Page 42 of Remmen

“Don’t you dare go easy,” she said, breathless, and shoved herself back onto me until I was seated deep, and we both groaned at it.

Then I fucked her, slow and deep, working a little further into her with every stroke until my hips met her and she’d taken all of me. One arm banded under her breasts, holding her back against my chest; my other hand stayed between her legs, rubbing her clit in time with every thrust.

She was loud now, and wet enough that I could hear it, the slick drag of my cock in and out of her, and every push punched a broken little cry out of her. She reached back over her shoulder and got a hand around one of my horns and held on and begged me for more.

I gave it to her. I let go of slow. The light lay warm across us both. I had her in my bed in the middle of the day, daylight across her skin, and I had never in my life wanted to be anywhere else.

She came first, hard, clenching down around my cock so tight I nearly went over with her, her whole body pulling at me, my name breaking apart in her mouth. I fucked her through it, her clit still under my fingers, until she was wrung out and twitching and sobbing.

Then I let myself go. I drove deep and held there and spilled into her in long, shaking pulses, filling her, my face buried in her hair and a sound tearing out of me I’d never made before her.

The bond pulled taut and rang through me, the same certainty that had hit me on the dock, gentled now that she knew it too.

We lay there and came back down. Her heart slowed against my arm. I stayed inside her until I softened and slipped free. Her faint protest at losing me made me absurdly proud.

Sweat cooled on both of us. The light crept a hand’s width across the floor. Out beyond the curtains, muffled and far off, the town got on with the work of cleaning up after the morning, and not one bit of it could reach us in here.

I dragged the quilt up over her hip. She stroked her fingers along my forearm, idle, tracing the old scars there without asking me about a single one, and I was grateful for that too.

After a while I shifted her onto her back so I could see her face, and she let me, sleepy and loose and unbothered by the size of the male taking up most of her view. I looked at her for a long time. She caught me at it and didn’t tell me to stop, only dragged my arm in tighter and closed her eyes.

“I should go,” Anne said in a sleepy voice some time later, her finger stroking over one of my horns.

I made a rumbling sound in the back of my throat. “Stay.” It was almost begging. “Just a little longer.”

She settled down beside me. “Just a little longer,” she agreed.

But I had no idea how much more time we could steal before it ruined us both.

CHAPTER 18

ANNE

One truth about small towns, no matter where a person was in the galaxy: folks liked to talk.

I felt the whispers more than heard them as I walked back from the tavern after lunch a few days after the gorrel charged into town. I’d done nothing more than wave at Remmen, who was walking the other direction.

It sent tongues wagging.

We’d kept our secret for more than a month of stolen nights and one risky sleepover, but me walking away with him after he was injured set the rumors milling. I didn’t regret it and I wouldn’t have done anything different.

I loved that man. I wanted to be with him.

But neither of us had come up with a solution to the mess that was our relationship and the contract clause separating us.

Two brides by the well went quiet when I passed and started up again the second my back was to them. Or maybe they just paused to let me by. Who could tell? A bull touched two fingers to his brow and said afternoon, nice as you please, and I couldn’t decide if that was manners or a warning. A month ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about any of it. Now I was reading into every look I got, and half the time I probably had it wrong.

I spotted Nezara walking down the street and sped up, practically sprinting for my office those last few steps. She hadn’t said anything yet, hadn’t questioned. But if she did, I wasn’t sure I could give her a lie that she would believe.

This wasn’t sustainable. Especially not for the next two years, but I was too busy bouncing between one disaster and the next to figure out the solution.

Zarcal was waiting in my office when I arrived and I nearly cursed. Was I late? No. A quick glance at my watch said that he was early.

He’d taken the big chair by the window, hands folded in his lap, settled in without any hurry. His face didn’t give me a thing, same as always. A lot of the bulls went quiet like that, quiet sitting on top of something, and Zarcal was quieter than most. Whatever it was, he’d come fifteen minutes early to sit in my office and not tell me about it.

“How was your week?” I asked Zarcal, just as I had the last two sessions.

He shrugged. “I’ve made progress on the shed.”