“Thank you, Mother Temra,” she breathed against the broad tip, and after a swift lick to catch his flavor—like precious salt—she swallowed him down.
With a grunt, his body stiffened as if he’d been kicked in the gut. His hand tightened in her hair. She heard his sharp inhalation, followed by a long, slow release that was cut short when she drew back and took him as deep as she could.
It wasn’t deep enough. Surrounded by his scent, like rain, like leather and a long hard ride, she sucked hard upon him and worked his thick length to the back of her throat—then was forced to release him, coughing and afire with frustration.
Temra had been too generous, perhaps. “I can’t take all of you, warrior.”
“You will,” he said hoarsely, then guided her lips back to his shaft, the head still glistening from the wet heat of her mouth. “Your moon night and every night after.”
All of this inside her. She groaned and swallowed his cock to her limit again, and every hard draw upon his length stoked her hunger. His left hand joined his right, his fingers clenching and unclenching in her braids, the rest of his body like stone.
“Your hands.” The ragged words seemed ripped from him. “Stroke what you can’t suck.”
Her fingers were already slick from tending to her own need. She gripped his shaft tight and looked up to see his gritted teeth and his nostrils flaring, his eyes as fierce as when he’d first seen her and his gaze had been filled with the madness of battle.
I waited for you, little dragon.
Her warrior did not have to wait much longer. Her eyes locked on his face, she pulled him to the back of her throat and pushed her hand between her legs, gathering the wetness there. His shaft throbbed against her tongue. His breath shuddered with each stroke of her fingers down his length, but the rest of him didn’t move at all, except for his grip growing tighter and tighter in her hair.
Abruptly he stopped the movement of her head and pulled her from his cock. Mala glanced up. Oh, how he fought. His eyes were closed, his face contorted as if in agony. But there was never any stopping this.
Huskily she said, “Give to me your seed, warrior,” and with a savage thrust he filled her mouth, first with his heavy cock and then his salty release, and she took all of that though she still couldn’t take the rest of him.
Not yet.
Softly she licked away the remaining seed and thought she knew why he’d placed such reverent kisses upon her thigh. It was so easy to give pain and to become hardened to it. To give pleasure instead—and to know it was accepted—was a real gift. Mala had never felt so gently toward anyone as she did at that moment.
“No more.” Fingers rough in her hair, Kavik pushed her away from his cock and held her there. “I’ve finished.”
With his iron determination in place again, along with satisfaction—as if he’d passed a test of his own making.
So he would not show her any tenderness, as if tenderness meant he was tamed. Very well. In all her life, Mala hadn’t known much softness. She didn’t need any now.
And the dull ache in her stomach was just hunger.
With a nod, she licked her fingers and turned to the fire. The juices in the clay pot steamed and bubbled around the edge of the lid. “The supper is ready, warrior, and at just the right moment. Your cock isn’t as filling as it appears.”
A sudden tug at the base of her throat pulled her back—Kavik had grabbed the hood of her cloak. Mala suppressed her instinct to fight and let him take her. Dragging her against his hard chest, he wrapped his fingers around her neck.
“Make your bed with mine this night.” The soft gravel of his voice rasped against her ear. “You won’t go to sleep hungry.”
She nodded and shivered as his callused thumb scraped over her racing pulse. “I’ll lie with you.”
Kavik let her go, and with shadowed eyes he watched her prepare the rest of their meal. But this one did not pass in silence, for she asked him about his travels as a sword for hire, and he told her of a mad king who’d paid a thousand soldiers to escort him to the southern jungles, only to sacrifice himself to the jaws of a great thunder lizard. He spoke of creeping vines that would wrap around a sleeping man like a constrictor, and continue holding on until the rotting body had been drained of its fertilizing juices. He’d seen the Salt Sea’s beaches stacked high with giant bones, and he’d hunted wraiths at the feet of the monoliths of Par, said to have been built by the gods themselves.
Belly full, limbs warmed by ale, Mala listened in wonder. He had been farther than any other person she’d known. “Have you ever traveled north? Have you seen Krimathe?”
He looked into the fire for a long moment before shaking his head. “I’ve never been north of these mountains.”
Mala had never been south before her quest. “Have you seen any place untouched by the Destroyer’s hand?”