Did she really want to battle as a warrior?
Shit.
“I don’t know what to do,” she murmured.
He sighed. “How about I hold you until you figure it out.”
She chuckled once, a bounce against his chest. “That could be a millennium.”
“Works for me.”
How strange that he could look down the years, decades, centuries and see himself holding her like this. What was it about Parisa that fit so well? Was it just the call of the breh-hedden, something outside them both forcing them together, or were they truly a good fit for this dimension, this world, this war?
He drew back and looked down at her.
She looked up. “You smell like sage.” She smiled.
He didn’t need more of an invitation than that. He dipped and caught her lips in a kiss that deepened swiftly. Before the thought had formed, his tongue was in her mouth and searching out every crevice as though he had never kissed her before.
She withdrew her arms from around his waist and slid them up his chest to encircle his neck. Her weapons harness and dagger collided with his. There just wasn’t a lot of intimacy when three daggers and a lot of leather separated skin from skin.
“Antony,” she murmured, meeting his gaze. “I’d like to go home, I don’t mean permanently, I mean right now. I’d like to be with you in my home, the one I’ve lived in for the past several years, on Mortal Earth.”
He had spent a lot of hours in her home. It was a unique house with a central courtyard, a private space that no one in the neighboring houses or the street could see into.
Everything about her house spoke of who she was: the muted hues of gold, maroon, and purple, the varying floors of carpet, wood, and tile, the heavy tapestry drapes in an olive green that flanked almost every window. In some ways, her house had a similar feeling to his own. And there wasn’t a room or hallway that didn’t have books in it, or on shelves, stacked on tables, locked away in glass cabinets as prized possessions. There had even been some left on her nightstand, a reminder that she’d had a life before her ascension.
Her love of books was just one more thing that bound him to her, whether he liked it or not.
“You know that I took care of your place.”
She smiled. “You told me again and again, remember? I know you couldn’t hear me when I’d voyeur you but I heard everything you said to me.”
“I know. At least, I thought that was the way it was for you. I hoped it was.”
“It was. You told me you went to my Peoria home every Monday and made sure all the utilities were paid for, the mail collected. You said Endelle kept the house cloaked in mist to keep death vampires away.”
“Yep.”
“So the water’s still turned on?”
He smiled. “You have a good-sized shower over there, though not as big as mine.”
Her amethyst eyes darkened. “Antony, no one’s is as big as yours.”
He chuckled. She was so his kind of woman. His brother warriors might call him a gentleman but when it came to women he bedded, he’d always preferred everything to be open, erotic, even experimental. That she’d engaged in long-distance sex with him for three months still pleased the hell out of him, and when she’d agreed to use her voyeur window on them last time, he’d known bedtime between them would be just right.
He also loved never knowing what direction things would take.
“My bed is only a queen and you’re definitely king-sized.”
He met her gaze, his lids at half-mast. “King-sized, huh?”
An answering rush of tangerine scent, softened with a bouquet that was just her, tingled his nostrils. King-sized indeed.
She writhed against him, all of him. “God, yes,” she whispered against his lips, which made his hips buck into her. “Fold me now.”
He didn’t hesitate. He thought the thought and the moment he felt the bricks of the courtyard beneath his feet, he kissed her hard. Small cries of approval drifted out of her throat and into his mouth. He wanted her to keep crying like that, louder and louder, until she was screaming against his lips and he could swallow her orgasms down.
He pulled back just a little. “I need this off.” He touched her weapons harness and folded it off so that a split-second later, her pale flesh was a beacon in the night. His right hand caressed one of her full br**sts. He was a big man and he had big hands. They barely fit around her, she was that big. Oh, yeah. He rubbed his thumb over her nipple and she cried out. He kissed her again.
He felt her hands give a tug on his harness. She drew back. “And I need this off.”
He was about to fold it away, but she stopped him. “Allow me.”
“Sure,” he said, but he smiled. For some reason, this skill set had so far proved challenging.
She closed her eyes and he felt his harness give way, but it ended up hooked over his left shoulder.
She giggled as she manually pulled it off him and dropped it on the pavers next to the chaise longue. She looked down at it and laughed some more. “I’ll get better.”
“You did just fine,” he said, his voice husky. He moved into her again and once more put his hand on her breast. He caught the nape of her neck with his palm and met her gaze as he slowly slid his hand over her breast, across, in a wide circle down, around, and up, a lot of beautiful territory to cover. She moaned.
He thumbed her nipple again, and her lips parted. He leaned into her and caught her mouth, driving his tongue deep. She whimpered and pressed her breast into his hand, grinding against his palm. The peaked nipple was a firm bead against his skin, and he needed more of it.
He drew back, dipped low, then caught her breast in his mouth and tongued her nipple, rubbing up and down in a sudden swift motion that brought little cries from her mouth. The rush of tangerine-and-woman scent rose like a cloud around him, which of course worked on his body like soft stroking fingers so that beneath his kilt he was hard as a rock. His knees felt rubbery the more he suckled.
He needed more.
He was breathing hard when he pulled back. She jerked forward as though she’d lost that small bit of balance. Her eyes had darkened, even in the dim lights of the courtyard lamps.
He shoved a muscled thigh between her legs and stroked her. He wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her onto his thigh. He held her tight against his chest. With his free hand he rubbed the side of her breast. Then he kissed her. He drove his tongue into her mouth over and over, letting her feel in that one pulsing movement what he wanted to do between her legs—tongue, cock, or fingers—to work her until she was screaming.