His nostrils flared. He didn’t like her answer. Too bad.
“Enough.” His single word was a low, menacing growl. “This session’s over.”
Rising abruptly, he came to his feet with her cradled in his arms, as if her weight were nothing. He stalked across the cave.
Heart slamming hard against her ribs, her body still on fire from his earlier touches, she could do no more than stare up at him.
She didn’t understand him or his strange Other behavior. He asked for the truth, but her honesty angered him more.
Her feet landed on the blanket.
“I’ll get you some more food. I expect you to eat every bit.” He crouched, snapping a single manacle around her ankle before standing up and turning away—only to whirl back around, his hands gripping her upper arms. “You have worth, Nayla. You shouldn’t have to trade in other people to prove it. Or to gain a damn name. You’re extraordinary just as you are.”
Shocked, she could only stare as he disappeared down a side corridor she hadn’t noticed before.
No one had ever said anything like that to her before.
Ancients help her, but, false or not, she was coming to crave her enemy’s words as much as his touch.
14
The instant Grif made it into the second cavern, he pulled his dick from beneath his covering and leaned back against the rocky wall.
So fucking much for business as usual. Rough or gentle, touching Nayla was pure heaven and sheer hells. The way she responded to him was like nothing he’d ever experienced before, and everything he secretly craved.
Sweat pooled at his back. The steam from the natural springs that made this such a perfect bathing area made it less than ideal for overheated skin. He didn’t give two fucks.
Hand wrapped around his cock, he squeezed tight, his strokes jerky and rough, spreading the sweet, wild scent of Nayla’s arousal onto the length of his shaft.
Making it as slippery and wet as her needy cunt. Making it easier for her hungry little honey-colored pussy to take.
Just the image sent pre-cum spurting onto his fist.
He’d been determined to bring things to a close and use her need against her. Instead, she’d landed on his lap, all sweet smells and soft skin, squirming and panting beneath his touch and all he could think of was that this was new to her. All he could think of was showing her just how good it could be. All he could think of was that fanged fucker Ramm holding her just like he was.
Then, she’d suggested the pack wouldn’t care what happened to her and shoved his attempt to make her into a victim back in his face.
He didn’t do well with blurred lines. Or the weight on his chest that seemed to only get heavier with everything he learned about her.
Where was his usual control? Dragath hells. It was supposed to be her who ended up flayed wide, but he was the one getting twisted up inside.
She said he couldn’t save her. That she was doomed. A few rotations past, he would have cheerfully agreed and helped to further the process along. Not anymore.
His skull clocked the wall behind him, his cock swelling as his eyes closed and he saw her. Her body ripe and ready, those firm, slender thighs still smeared with flecks of golden paint that made her silken skin glow. That naked look of need in her iridescent gaze. The adorable ears twitching. Her purposeful defiance. The way she melted into his touch, as if she could never get enough.
Hells, he’d wanted to cuddle her like that forever.
He worked his hand faster.
Fully human or not, there was something about Nayla that slipped beneath his wall. That found the cracks he hadn’t even known were there, and made him feel. The honesty of her body’s responses addictive and irresistible.
The unexpected flashes of awe playing across her face when he touched her almost cut him off at his knees. When he laid his hands on her she looked…surprised. Amazed. As if the way he touched her was not just a torment, but a revelation.
As if, together, they could fix whatever the hells was broken inside them both.
His hand pumped faster. His jaw clenched. His body bowed. His balls cinched up tight. Seed spurted in thick white ropey waves from his dick as brutal pleasure slammed through him.
The back of his head smacked the wall once more. He barely noticed.
He fought to catch his breath, his hand slowing as his death grip loosened and his dick finally softened to half-mast.
Reason returned as his cum washed away, carried off in the trickling stream that snaked through the cavern floor.
If only he could wipe away his fucked-up reactions so easily.
Crouching down, he wiped himself clean in the spring. He splashed his chest and neck, too, because despite the jerk session and the water, he was already semihard again at the thought of returning to her. If things kept on like this, he’d be jacking off until his dick was raw and chapped.
He splashed more water on himself and conjured up the faces of his worried teammates, Melody’s and Hope’s anguished eyes, the commander’s stern visage.
Then, though he didn’t do it often because it hurt too fucking much, he allowed himself to see the image of bright green eyes so close to his own, a potent reminder of the first female he’d been unable to save.
It wasn’t just about the second-in-command position. Losing control, blurring lines, altering course, could endanger everything he’d fought and clawed to become since his sister’s death. He was ruthless because he got the job done. Because someone needed to be the damn monster who understood the dark and the ugly and was willing to do whatever it took to save the innocents, even if it stained him beyond repair.
He could not desert them now just because one female was confusing the hells out of him.
He cracked his neck one way, then the other. Calmer now. His dick no longer a thick rod against his thigh.
He had to bring those missing females home no matter the cost. To Nayla, or to himself.
It was time to take the next step.
15
“Where we go?” Nayla’s breath came in pants.
Grif had come back, his expression as hard and lethal as when he’d first captured her. None of the earlier gentleness visible anymore.
Without a word, he’d drawn her to standing by her bound wrists, slipped a lead rope around them, unsnapped her ankle restraints, and led her deeper into the tunnel, his long strides forcing her to hurry to keep up.
Was this the end? Had he finally understood that he would get no useful information out of her and now he intended to send her to the Void?
It should not come as a surprise, but it did. Especially since their last exchange had been so…extraordinary. She’d been turning his shocking words over in her mind. The way they made her stomach flutter as taboo and exhilarating as the heat between her thighs.
Now she felt like a fool.
“Where you take me?” With every step, the dark tunnel grew hotter and more humid, water droplets forming on her skin and rolling down her back.
“Anywhere I want.” He sounded so cold and angry. She didn’t understand the change or why the sharpness of the words cut into her chest as if they were actual knives.
They rounded the next bend in the tunnel and their destination appeared.
A natural spring. The source of the churning water she’d heard before. The pinkish color bubbled and swirled, suggesting the water was safe, clean, and hot. Under any other circumstances, she would have rushed in. But not like this. Not with her hands bound.