Mated to the Warrior Beast

“You really want me to believe you’ve never burned for another female?” she asked, unimpressed. “I may be inexperienced, Tarkyn, but I’ve been around males. I’m not an idiot. The joke in the Chimera is that males are so quick to choose mates purely because they burn.”

But Tarkyn just shook his head. “Not like this, Harth. Watching you outside-when you’d seen those flowers, and then we were gathering the firewood... it was a battle within me not to pick you up and carry you back here instead of the wood.”

“Because you burn?” she asked breathlessly. Was that what had been bothering him?

“Because I burn for you,” he corrected. “You are a drug to me, Harth. I want to know everything. Inside and out. I want to understand you. You fascinate me. And every new thing I learn is a jewel added to your crown.” He grimaced and shook his head. “I sound like a fluttering adolescent, but it’s the truth. Wanting you is as layered and as complex as the leaves on a tree-and as simple as breathing. It just is. Always. I sat in that prison cell, facing death and destruction, and still I ached for you.”

She smiled, she couldn’t help it. “I want you, too.”

He gave a little growl and leaned closer so she thought he would kiss her, but he wasn’t done. Eyes blazing, voice deep, he ran his nose lightly along her jaw, inhaling slow and deep. Adrenaline sent butterflies through her stomach and the hair on her arms stood up.

“Do you understand that I want you not only for the act?” Tarkyn asked hoarsely. “Not only for the pleasure of it-though the pleasure is immense, Harth.” He pulled back enough to meet her eyes and his love blazed through. Harth’s stomach flipped and she leaned closer. But he wasn’t done. He took her shoulders and pulled her back to make her meet his eyes. They blazed with intensity. He was desperate for her to understand.

“Harth, the fact that we stand here together... I never brought another soul to this place-not even a male friend. Not even the males who have saved my life more than once. This is... this is my den. The place made for us. I have waited for you, love. My heart waited here, for you. I need you,” he rasped. “I need you like air.”

.....

The admission seemed to cost him. She put a hand to his face and stroked his stubble with her thumb.

“I need you, too,” she said, her voice too high. “But it’s hard to believe... these females around you are so... sure of themselves. So commanding. While I’m still learning. It seems like I can’t yet give you what-”

Tarkyn blew out a breath. “Harth, you can be certain: I have never needed another person in my entire adult life. I have been... capable and strong and accomplished since I was young. Anything I needed I set myself to the task of learning, until I was more than competent. But you?” His expression pinched. “I can’t learn you fast enough, or well enough. I can’t possess enough of you. I can’t take you more passionately or hold you with more conviction, and yet it isn’t enough. I need time. I need... I need you. If you were to reject me...” Fear ignited in his eyes and that was what broke through to her.

She realized by holding this over him she was creating fear in him that he hadn’t felt before-just as she’d been feeling fear about his familiarity with these others.

She never wanted to do that to him... and he hadn’t ever wanted to do that to her.

Harth’s breath released in a whoosh and all her fears, all her tension about his experience or the other females seemed to melt away with it, like smoke in the air.

“Tarkyn, I feel the same way,” she whispered, and threw her arms around his neck, pulling him into a tender, but passionate kiss, letting her tongue tease under his lip and her body press against his. “I love you,” she whispered against his mouth.

He groaned the mating call and her stomach clenched, aching with want.

Dishes and clean-up forgotten, Tarkyn pulled her into him, devouring her mouth.

“I cannot believe you could think any other would hold me in this thrall, Harth,” he rasped, his desperation evident in his kiss.

“I didn’t know. I didn’t understand.”

“Understand this, love. There is no other for me. There never has been, and there never will be. You’re mine, and I’m yours. And that is as it should be.”

The words sparked joy for Harth and she pressed into him, her breath short and sharp. And at first he returned her frantic kisses, but as the conversation fell away and their bodies began to speak, he changed the pace... slowing. Savoring.

Harth found herself pressing into him, leaning up to take his mouth-but though she was washed in relief every bit as potent as the fire he was stoking in her, he didn’t grasp for her. He kissed and stroked, walking her backwards slowly, closer and closer to the furs, but easing away at times to meet her eyes, to stroke her face, then diving into the kiss again. But every time she began to pant or cling, he chuckled and pulled away again.

He was teasing her!

“Tarkyn,” she said the third time he pulled back.

“Mmmm?” he murmured, smiling as he watched himself trail a finger down her neck, to trace the line of her collarbone, then the open-neck of her shirt until he reached the barrier of the first button. Then his eyes crawled back up to hold hers as he pinched the button loose.

She felt it give and her breath caught.

“What is it, mate of mine?” he rasped, his fingertip stroking lightly down her skin between her breasts, to the next button, where he hesitated.

She’d been meaning to say something. To... to chastise him for... something?

But then he flicked the second button open and raised an eyebrow when her breath stopped.

Harth bit her lip. “Keep going,” she whispered.

He laughed delightedly, the fire in his eyes roaring higher.