with the image of Kavya—her splendor while nude and aroused. To see that would be a blessing unlike any he’d known because, unlike his visions of the Sun, Kavya would be real.
“Don’t worry. I wasn’t poking around in your mind. But like I said before, sometimes you feel things so strongly. Just now, you thought something sad and shocking. That’s all I know. So . . . I’m hoping it had nothing to do with waking here with me.”
Tallis exhaled. She phrased it in such a way as to leave the door open. He could explain, or he could move on. He wasn’t ready to explain. The raw impulse of wanting to return to Scotland wasn’t new, but he hadn’t felt its visceral punch so strongly before.
“Nothing at all. What about you? If you didn’t sleep, how did you occupy your time?”
She stretched. Was she purposefully pressing her high, firm breasts against his side? “I’ve been remembering what you did to me. I don’t want to wait until we get to a hotel. You need what I had. It would work some of the tension out of your body. You’re strung so tightly.”
“If I said I feel stiff, I’d have to admit to the shame of making an unbearably bad pun.”
She was beautiful when she frowned. Not serious. Not scolding, even. Just more inquisitive than usual. “Pun?”
“I’m stiff, Kavya. My prick. I woke up with you lying curled into me and I got ideas. Very quickly.”
“About us, no matter the sadness I felt.”
“Forget that. I’ve been honest about my desires from the moment I knew them myself. What I gave you was a prelude. You’re curious about me and even more curious about sex.” He tapped his temple. “I’ve got no psychic weapons up here to mess with your mind.”
“I know. I want to reciprocate. Here.”
Tallis grinned as if she’d made another teasing jest, but her expression revealed that same frowning inquisitiveness. “Wait,” he said. “You’re serious.”
“I am.”
Speaking bluntly, he wanted to test her resolve. “With your mouth or your hand?”
She inhaled, eyes so wide that he could see a ring of white around her amber irises. “My hand. Easier for you to guide me.”
He couldn’t help a groan, which banished her hesitancy and made her smile. It also made her bold. She fumbled with the button and zipper of his cargo pants until she’d made room enough to slip her fingers inside. “Fuck,” he said roughly.
“That’s the idea.”
“You have no idea.”
With her free hand, she guided his beneath the waistband of his briefs. He made a fist around hers. The pressure, the heat—Tallis arched his neck, greedy for air. How long had it been? He couldn’t remember. And he knew that no matter how much time passed, he’d never forget Kavya’s tentative pace becoming more assured.
She clutched him tighter. Her fingers were caught between his and the swelling ache of his hard-on. But Tallis was the one caught. He couldn’t focus. It was either close his eyes to savor the pleasure ripping up from the base of his spine, or watch Kavya. Watch her eyes as they darted from his face to where she’d bared his cock. Watch her parted lips as she began to softly pant. Watch as she learned the rhythm of his desire.
She propped on one elbow. Although awkward, she managed to yank open his shirt. Her awed sigh made Tallis feel powerful, that his body aroused this mind-blowing woman.
Smiling with age-old female trickery, she began to experiment. She pushed his fist away, changed the rhythm, teasing him, increasing the pressure, gripping his swollen head, pumping his long shaft.
“The old-fashioned way, Tallis,” she said, her voice breathy. “You can’t give me your thoughts. Give me your words.”
“You think I can speak now, lonayíp woman?”
“Yes.”
His head was spinning in circles that kept time with her strokes. “Don’t let up.”
“You made me feel amazing. Is this as good?”
“If you felt half of this, I did bloody well.”
She licked the fevered skin of his upper pectorals, then blew across the damp trail. “Beautiful.”