Page 19 of Fought it Through the Teeth

He is achingly, desperately hard, his cock straining against the laces of his trousers, and the place on his hip where Bohdi's hand rested is burning, the heat still there after the hand has gone. He can still feel it, warm and broad and still, the shape of Bohdi's palm imprinted on his skin, and he wants, and he wants, and the wanting is inextricable now from the hot crawl of shame that is sitting sour and heavy in his stomach.

He presses his forehead to the table. The wood is cool against his flushed skin.

Eventually he laughs, once, humorlessly, alone in an empty room, shirtless and bruised and hard and humiliated, laughing at himself because the alternative is something worse and because he has been doing this for years and has not yet found the bottom of it.

Chapter 8

Bohdi

Bohdi gets back to his room with his traitorous dick throbbing in his trousers.

He's thinking about how he's going to jerk off into his fist as fast as he can and then go to bed and forget any of what has happened. He loses that train of thought entirely, because there is a beautiful woman lying naked on his bed.

She has long dark hair fanned across the pillow, a curved figure displayed with deliberate artistry, and the perkiest pair of tits he has ever had the good fortune to lay eyes on. She is propped on one elbow with a look on her face that could melt iron at twenty paces — heavy-lidded, lips parted, the kind of bedroom eyes that have probably gotten lesser men out of their clothes before the door shut behind them.

Fuck, he thinks, vehemently.

Ivan must have sent her as a gift, a courtesy between men — one warchief's woman offered to another warchief's dog. Bohdi is not unfamiliar with the practice. Other lords have tried it before, in holds and camps and strongholds, thinking a woman in the bed would buy them a favorable word in the king's ear. It has never once worked, though the women have generally been lovely about it.

He greets her with a grin broad enough to crack his face in half. "Good evening. I wasn't expecting company."

She blinks. The sultriness flickers just barely and recovers. She stretches on the bed in a way that draws the eye to every asset she has on offer, which is considerable. "The chieftain thought you might enjoy some warmth tonight."

"That's very generous of the chieftain," Bohdi says. He crosses to the side table where a pitcher of ale and two cups have been set out and pours both cups full. He picks up the robe from the back of the chair as he passes it, a heavy fur-lined thing that must belong to whoever usually occupies this room, and brings both to her. He holds the cup in one hand and the robe in the other.

She takes the cup. She looks at the robe with considerably less enthusiasm.

"It's not a commentary," Bohdi tells her, settling into the chair beside the bed and stretching his legs out in front of him. "You're stunning. But it's cold enough to freeze the spit off a dog in here and I'd feel like a bastard letting you sit there bare while I'm fully dressed."

She takes the robe after a moment, slow and bewildered, prepared for one conversation and rapidly discovering she is having another. She shrugs it on, wraps it closed across her chest, and holds the cup in both hands.

"What's your name?" Bohdi asks.

She blinks again. "Sera."

"Sera. That's lovely. How long have you been with the Wolfe clan?"

She takes a careful sip and he watches her throat work and notes that she drinks without hesitation, which means either she trusts the ale or she doesn't care. He takes a drink of his own. It tastes like ale, which is good enough.

"Two seasons," she says. "The chieftain acquired me from a trade delegation."

Acquired. He files the word and what it tells him. "Where are you from originally?"

She tilts her head. The dark hair slides across one shoulder and the robe shifts, offering a view she is clearly aware of and deploying with intent. "Why does it matter?"

"Curiosity. You don't have the coloring of the Wolfe people. Or the accent."

Something changes in her face, not suspicion exactly but a careful reassessment. She has been assuming she is dealing with a simple brute and is rapidly reconsidering. She takes another sip. "I'm Jakadi."

Well, well, Bohdi thinks. Will wonders never cease.

Bohdi lets his grin widen and leans back in the chair, easy and loose, giving every appearance of enjoying a pleasant evening chat with a beautiful woman while his blood goes very, very still. He takes a drink, matching hers. "Jakadi. That's a long way from home."

Sera shrugs. The motion is graceful and practiced and entirely wasted on a man who is currently noting every word she says with the attentive precision of a scout reading trail signs. "Home is where you're told to sleep. I've been told to sleep here. With you." She pauses. "Though you don't seem interested."

"I'm interested in conversation. Hard to come by in a stronghold full of people who'd rather arm-wrestle than talk."

That gets a laugh out of her — small and surprised, involuntary, meaning she didn't expect it. She tucks her legs beneath her on the bed and wraps the robe tighter and looks at him with frank appraisal.