The Kraken King (46 page)
She wasn’t
that
heavy. It could only mean that he was fighting himself—and his control was failing, too.
that
heavy. It could only mean that he was fighting himself—and his control was failing, too.
Better if she made it crumble. She anchored her arms around his neck and rocked against him.
Ariq groaned again, even as tension steeled his powerful frame. He looked up at her, and she loved the subtle flush beneath his skin. Her own felt tight and hot, her lips swollen, her body a tumultuous mass of nerves and fire.
Slowly, he lowered Zenobia to her feet, her aroused flesh slipping down his length and dragging another moan from her throat. His voice was a soft growl, feral in its intensity. “Do you still want an adventure?”
An adventure.
That was what she’d called her intention to take him to her bed.
That was what she’d called her intention to take him to her bed.
The needy ache inside her deepened. “Yes.”
He stripped off the goggles. “You’ll need these.”
That wasn’t what she’d expected. Bemused—and not a little confused—she took them. “Why?”
“You have to stand as lookout.” He steered her against the side of the basket. “Where’s your blanket?”
“I . . .” She looked around. Not on the floor. His tunic still lay crumpled where he’d dropped it. “It must have blown over the side.”
Because he’d kissed her senseless. Her brain still hadn’t quite pulled back together.
“Are you cold?”
Now that he’d mentioned it, yes. Despite the two layers she wore, the wind seemed to slip under her collar and through every seam. “A little.”
He scooped up his tunic. “Put this on.”
“Then you’ll be cold.” She didn’t know how he wasn’t already, but his skin was smooth, and his dark nipples flat.
“Not where I’m going,” he said and, when she didn’t immediately look away from the hard slabs of his pectorals, slung the tunic around her shoulders.
It was far too big, but she immediately felt warmer. Her arms slipped into sleeves that dangled past the ends of her fingers.
“Where are you going?” Jumping into the ocean again? She doubted it, but glanced over the side anyway. “Down there?”
“No.” His hands caught her hips. “But I hope to make it as wet.”
Her face flamed. She couldn’t mistake his meaning, though she didn’t know how he intended to—
Gaze holding hers, he sank to his knees in front of her.
Her heart tripped to a stop. “Ariq?”
“You need to watch for ships so I’ll know you’re safe as I do this.” His palms smoothed down her hips. “Put the goggles on.”
Breath suddenly ragged, she buckled them behind her head. The thick frames narrowed her vision. The lenses shielded her eyes from the wind. She didn’t know if it would matter. Her focus seemed scattered, the sky blurred and the sun too bright, and the waves drawn in sharp lines.
Long fingers trailed down the sides of her thighs, three layers of tunics and a pair of pantaloons separating their skin. “Take off your boots.”
Her boots? But a second later his hands slipped under the hems of her tunics and she understood why. He intended to remove her bottoms.
Gripping the rail for balance, she toed off her boots. They slid off easily and she stood in her bare feet on the cool wooden floor. The silk of her pantaloons suddenly felt no more substantial than tissue. The heat of his hands burned through the thin material on their way up her legs. She trembled as his fingers hooked the tie at her navel and gently tugged. The waist fell loose.
Slowly, without touching her skin, he dragged the silk down her thighs. Shivering wildly, she clung to the rail. The roar of the wind seemed to fill her ears, but his graveled voice penetrated the din.
“Cold?”
“No.” Her blood was on fire. Was this how he meant to brand her? He would. God, he would. From the inside out. She’d probably never be cold again.
His fingernails skimmed the backs of her knees as he continued downward. Another shudder wracked her body. Tendrils of cooler air were slipping up between her legs now, a whisper against her skin and an icy breath where she was wet.
And she was
so
wet. Already.
so
wet. Already.
Silk pooled at her ankles. Ariq looked up at her, stark need written in the lines of his face. “Step out.”
She did, kicking the pantaloons aside. Her pulse drummed a dizzying beat. She was bare. But she wasn’t exposed. Not yet. Her tunics were long; the blue silk fell past her knees and the others hung low on her thighs. Each buckled at her shoulder and side, and a belt cinched the first two layers at her waist like the tie of a robe. Ariq couldn’t see anything but her shins and her feet.
It didn’t matter. Ariq wore less than she did and yet she seemed more bare. And when his callused palms cupped the backs of her calves and began a rough upward slide, she’d never felt so utterly naked.
“Watch.”
Another harsh command. He’d barely gritted out more than a few words at a time since he’d begun touching her. But she
had
been watching, transfixed by the ridged muscles of his abdomen that flexed as he sat back on his heels, by the rampant thrust of his erection outlined beneath his trousers. She’d been watching it all through the narrowed field of her goggles, arrested by the rich warm tones of his skin and the sight of her wrapped tunic slowly parting as his hands rose higher and higher beneath the hem.
had
been watching, transfixed by the ridged muscles of his abdomen that flexed as he sat back on his heels, by the rampant thrust of his erection outlined beneath his trousers. She’d been watching it all through the narrowed field of her goggles, arrested by the rich warm tones of his skin and the sight of her wrapped tunic slowly parting as his hands rose higher and higher beneath the hem.
Those hands stilled. “Zenobia. Watch.”
Not him, she realized. The horizon. She was supposed to be watching for other ships.
Reluctantly, she tore her gaze away and stared blindly into the sky. Her legs were trembling, but they shouldn’t. He wasn’t touching her in any way that she hadn’t done herself. She knew what to expect. Never had such acute arousal accompanied her explorations, but it would be the same. Fingers on flesh.
Except she’d never shaken in anticipation of her own touch. His palms slid higher, his fingers curling inward. Her head fell back, the muscles of her neck feeling loose though the rest of her body was strung with unbearable tension. Overhead, the lantern fish undulated, pumping through the air, and the motion of its translucent flesh seemed lascivious now, pulsing to the same beat as the throbbing ache between her legs.
Cool air slipped through her parting tunic and swept her upper thighs. Rough fingertips slicked over wet skin. Zenobia whimpered low in her throat. Just a little higher now.
With a grinding moan, Ariq stopped. Gripping his taut shoulders, she pushed her hips forward, urging him. But when his hands began moving again they flattened and rose past the heated juncture of her thighs, until his big palms cupped her bare bottom.
Her face caught fire. She’d just wantonly tried to push her sex into his hands, assuming he would touch her there. But that apparently hadn’t been his goal. Now she didn’t know what—
“Hook your leg over my shoulder.” Voice hoarse, Ariq sank lower and dipped his head. “Let me taste you.”
Dear God. She knew this. Had seen drawings. But she’d never imagined it.
A true adventure. One that made her entire body shudder with need.
“I’ll fall over,” she whispered. Her trembling legs barely supported her now.
“I’ll hold you.” With his left hand steady behind her, his right hand slid to the back of her knee, gently lifting it forward. “Just keep watch.”
She couldn’t. The sky and sea were a blur of blue, not the deeper blue of her tunic as it fell away from her leg. His shoulder and back were solid and hot beneath her skin, her calf a pale stripe against his tattoo. A black tentacle curled beneath her heel. The kraken, pulling her deep. With a kiss to the inside of her thigh. With a lick that went higher. She couldn’t see Ariq’s face, only his dark head as he bent to the shadows beneath the V of blue silk. His fingers tightened on her bottom and hauled her closer.
The molten heat of his mouth claimed her flesh. Zenobia curled forward with a strangled cry, her fingers digging into his hair. No teasing. No buildup. Just direct, like everything he did.
As if a single taste deepened his hunger, a ravenous groan tore from his chest. Roughly his tongue slicked up her center and destroyed her ability to breathe, her every thought.
“Ariq.”
It was all she had left. A gasp. His name. And the pleasure ripping her apart as he licked a hot path to her clitoris. Sucking the aching bud into his mouth, he stroked it against his tongue.
Her knee folded. His strong hands caught her, her body anchored between the support of his palms and the hunger of his mouth. Her every breath was a sob. Her hips jerked with each flick of his tongue and the throbbing tension wound tighter, like a pain that would only feel better if it hurt more. Then it was too much, she needed to get away, and the grip of his hands became iron and his devouring mouth opened wide, teeth grazing her clitoris as his stiffened tongue speared inside.
For an instant she froze, hands fisted in his hair, ecstasy stretching to the edge of erotic anguish. Then his tongue thrust into her again, and she screamed as the orgasm broke through her in erratic waves, her hips rocking in an uncontrolled rhythm that sharpened unbearably when he rode with her, still feasting from her clenching sex.
His tongue slicked over her clitoris and she came again, sobbing his name and collapsing forward. Hands sliding up to her waist, Ariq lowered her over him, her bare thighs straddling his hips, his trousers rough against her oversensitive skin. Her back arched as the pressure of his rigid length against her need-swollen flesh sent new ripples of pleasure through her core.
His mouth captured hers, silencing her cry, and with the wetness of her arousal still glistening on his lips, the languid kiss seemed more carnal than his deep taste between her legs.
Eventually Ariq lifted his head, need still burning in his gaze. “My
wife
,” he growled fiercely, as if daring her to deny it.
wife
,” he growled fiercely, as if daring her to deny it.
She wouldn’t. Especially if he kept doing everything he’d just done.
But he wasn’t finished. His hand slipped beneath her hair to clasp the back of her neck. “If I hadn’t vowed not to take you here, I’d have both your legs on my shoulders. Then I’d have made you stand as lookout while I slid deep into you from behind, and had you until your sheath squeezed my cock as hard as it did my tongue.”
So blunt. With a breathless laugh, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hid her burning face in his warm neck. “I think I awakened a beast slumbering below.”
“You already knew what I was.” Voice still rough, he held her closer. “Do you feel trapped?”
No. She felt safe. Even though she’d known that part of him, too. The Kraken. Who fixated on his prey and never let go. Who would hold on, even if they were both dragged down.
But although she was always afraid, she wasn’t afraid of that. And it was difficult to hope—yet she was now. This wasn’t ending yet. So even if he loved the woman he’d thought she’d been, maybe she had time to brand herself on him, too.
Her heart full, she tightened her arms around him. “I haven’t looked for a ship since the second I felt your mouth.”
“Look now.” He sounded amused—and not surprised.
So arrogant. “I can’t even stand.”
Slipping his hands beneath her bottom again, he rose just high enough to glance over the side.
“Still safe,” he said.
***
Still safe.
Hours later, there were still no ships in sight. Zenobia glanced away from the twilight horizon to search the dark waters below. The moon had risen, shedding weak light across the waves.
Diffused blue light.
Blinking, she rubbed her sleeves over the lenses of her goggles. The lantern fish was still clipping along a hundred feet above the water’s surface, the electrostatic charger clicking as it unwound. Now and again, Zenobia fancied that she could see the sparks running up the wires to the jellied flesh. The blue in the water ahead looked like that—not the blue of the ocean or sky, but the blue of an electric spark or a gas flame, as if giving off its own light.
She glanced straight down. More blue shimmered under the water. Not the diffuse glow ahead, but more like a squiggle of glowing blue ink. Definitely not the moonlight. And not an electric spark. The balloon was flying faster than the light was moving; she’d never heard of slow electricity.
And there was another, bigger. She gripped the rail and leaned over, squinting into the dark until the shape beneath the surface resolved.
An undulating bell. Long trailing tentacles.
A glowing jellyfish.
Grinning, she glanced at Ariq. He sat beside her, his back against the basket wall and his eyes closed. She couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or simply resting. That afternoon, she’d realized that he’d probably slept as little—or even less—than she had in the past few days, and had insisted on taking watch. They would be in the Red City by dawn; God knew how much time would pass before he could rest again.
But she didn’t know if he was sleeping now. His chest rose on deep, even breaths, but every time she made a noise or moved quickly, she would turn to find his eyes open. Every time the clicking of the charger stopped, he rose to wind it again before she could make a move toward the crank handle. If he was sleeping, it was very lightly, and she probably should let him rest. He’d likely seen glowing jellyfish before.
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