Caged Warrior (29 page)

She realized that she was wearing her undergarments—the tank top and lightweight cotton
shorts. At that moment, she appreciated that small measure of privacy, even if Leto’s
legs circled around hers. He kept his distance; she couldn’t feel the press of his
groin against her lower back. She had no idea whether this caress affected him as
a man, or if he was once again taking care of her like he was tending a prize animal.

“Come,” he said brusquely. “I’ll take you to your dorm. You need sleep. These few
days have been trying for us both.”

For the first time since regaining consciousness, she turned to face him. Leto had
held her for who knew how long. Looked after her. Gave her shelter against a world
that clawed at her calves, up her thighs, trying to drag her down.

His expression was the most open she’d ever seen of him. The stern set of his mouth
was lax, as if he’d just exhaled. His scarred upper lip didn’t seem so stern now,
just softer and more vulnerable. She could almost picture the moment of his injury—and
the desire to comfort him—as opposed to seeing the intimidating scar left behind.
The tight brackets around his mouth had eased. He looked younger. Powerful, yes, but
without the same burdens.

He wore briefs similar to hers, made from the same cotton that felt like rough homespun
cloth. The chest he’d kept covered by armor was bare. She’d always known his body
was marvelous, but to see the bare, shadowed proof was overwhelming. Where to look
first? Strong pectorals were swirled with a dusting of dark hair. Wide shoulders were
capped with striated muscle that led down to thick biceps and the powerful cords of
his forearms. His seated posture folded defined abdominals more tightly together,
like masculine origami hewn of flesh. Ligaments and ridges bunched between his ribs.

She wanted to trace her teeth down every hard line and sweeping curve. She wanted
to test his strength, to taste it. Even there, with so much unsaid, she had unconsciously
started to touch him. Just her fingertips within the cradle of his calloused palms.

His eyes were hooded and dark, propping up shields she wanted to tear down. Why was
it so important to find out his character?

I care for him. I want to know what sort of man I care for.

Cupping his jaw in both hands, she brought his gaze up to meet hers. “I’ve only been
in my dorm room to change clothes and wash. Why would I want to sleep there when you’re
here? For that matter, why would I want to sleep at all?”

“And your headache?”

“You made it better.” She shrugged. “They seem to . . . I don’t know. Come and go.
Flashes, then gone in a few seconds.”

He hesitated. His mouth tightened in some twist of
emotion she couldn’t begin to interpret. “This will change things.”

“You don’t deal well with change.”

An answering grunt.

“Leto?”

Another wordless noise in his throat. His expression might be more open, but she could
do with a few more assurances.

“As champion, you have your choice tonight,” she said, pushing her fingers up, up
into his soft, cropped hair. “Who would you choose if it wasn’t me? And don’t lie.
By now, you should know that I can tell the difference.”

“No one else.”

His voice was as rough as when they sparred, but layered with very different feelings.
The eyes he finally trained on her were just as dark, just as intense. Goose bumps
raised on her arms because of the desire he couldn’t—or no longer wanted—to hide.
Frank, sensual anticipation gathered in her stomach and pulsed up, down,
out
until her body ached to be kissed. Everywhere. She wanted that rough mouth in all
the ways a man could satisfy a woman, and she wanted to worship him in return.

“And me? Do you want me to choose someone else?”

“No.”

His primal growl intensified her need. She’d fought him for so long. She’d fought
beside him. Now, if they were to fight, they would do so in pursuit of release.

“This is me looking right at you. This is me making a choice that has nothing to do
with Dragon-damned
golish
or the heat of battle’s aftermath.” She leaned forward
and brushed her mouth against his. Restless, greedy hands helped her balance as she
held his taut shoulders. “This is me saying you won’t sleep tonight, and you won’t
spend tonight with anyone else.”

A smile livened his grim expression. “I said you’d come to me.”

♦   ♦   ♦

Leto had rarely, if ever, used an attempt at humor to disguise his real emotions.
Would leading them down this path ease the strain against Nynn’s mental defenses or
snap them in two?

Would it matter in a few seconds if she kept touching him?

She pushed up on her knees and positioned herself between his open thighs. The bed
was not wide. He’d always been uncomfortable in the thing. Now that closeness was
an unexpected benefit. He wanted her closer still.

“Yes, Leto. I’ve come to you. You win. From one champion to another,” she said against
his cheek, “that’s quite a thing for me to admit.”

“You have quite an ego after only one round.”

“You like that I do. I’m what you’ve made of me.”

Again he stifled a surge of something like guilt. He had done his best to train her,
but in the end, her success hadn’t been his to shape. He wasn’t some Indranan witch,
able to rearrange her thoughts and make her into a whole new woman.

Yet how was he not responsible? Ulia deserved only part of the blame. He could’ve
kept her alive as long as was required of them both. Instead, he’d wanted her to be
a grand reflection of his prowess. The applause she’d
received had eclipsed any he’d ever received, and even then, he’d been able to absorb
the glory because she was his creation.

He had tried to transform her, as surely as had Dr. Aster.

Nynn of Tigony was more powerful now, more assured, but she was not free.

Why that mattered to him was impossible to tell.
He
wasn’t free, and that had never bothered him.

She has a son. Her husband was murdered.

If she had remembered either of those things, she wouldn’t be kneeling between his
legs. Which made him the greediest Dragon-damned bastard when he took hold of her
hips.

“That’s more like it,” she said against his temple. “Show me what you can do, Leto
of Garnis. Show me.”

She knelt at the perfect height to showcase her torso. The tank top concealed her
breasts but hugged their firm, high shape. Her nipples had tightened. They strained
against the cotton, lifting and lowering with each breath. She dug her nails into
the caps of his shoulders. Wide, lush lips softened until they parted completely.
She licked her upper lip. That pure sensual invitation sent a rush of blood to Leto’s
cock. He’d been hard around Nynn before—and he’d been hard when atop her, there in
Kilgore’s room. This was different, just as it was different from any other reward
fuck after a fight.

This was intimate.

“You were right,” he rasped. “I don’t like change.”

She edged forward, changing the position of their legs so that she straddled his hips.
A shift, a dip, and she
settled the soft apex of her thighs over the proof of how much he wanted her. That
proof made him groan, while her eyes rolled closed. “I like
that
change. Always so much the warrior. Always so hard.” She ground her pelvis against
his. “But this is the kind of hard we need tonight.”

Leto’s control snapped. He couldn’t hold it together for both of them. She wanted
to be taken. He would take her.

What had been a slow awakening to temptation became rougher, faster. He stripped her
tank top in a move so quick that she gasped. Perhaps reflex made her cross her arms
over bare, beautiful breasts. He caught both wrists and pinned them at the base of
her spine. Any other woman—Dragon damn,
any
other woman—would’ve bowed to his show of strength. Nynn couldn’t escape his grip,
but she still had weapons. She bared her teeth and thrust out her chest.

“Yours,” she said.

Such a dare.

Leto tugged her wrists down and back, arching her spine. He fixed his mouth on her
left breast and sucked. No warning. No soft kiss. Her gasp was a molten tide that
spread through his body. She shook her shoulders from side to side—small attempts
to break free of his binding hands. The movements only heightened his arousal. She
wasn’t going anywhere, and better still, she didn’t want to.

Her flesh was firm and soft beneath his lips and under the flick of his tongue. He
toyed with her beaded nipple. Soft strokes. Deep, pulsing licks. Each drew a different
noise from her throat. He wanted to learn each
one and how to re-create it. The trail he left between her breasts was warm and wet.
She shivered when he scored his roughened cheek against another firm nipple.

Again she struggled against how he’d restrained her wrists. “I want to touch you.”

Leto trailed hot, openmouthed kisses up her neck, to her jaw, behind her ear. “Where
would you touch first?”

“Down your sides. I want to scratch you until you flinch.”

“And when I flinch?”

“You’ll fuck me.” She surged forward to catch his mouth in a fierce kiss. Passion
was a storm between them, with the crackle of her electricity and the ferocity of
his senses. A collision. “Because I don’t want soft anymore. Soft is for later.”

He groaned against her throat.
Later
. That promise. There would be more time. More encounters such as these. She would
learn his shivers and groans as surely as he’d taught her how to fight.

With one more hard sweep of his tongue between her lips, he let go of her arms.

She hadn’t played coy. Nynn ripped her nails down his sides and along his flanks.
He hissed. He bucked his hips. Her answering moan was exactly what he’d needed to
hear. She was primal, strong—the partner he’d never known he wanted.

Needed.

“Feel that?” He growled against her lips, then clenched her ass. Pulled her hips down.
Ground against her. Closer, with the rhythm that fueled their bodies. “Feel how hard
I am for you?”

She shoved her hands between them. Hot, slender fingers slid inside the waistband
of his shorts. “This?” She encircled him, gripped him. “This is for me?”

“Teasing bitch,” he said with a smile that was half-pain, half-ecstasy. “Should I
show you what’s mine?”

“Yes.”

Even in the haze of arousal, Leto knew he couldn’t flip Nynn over and drive into her
the way he wanted. Her back was too scarred and tender. She might seem oblivious to
what had taken place during the last few hours, the last few days, but he couldn’t
forget her pain if he tried.

Instead, he used his strength—he loved being strong when it came to dominating this
woman—to turn her onto her knees. He pulled down her shorts. With firm purpose, he
fit his whole palm between her legs. She was wet. Wet for
him
. Every time he assumed he’d reached the height of his desire, he found another reason
to blow past his limits.

Nynn arched her back like a cat, pressing more firmly against his hand. They both
shared a hissed moan.

Leto tugged down his own shorts and positioned his prick at her slick entrance. She
stilled. He didn’t breathe as he bowed over her body. He circled his free arm low
across her hips. She could struggle and thrash from the waist up, but her hips, her
pussy—they were his to control.

At the sight of her fresh tattoo, he fought those misgivings. He made them disappear,
just as he had the ability to make even the most vocal crowds disappear when he fought.
Single-minded.

“You wanted me to show you.” Against the hollow behind her ear, he growled his anticipation.
“
This
is mine. And this is our reward.”

W
ith one strong buck of his hips, Leto filled her. Nynn cried out, arched, surged back
to take more. She couldn’t remember a man before him—that’s how deeply he stroked,
how the pulsing cadence of his body overwhelmed thought. It was all she could do to
brace her hands against the wall at the head of the bed. He held nothing back. She’d
seen him fight and seen him hold his temper. Both required strength. Different kinds
of strength.

Now he used that strength to drive into her. Every withdrawal made her want to weep.
The loss of his hard length stole the air from her lungs. He didn’t leave her for
long. A half heartbeat later, he was back where he belonged, where she needed him—flush,
hip to hip, buried to the hilt. She ached. Slick. Greedy. Each thrust pushed her higher
and closer to an animalistic release. She wanted to be that mindless. She wanted Leto
to make her scream.

Bowed over her, he pulsed hot flashes of sensation across her back. His chest hair
scraped a gentle tease over her skin. His breath was harsh, fast, matching the rhythm
of his thrusts.

He pressed his mouth against her temple. “Say my name.”