Zarrah’s face burned, but Keris said, “It’s always nice to have options.” His smirk vanished as Miri ripped away the towel, using it to wipe clean the mud splattered on his legs before tossing it into the fire.
She handed a lace robe to Zarrah, the one from the bathhouse joining Keris’s towel. “On the bed, girl. Against the pillows.” Heart pounding, Zarrah obliged, allowing the woman to arrange the robe artfully so that it covered her breasts, though her whole body burned as Miri parted her knees.
The tread of heavy boots drew closer, orders to search every room clearly audible, but Keris remained where he stood, eyes on the opposite wall. “Your prudishness will get you killed,” Miri snapped at him. “Face between her legs, now!”
making it seem as though the building had a heart throbbing at its core. They passed an open door, and A soft growl escaped his lips, but as Keris shook his head, Zarrah said, “We are out of options.”
Zarrah glanced inside, her eyes widening at the sight of a masked woman with three men before Keris
“Fine.” He knelt before her. Lowering his head, he rested his cheek against the inside of her thigh.
Miri lifted one of Zarrah’s legs to wrap it around his neck, murmuring, “To hide the injury.”
Stepping back, she straightened her leather skirts as she eyed the scene. “They’ll have seen similar in the other rooms. Make it convincing.” Then she turned on her heel, the door clicking shut behind her.
Zarrah tried to relax, but her whole body felt stiff as a board, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Where did you go?” she whispered, because the thought of remaining in this position in silence was more
than she could bear. “What happened? Why did you attack Welran?”
More importantly, why was her aunt’s most trusted soldier and bodyguard here?
“I saw some officers going into the bathhouse with the glass tigers.” His breath was warm against her naked skin, each exhale sending a quiver through her. “I followed them in and was listening to their conversation, their plans, when a messenger arrived with news about what transpired on Devil’s Island, including Bermin’s fate.”
“Oh, God,” she breathed, understanding filling her.
“The big one, Welran, lost his head. Beat the messenger to pulp while he cursed the rebels and their Maridrinian master. I was attempting to extricate myself when the barber kindly pointed out my nationality to save his own skin. Welran went after me, and I fled. You know the rest.”
Zarrah squeezed her eyes shut, horror filling her. “There will be a reckoning.”
“You know him?”
“All my life,” she whispered. “He’s my aunt’s bodyguard, and for as long as memory, the rumor has been that it was Welran who sired Bermin.”
“Fuck.”
“An apt assessment.” The boots were coming closer, the drums now silent, and Zarrah stared at the door as she listened to the shouts of protest as trysts were interrupted. The search progressed down the hall, her heart throbbing faster and faster.
“If it doesn’t work,” Keris said, a loose strand of his hair brushing her thigh, “you get out that window. I’ll hold them off.”
“We are allies,” she answered. “That means we stand together. And if it comes to it, we die together. Now make this convincing.”
Threading her fingers through his hair, she pulled him against her right as the door exploded inward.
Then she went to the hearth, picking up a handful of ash, which she rubbed into Keris’s hair, turning it Zarrah screamed with outrage as two soldiers strode inside. “What is the meaning of this?”
“A would-be assassin attacked General Welran,” one of them answered. “A Maridrinian. We are searching the quarter for him.”
“Well, he’s not in here,” she spat. “Get out!”
“We need to search the room.”
Miri ripped away the towel, using it to wipe clean the mud splattered on his legs before tossing it into
“Then be quick about it. And you”—her fingers tightened in Keris’s hair—“finish what you started.
I didn’t pay a fortune for your tongue to watch you gape at soldiers.”
Said soldiers were staring, obviously considering his fair skin as reason for further investigation, and Keris was not helping the situation. His lips were pressed against her sex, his breath ragged and hot, but he remained unmoving. Unconvincing.
Tightening her grip to the point it probably hurt, she said, “Did you hear me?”
He lifted his head ever so slightly, soot-rimmed eyes meeting hers. Despite their lives being on the line, there was no fear in his blue gaze, only pure masculine lust. Lust that Zarrah knew was only held at bay by the promise that he’d made to her. “Finish me,” she ordered, hearing the breathiness in her voice.
His gaze darkened, but for a heartbeat, Keris didn’t move. Then he lowered his head between her legs, a gasp tearing from her throat as his lips pressed against her in a kiss that turned the embers in her core to an inferno.
“Your officers will hear of this outrage,” she hissed at the soldiers, but they only smirked, one of Zarrah tried to relax, but her whole body felt stiff as a board, her eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Where them leaning forward to catch at the edge of her mask even as Keris parted her with his tongue. “I
doubt it,” he said. “Will mean you admitting you had a whore between your legs rather than your husband.”
Zarrah pushed the soldier’s hand away, her other still locked in Keris’s hair.
The soldiers laughed, and Zarrah’s pulse roared, partially with rising panic that they weren’t their conversation, their plans, when a messenger arrived with news about what transpired on Devil’s leaving and partially because of the effect Keris’s tongue was having on her body.
He knew her. Knew her body and everything she liked, and on her order, he was making use of that knowledge. Sweat beaded on her brow, tension building as he sucked and teased her, fingers trailing lines of fire along her naked thighs.
The soldiers made a show of slowly searching the room, but their eyes never left her naked body.
Keris’s naked body. She needed them to leave. Needed them to shut the door, or else … or else …
“If you wish to watch, you must pay,” Miri said from the doorway. “Else it is theft, and I’ll report you to the guild.”
as long as memory, the rumor has
“Consider it a bit of goodwill toward us, Miri,” one of them said, but the house’s matron crossed her arms, dark eyes narrowed, and they grudgingly backed out of the room. “Apologies,” she murmured, then shut the door.
“An apt assessment.” The boots were coming closer, the drums now silent, and Zarrah stared at the Keris lifted his face, and a scream of frustration threatened to rise from Zarrah’s throat. Like an addict deprived of her drug of choice, her body needed him. Needed this fix, and though her mind shouted at her that it was folly, her lips whispered, “Don’t stop.”
“Zarrah …” His voice was strained, as though he battled his own inner war, and she held her breath, eyes squeezed shut, waiting to see what part of him won. Waiting to see if they’d both succumb, proving that what lay between them burned as hot as it ever had. A desire that had always been wrong, always been forbidden, yet left every barrier in ash.
Even those they built themselves.
Her soul felt his will bend to lust a heartbeat before his tongue flicked over her, Zarrah’s back bowing as a sob of pleasure tore from her lips. All the world fell away as his fingers pressed inside her, curving to stroke her core even as he sucked her clit. As he pulled her to the edge of climax, every plot and plan and strategy falling victim to her undying need for his presence, his touch, his—
Love.
The word, and all the truths that came with it, pulled her over the edge, only some hidden reserve