Wasteland: The Wanderer Read online

  Her gaze fastened on his lips when he spoke, and she pressed her boot heels to the backs of his legs, pushing him closer. He leaned down to offer his mouth, and she met him halfway, her tongue eagerly meeting his. So, she enjoyed his kiss. Satisfaction pulsed through him at the realization. He matched the mating of their bodies to the mating of their mouths, plunging into her, soft, then harder, deeper. Her beaded nipples rubbed against his chest, and when she fisted her walls around his cock, every thought drained from his mind.

  Tilting her head, she changed the angle of their kiss. Her tongue dueled with his, but her fingers were tentative when she slid them through his hair. He choked at her touch upon him, tore his mouth away. “Yes. I want your hands on me, Kadira.”

  The tips of her fingers trailed down his spine, and she curved her palms over the cheeks of his ass, digging her nails in. He grunted, grinding his pelvis against her clit in retaliation. She bit her lower lip, her lids dropping to veil her eyes. He did it again, angling his thrusts to bring her as much pleasure as he could. A stifled sound of need poured from her throat, but she pressed her lips together and arched under him, her hands demanding as they pulled him closer. Her sex cinched around his cock, and he felt her shiver. The slickness coating his shaft made each stroke a struggle not to come. Fire licked at his belly, fisting tight, and pinpricks of sensation rushed over his skin everywhere they touched. Sweat from the heat they produced welded them together, and the coolness of the night air moving over him made him shudder. He drove deep, a harsh cry ripping from him. He’d be unable to contain himself much longer.

  El and Ela, she was divinity incarnate.

  Her head fell back, and he took advantage of the exposed position to nip and suck at her throat. She gasped, writhing beneath him. He sank his teeth into the sensitive spot that connected shoulder to neck, and she arched so hard, she lifted him with her. Her channel contracted around his cock, gripping him tight enough to make his skull feel as if it would explode. He released his hold on his restraint, and spilled his seed inside of her. Her inner muscles milked spurts of fluid from him, and he couldn’t stop the harsh sounds he made.

  Spent, he collapsed on top of her, burying his face in the lush valley between her breasts. He turned his head and kissed one soft slope. She panted, her muscles trembling, her breath rushing in and out, and he could hear her heart thundering under his ear. A smile curled the corners of his lips.

  Never had he known pleasure this deep. It had been better than he’d imagined, and he had imagined it for more years than he’d care to admit. Her hands stroked his buttocks for a moment before she let them fall to the furs. He shuddered at the sweetness of having her hands caress him. He wanted more of it, of her, and he would have it. Weeks more of it, where he could finally burn her from his mind and body, glut himself until he was satisfied.

  He leveraged himself up on his forearms so he wasn’t crushing her. She shifted beneath him, but he didn’t wish to slide his softening cock out of her just yet, so he stayed where he was and gazed down at her face, brushed his lips over the crescent moon on her forehead. “You are quiet.”

  “Am I?” Her brows pinched together, and she pulled in a deep breath that pressed her firm breasts to his chest. “You wish me to have a conversation during sex?”

  It did sound odd when she put it to him that way, and he was still inside her. He frowned. It wasn’t that she hadn’t conversed; it was that she’d made little noise at all. She’d clutched at him, kissed him hard, but he’d seen her grit her teeth to hold back a scream, to muffle a moan. Her actions had spoken more than she had, and he wondered at her reserve and how to break through it. He wanted her as uninhibited as she was on the battlefield, wild and fierce. Had he ever seen her cry out a lover’s name during the Rites? She’d drawn his gaze often, and he realized he had not. Her control always held. Interesting. A puzzle to decipher. Something he excelled at. He would consider it. Later. Instead of answering her questions, he offered a query of his own. “I hope you weren’t…upset that I did not offer a bond.”

  “Not at all.” Her eyebrows arched, and a coolness filled her gaze. She pushed at his shoulders until he rolled off of her. She sat up, brushing her hair away from her face. “I would never bond with someone who wished to cage me the way this arrangement does. I prefer the bond matings that are more open to experimentation.”

  “Experimenting is my trade.” The irony of that made him smile a little.

  What was almost a grin fluttered the sides of her mouth. “Your trade, but not your bond.”

  “No. Opening up a bond in that manner causes more problems than it solves.” Discomfiture made him sit up as well, and he propped an elbow on a raised knee. Ugly memories, old taunts and humiliations, sparked through his mind. Why had he brought up the subject of bonding? Perhaps because of the way her expression had closed when he’d told her chieftain he wouldn’t offer her one. He wouldn’t offer anyone a bond. Ever. His parents’ example was seared into his mind, and he knew how badly such arrangements could go. Better to seek the fleeting pleasure of a lover than the perpetual agony of a bonded mate.

  “I disagree.” One of her shoulders twitched in a shrug, but she’d turned her face away from him so he couldn’t read whatever emotions she might allow to show on her features. Her fingers clenched into the pelts beneath her. “If a bond is secure, nothing can break it, and sexual play doesn’t change that.”

  “You’ve been bonded before?” Jealousy ripped through him at the thought of anyone else possessing her in such a way, receiving her devotion. He shoved that unwarranted feeling aside. He didn’t wish to bond with her, so why should it bother him if some other man or woman did? He shouldn’t. It didn’t. Of course.

  She shook her head, flicking a glance at him. “No, but I’ve seen such bonds…in others.”

  “Others who were in love?” He couldn’t keep the scorn out of his voice, and he almost missed the haunted expression that flashed through her gaze.

  “I suppose.” She scooted to the edge of the pallet and jerked her clothes off the woven grass mat on the floor. “Love makes you weak, leaves you open to pain. It’ll put you on your knees if you let it. I can do without.”

  “I could not agree more, and I never intend to bond, which is the only reason I mention it. I meant what I said, that anyone should be honored to mate with you, if they were seeking a mate. I am not, so my refusal was not personal, and I wished to make certain you understood no offense was intended.” Reaching over, he pulled her clothes away from her and threw them back to the mat. He scooped her into his arms and began working her boots off so she was as naked as he. He scowled down at her. “We’re not done yet, Kadira.”

  “I took no offense.” But her eyes told the truth. His denial had upset her. The knowledge twisted something deep inside him. Had she hoped he would bond with her? Impossible. He would never allow anyone that close. He had always imagined a woman as contained as she would agree, but he sensed there was more to her story than what she had said. Some wound that was still tender. Another puzzle. No wonder she fascinated him. And he had days upon days to unravel the mystery of her. Excellent.

  She folded her arms over her naked breasts, shifted uncomfortably in his lap and cleared her throat, obviously groping for another topic. He would welcome one as well, so he waited for her to speak. “What is that?”

  He followed her gaze to the small table beside the piled furs. “I call it a pharos.”

  Leaning away from him, she examined it more closely. “It is…not fire that makes it burn.”

  “No, you leave it out to catch the sun during the day and it’ll burn all night, if needed. It works better than those powered by our regular fuel, and requires no horse chips or precious wood to sustain. Difficult to find the materials to create, so I don’t trade them. Yet.” He stroked his fingers in circles on her skin, thinking. “I need to consider ways to simplify the design.”

  “They say your mind does not work the way a normal person
’s would. That El and Ela made you…different.” Her dark eyes studied him, and he couldn’t prevent himself from stiffening. How often had he defended his own thoughts? He could not explain the unexplainable. He’d thought such sensitivity buried under heavy calluses, but it stung to have her point out his freakish nature as so many had done before her. In his youth, anyone who’d mocked him had been battered into unconsciousness on the practice field. His clan had quickly learned that even if his mind was different, his fists and sword hurt as much as anyone else’s when they struck.

  “Are not we all unique? Different?” Though he managed the light voice he usually used when people asked such things now, his shoulder jerked in a shrug. He snapped off the pharos, throwing them into darkness. He rolled them so she was on the side of the pallet farthest from the door, to protect her or to keep her from escaping, he was uncertain, but he knew neither would be a gesture she appreciated. “Sleep, Kadira.”

  “You…want me to sleep in your tent too?” The incredulousness in her voice irritated him, made him want to growl at her. Why she should be able to set him so on edge, send arrows to all the chinks in his armor, he didn’t know.

  “Only a Rose slinks out of a man’s bed when he is done fucking her. You are not a Rose.”

  She went rigid beside him. “No. I am not. Say so again, and I’ll put a blade in you.”

  “Good. You do that.” He hooked his arm around her waist and pulled her back against him. “Now stop talking and allow me some rest. I have to keep up my strength if I’m going to help you work off the cost of a year’s supply of fuel.”

  Snorting, she drove an elbow into his belly, and all the air rushed out of his lungs. He choked and laughed at the same time. She groped around in the dark for a moment, pinched his ass and then pulled a blanket up and over them. “Go to sleep, Chieftain.”

  A sigh eased out of him, and instead of keeping him awake, the sound of the Rite drums lulled him to unconsciousness, his face buried in the nape of her neck.

  The sweet scent of her teased his dreams.

  Chapter Three

  His hair looked like fire in the morning light, turning it a brighter shade of red than it actually was. Leaning away from him, Kadira allowed herself a thorough look while he still slept. It was odd, waking beside someone. She usually found her own pallet after a bout of sex.

  The lightest brush of freckles shown under his browned skin, and on anyone else it would have been endearing, but his body bore too many scars for him to be seen as anything other than what he was—a ruthless, dangerous man. Black whorls of tattooing curled from his brow to his chin on one side of his face, the high cheekbone making the ink stand out. His skin was paler than hers, making the dark marks all the more apparent. His warrior kabu sliced and swirled from his wrist to his shoulder and around to the upper portion of his pectoral muscles. Chronicles of his many kills, battles he had won. The victories hadn’t been easy, and his body showed those marks too, white scars lanced down the biceps on his right arm, opposite his warrior kabu. A puckered puncture wound in his side where a spear tip had struck. A broadsword had carved a path down his left thigh, and a tattooed thigh band asking for protection and good fortune from El and Ela circled his right leg.

  Her fingers itched to touch, and she told herself it was because she felt the call to chisel kabu marks into his flesh, and she did, but she knew that was not the whole of the truth. His muscled chest drew her gaze, too, the flat brown nipples, the dusting of dark red curls that led to the ridges of his abdomen. The indentation of his navel made her wish to nip with her teeth, and she wanted to pet the rougher hair at his groin that surrounded his cock.

  His erect cock.

  Her gaze flew to his face, found his eyes had cracked open and glittered like gold as he looked her over as thoroughly as she had examined him. “Bright morning to you.”

  “And you.” She watched his lips form the words and hoped he kissed her again. She’d never had a lover kiss her so well, so thoroughly before. The intimacy of it had been…surprising, startling, but she wanted more. The man had a gift, and if she must confine herself to him for the next several weeks, then she should reap the benefits of his many talents.

  “How are you?”

  The way he stared at her still had the power to make her uncomfortable, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t like how he constantly threw her off balance. During Rites, she’d seen him rough and wild with his lovers, and she’d expected that the night before, but when he’d put her on her back he’d been gentle…almost tender. She’d braced herself for retribution and pain for holding a knife to his throat, but her point had needed to be made—all the power was not his, and their arrangement did not make her his plaything.

  He’d understood. She’d seen it in those golden eyes, watched his thoughts process. His mind was odd. Perhaps he saw more than other people could, and the thought made her wary. She’d hit a sore spot when she’d mentioned his genius to him. She could understand how isolating it was to be different, and unexpected sympathy wound through her. Such sentiments were foolish and would likely insult him if he knew of them. He was not a man to be pitied, any more than she was a woman who would accept commiseration on her position in life.

  “Kadira?”

  She started, and it took her a moment to remember his question, she was so lost in thought. “Fine, though I need to rise and get to the practice field before everyone’s too tired to be a worthy challenge.” She stretched and prepared to sit up. “You’ll want me back here at sundown, yes?”

  “Yes, but don’t leave just yet.” Something wicked flared to life in his eyes, and he rolled smoothly on top of her. A hot thrill bolted through her at the feel of his hard body, his coarser flesh. Her nipples contracted to points, stimulated by the crisp hair on his chest, her sex clenched, flooding with juices. She’d never reacted this quickly to anyone, man or woman. She grabbed for his shoulders, tried to hold him in place, tried to contain the anticipation his mere touch sent buzzing along her nerves. Her attempt failed miserably when he swept his lips over hers in a featherlight kiss. “I think we did not properly display our spiritual devotion in the Rite last eve. We are here to celebrate the ascendance of the goddess, are we not?”

  “Yes,” she gasped. Every inch of her body throbbed in awareness of him. El and Ela, but she wanted his hands on her, his mouth, his long cock pushing into her wet sex. Making the agreement she’d made, she no longer had to pretend this wasn’t what she craved, and when it was over, they would part ways. Nothing permanent would ever come of this, and they both knew it. He wanted no bonds on him. She could never bond with a man who’d force her to deny her sexual needs. It was freeing. She could savor every moment and never have to fear that either of them would expect anything more than a simple transaction. A trade agreement. He’d made an exchange for her time at Rite. Her clan got what it needed, and they could scratch an itch they’d been avoiding for years. She’d been avoiding for years. If the simplicity of her justification rang hollowly, she ignored it.

  His auburn head dipped and he kissed the upper slopes of her breasts, sucking each tip in turn, hard enough to make her breath catch. Sliding his tongue down the centerline of her torso, he nibbled at the sunburst kabu that ringed her navel. She arched beneath him, her hands sliding into his hair to urge him lower.

  “Now is the time for worship of the female form, yes?” She felt him smile against her skin while he slipped down until his breath rushed over her slick folds.

  The very breath stopped in her lungs, her heart stumbled as she waited, the tension building higher and higher until she had to clench her jaw on a scream. Shudders ran through her, flames bursting to life within her. Dipping forward, he shaped his mouth around her clit, sucking hard. She gasped, heaving under him, and she couldn’t stop the soft words from spilling forth. “Yes. Yes, Ezra. Yes, yes, yes.”

  He chuckled, released her sensitive flesh and moved to kiss his way down the geometric pattern tattooed on the outs
ide of her right thigh. Her muscles flexed, and she moaned a low protest at his abandonment of her pussy. She craved his touch there, her channel clenching on emptiness. His thick cock needed to be inside her, shoving her toward that earth-shattering pinnacle. Her skin felt aflame, but she stopped herself from demanding he take her. She didn’t want this to end. The slow, insidious heat rising in her core was too good, so she let him pleasure her.

  And he did.

  He stroked her, kissed every mark, every tattoo, every scar, worshipped her body, but didn’t touch her where she needed it the most. Her fingers bunched in the furs, and she writhed, her breath strangling in her throat when he returned to suckle her breasts. He batted his tongue over the stiff crests, teasing her nipples to points so tight they ached. Then he drew them into his mouth again. She choked, dragged in a ragged lungful of air, but it did nothing to calm her raging excitement. His scent teased her nose, rich and masculine and Ezra. She reached out, her hands twisting in his hair so hard she felt him wince, but her body hungered for him. She could feel each pulse of her blood moving beneath her skin.

  “Ezra,” she moaned.

  He released her breast with a pop of suction that made her squirm. “Yes?”

  “Touch me.”

  “I am touching you.” Rubbing against her, he demonstrated how every inch of him pressed to her, stimulated her. She could feel his cock, hard and heavy against her belly. Close, but not close enough.

  She licked her lips, groped for some coherency. “Between—between my legs.”

  “Here?” He moved to kneel in the spread vee of her legs, and the very tips of his fingers feathered over the insides of her thighs.

  Amusement, annoyance and streaking lust warred for dominance inside her at his perversity. She was dying, and he was teasing her. “A little higher, and if you require me to be more specific, I’m going to go find someone else who actually knows what they’re doing.”