War (The Four Horsemen Book 2) Read online

  “And you’re quick to shoot them down,” I snap.

  The horseman releases my hand, but only so he can run his thumb across my lower lip.

  The warlord leans in. “You will give yourself to me anyway. You are marked for me, my war prize.”

  Now it’s my turn to give him a cruel smile. “Maybe,” I say. “Maybe you’ll get me, maybe you won’t. But it won’t be tonight—and it could’ve been.”

  War’s eyes seem to darken.

  Oh, touched on something he wanted now, didn’t I?

  Too bad.

  I turn and head for the door.

  I’m nearly to the tent flaps when he says, “The aviaries.”

  My brows furrow, and I glance over my shoulder at him. “What?”

  He takes a step forward. “I won’t burn the aviaries.”

  I can hear my heartbeat begin to pick up.

  The aviaries. That was a city’s most efficient system of communication. If they were left intact, then other cities could be warned about War. People might then have time to flee before the horseman ever entered their city.

  I scrutinize the horseman, swiveling more fully to face him. “Is this some sort of trick? You aren’t just planning on giving me your word only to kill the birds off in some other manner?”

  War looks almost pleased at my question. Perhaps his strategic mind likes being tested. Meanwhile, here I am, just finding the whole thing tedious.

  “I won’t stop my men from killing the birds,” he says, “but I will not explicitly order them to destroy the aviaries.”

  This is the best I’m going to get. And it’s damn well better than his first counteroffer.

  Slowly, I nod. I nod before I can truly think through the other ramifications of this deal. The ramifications that are going to cost me.

  “Alright,” I say softly. “I agree to your terms.”

  The horseman’s uncompromising gaze is fixed on mine. Finally, he gives a small nod. “Good. Then we have ourselves a trade.”

  His eyes move over me, heating as they go.

  “Now, come to me,” he says. His voice has gone rougher, deeper. “Show me what I’ve bought myself.”

  Chapter 26

  This is really happening.

  God, I hadn’t expected it to happen this fast. Maybe I hadn’t truly expected it to happen at all. I think I might still be in shock.

  I take a shaky breath. Anxiety and trepidation and perverse excitement all churn in my stomach as I take those halting steps back to him.

  One of his hands cups my cheek, and I jolt at the sensation. Now that I know what the two of us will be doing—what I’ve agreed to do—his touch feels particularly electric.

  “The things I have imagined, wife,” he murmurs, his thumb stroking my skin. Leisurely he drinks in every facet of my face—my nose, my lips, my cheeks, my eyes.

  A shiver courses through me.

  War leans in, his mouth the barest breath from mine. Just when I think his lips are going to close over mine, he says, “Touch me.”

  I swallow.

  Raising my hand, I touch his face softly, so softly. I don’t think this is what War had in mind when he gave me the order, but he’s not objecting. He continues to stare at me, his gaze searing.

  What sort of mind lies beneath this handsome face? I’d call him evil and yet I’ve seen the human brand of evil. It thrives on cruelty and torture. I don’t think War is depraved, even though his brutality is astounding.

  I trail my fingers over his high cheekbone, down his jaw and the column of his throat. I continue to move my hand lower and lower until my palm returns to that spot just beneath his pecs.

  War closes his eyes, exhaling through his nose.

  He has a warrior's build, which isn’t surprising—and it’s nothing I haven’t already seen. But tonight, when I know it’s going to be pressed against my own skin, tonight I notice.

  Now I’m staring at his chest and those glowing markings. Why am I so nervous? And why am I making this weird? Should I just kiss him?

  “Have you done this before?” he asks, opening his eyes.

  I nod, not meeting his gaze. I don’t tell him that I haven’t done it much. Too tricky with pregnancy.

  “Have you?” Like an idiot the question escapes my lips before I can stop myself.

  War tilts my head up, forcing me to meet his eyes.

  “Mmm,” he says, which I guess is his way of saying yes.

  Before he can do anything else, and before I have a chance to make this feel truly uncomfortable, I bring my hands to his chest again. Ignoring the way they tremble, I smooth my palms over his flesh.

  Beneath my touch, I feel War’s skin pucker, and it’s a shock, knowing I can do that to him.

  I move my hands down, reaching for his trousers, ready to get this whole thing going, but then War catches one of my wrists.

  “Wait.”

  Wait?

  My knees are nearly knocking together with nerves. I don’t think I can wait.

  Holding my arm, War draws me over to a side table, where a decanter and glasses rest. Uncorking the container, he pours out two drinks and hands one to me. The other he keeps for himself.

  I take it, wrapping both my hands around it. At least this will take the edge off. My senses could stand to be dulled.

  I take a tentative drink of the alcohol. It’s spicy, and I honestly couldn’t say what particular type of distilled spirits I’m drinking, but it warms me instantly, so I take another drink.

  Maybe I can simply do this drunk …

  In the spirit of that thought, I tip back my glass and swallow the rest of the drink down, grimacing at the sting of it.

  War watches me closely. After a moment, he sits down in his chair, his gaze never leaving me. I think he’s going to point out that I look nervous. Instead he takes a long swallow of his drink, then sets the glass aside. After a moment, he takes my drink from me and sets it, too, aside.

  Reaching out he grabs me by the hips and reels me in so that my legs are caught between his. My heart is hammering away in my chest.

  Staring up at me, the horseman begins to rub his thumbs over my skin. Slowly, his palms skim up my sides, lifting my top along with them. His touch is electric. I’ve never been so aware of myself in my entire life.

  Bit by bit he lifts my shirt, revealing a tattered bra beneath. I finish removing the shirt, casting the garment aside.

  I feel like I’m about to leap out of my own skin, which is alarming, considering how little we’ve done.

  Need to spearhead this.

  With that thought, I lean in and kiss him.

  Sweet relief.

  The moment my lips press against his, all my anxious energy turns into intensity. I clasp my hands on either side of his face, directing his mouth to mine.

  He groans against me, and whatever agonizingly slow pace he set out for us earlier, it vanishes in an instant. His hands are in my hair as he devours my mouth.

  My knees are still weak, and I practically have to crawl onto War’s lap to keep myself from collapsing on the floor. The skin of my chest presses against his, and I shudder against him.

  The warlord grinds his hips against me, and I can feel his hardness straining against the material.

  “The feel of you against me …” he growls out, “all the saints, it’s like a memory of heaven.”

  I don’t know what to say to that; the horseman just likened me to heaven—and he’d know all about the place. On a more personal note, no one has ever cherished any part of me the way War is doing right now. And it’s heady. It’s so goddamn heady.

  War breaks away from my mouth. “I want to see your pretty breasts,” he says, his voice gravelly.

  I stare back at him, dazed from his lips.

  Before his words fully process, he’s removing my bra. A moment later, my breasts spill free.

  Automatically, my arms come up to my chest, and my earlier nervousness comes back in full force.

 
Still, it’s War who pulls my arms away from my chest, revealing my dusky nipples. His smoldering gaze dips to meet mine. “You have no reason to be nervous, wife.”

  Wife. The sentiment makes my stomach drop.

  “Please don’t call me that right now.” I thought I’d gotten used to the term, but I was wrong. Right now it sounds far too intimate. I can trivialize what I do with the horseman so long as I remain emotionally distant.

  “That’s one thing I will not agree to. Wife.”

  I narrow my eyes at him.

  His hand skims over my skin, then cups a breast. It’s almost laughable, how big his hands are. They engulf my breast—and then some.

  He brings his other hand up, so that he’s cupping them both. His thumb scrapes over a nipple.

  “I want to be in you, Miriam,” he breathes. “It’s all I’ve been able to think about lately.”

  His words set my core on fire. Need is growing in me to take this farther, faster.

  War lifts me easily, giving himself access to the breast. I feel his hot breath exhale against my nipple, and then he takes it into his mouth.

  My reaction is instant.

  I moan, arching against him, pressing myself against his chest. His lips are like sin, and I can feel myself getting wet with every stroke of his tongue.

  He groans against me. “Wife. That sound.”

  I need more.

  “What do you want me to do?” I say instead.

  “Touch me wherever it pleases you.”

  Now that is a tricky command. It implies that any part of him pleases me, and even though my lips are already swollen from his kiss, and even though I’m straddled in his lap and my panties are soaked, I still don’t want any part of him to please me.

  And I definitely don’t want him to know it.

  But desire wins out. I run my hands over his pecs, his shoulders, his back and arms. I’m touching him everywhere, everywhere. His body is enormous, his massive torso dwarfing mine.

  The horseman groans again, and again he grinds against me. His lips begin to skim over my chest, getting more demanding, and his hands are getting greedier. Reflexively, I run my fingers through his dark hair.

  His violent, kohl-lined eyes lock on mine, and they sharpen with purpose.

  War picks me up and carries me over to his pallet, setting me down on the bed I slept in not so long ago. It feels familiar and foreign all at the same time, the sheets smelling faintly like the horseman.

  I lay there and look up at War, who looks larger than life from this angle.

  Minutes ago I would’ve been all jittery nerves. Now I just want him.

  He kneels down next to me, his gaze pinned to mine. His hands go to my boots, removing them and my socks one by one. He moves up the bed, his fingers going to my waistband.

  My throat bobs a little as he unbuttons my pants. The sound of the zipper dragging down ratchets up my excitement. He hooks his fingers around my pants and underwear, and then he drags it all down, bit by bit, unveiling me as he goes.

  I hear his sharp intake of air, and his eyes are transfixed on my core, even as he pulls my clothes down my calves then off my feet. He looks mesmerized by the sight of me laid bare on his bed.

  After a moment, War straightens, his own hands going to the black boots he wears, his muscles rippling with the movement.

  He begins stripping for me, and it’s so damn sexy. The horseman is shirtless, so there’s not much to remove once his shoes are off. His hands move to his own black trousers. He doesn’t look away from me as he draws them—and whatever he wears beneath them—down, down, down.

  My gaze dips, and—oh. A little tendril of nerves come back.

  His cock is enormous. Big enough to intimidate me, and big enough to hurt, if we’re not careful.

  I suddenly feel my inexperience. I’m in over my head, and War has probably been with enough women to see just how unpracticed I am.

  Before my insecurities can rush in, the horseman kneels on the pallet, and then his body settles heavily over me. His hips fit themselves between mine, just like I once imagined they would, and his chest presses against every bit of my exposed skin. The sensation is better than what my sick fantasies could dream up.

  Around us, the lamps flicker, their glittering light dancing along War’s body.

  The horseman gazes down at me for several seconds. “Now, wife, I can breathe easy. All is as it should be.”

  His mouth meets mine, and it feels like I’m being brought to life.

  War doesn’t ask me again to touch him. He doesn’t need to. His mouth lights a fire within me, and I’m filled with wild, reckless need.

  I slip my hands around his torso, my palms skimming up his back. I don’t need to hear him speak to feel how pleased he is. Maybe it’s having my hands on his skin, maybe it’s the proprietary nature of the touch. All I know is that he deepens the kiss, his tongue lashing against mine.

  His cock is trapped between us, and having him inside me is a physical need.

  Burning up. I’m burning up from the inside out, my breath coming quicker and quicker.

  My hands slide back down the slope of his spine and over the sculpted roll of his ass.

  Need him in me.

  He smiles against my lips as he kisses me, like he heard my thoughts.

  “For millennia I’ve craved this.” His low voice seems to vibrate against my skin. “For millennia I’ve been denied.”

  I release a breath, caught between how frightening his words are and how sexy the sentiment is.

  I reach between us, wrapping a hand around his cock.

  War hisses through his teeth. “God’s will, Miriam, your touch …”

  He descends on my lips, thrusting forward into my hand.

  I lift my hips, positioning him at my entrance. I’m panting, ready to feel—

  “No.” War says, his body tensing against mine.

  No?

  He moves a little off me then, and my hand slips from him. I want to weep that the ache inside me hasn’t been abated. I’m three deft thrusts away from completion, and he’s denying me?

  “Not until you surrender,” War says.

  “What?” I can barely focus on his words. I have no idea what he’s talking about, only that he’s mentioned me surrendering to him once before.

  “I want more than your body, wife, and I won’t fully have you until you surrender yourself to me.”

  What? I put a hand to my head. What does that even mean?

  For several seconds, the only sound in the room is my shallow breath. “So we’re not having sex?”

  Please. Take my vagina. She wants you.

  War’s eyes gleam. He grabs my knees and spreads my thighs, exposing my most intimate parts.

  “Well now, that depends on your definition of sex.”

  And then he descends on me.

  Chapter 27

  Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.

  “What are you doing?” My voice sounds breathless, but those damn nerves have come back.

  War’s only response is a slow kiss on my inner thigh.

  My mouth goes dry. I’ve never done this, I’ve never ever done this and I think I might be panicking. War has me wholly and completely at his mercy.

  And he doesn’t have all that much fucking mercy to begin with.

  I try to move my legs, but War has them pinned in their current, uncompromising position. He glances up at me, steadily trailing those kisses inward, towards my core.

  “Relax, wife, you’re going to enjoy this.”

  Why is he doing this? The sexual favors were supposed to be to his benefit, not mine.

  War is a good kisser, but I don’t find out just how good until his mouth makes its way to the end of my thighs.

  He pauses, and I can’t stand this long, drawn out moment.

  Then his mouth meets my pussy, and it is like nothing I have ever felt before. Reflexively, I buck against his kiss, and I don’t think I like this. I’m too exposed,
and it feels overwhelming. His lips and tongue move over every section of my core, and nerve endings I didn’t even know I had are now going off.

  I try to shrug him off, but it’s like trying to knock over a building. “It’s too much, War. Please.”

  I feel him smile against me. “Steady, wife, I haven’t even gotten to the best part.”

  The best part?

  I’m breathless with sensation, and he’s unrelenting. The horseman licks and nips and sucks and torments me until I’m gasping and moaning and helplessly shifting my hips up to meet his mouth.

  And then he finds my clit.

  “Oh my God.” It’s like a bomb goes off. I almost come right there and then.

  My hands find their way into his hair, and he makes a deep, approving noise low in his throat.

  “Please, War, please.” I don’t even know what I’m begging for, only that the horseman can fix it.

  He inserts a finger into me, and that’s all it takes.

  I cry out as an almost violent orgasm rips through me.

  “War.” My fingers tighten into his hair as wave after wave of it radiates through me. I’m making embarrassing, desperate noises, and I am not okay. I move against him over and over, his mouth dragging the sensation out for as long as he can.

  It’s only after I come down that War moves away from my pussy. I stare at him like I’ve never seen him before.

  The horseman moves up my body and gives me a carnal kiss. I can taste myself in the kiss, and I’m embarrassed and aroused and I don’t know what to do about the fact that that was so much more than I intended it to be.

  He lays down next to me, gathering me into his arms.

  And he cuddles.

  Shit. A lonely girl like me has no defense against this, especially right now, when I feel particularly vulnerable.

  I’ve only just caught my breath when I realize that now it’s my turn.

  I don’t think War is going to ask, but I also really want those aviaries intact. That’s why I made this trade in the first place.

  The horseman is drawing circles on my back when I reach down between us and wrap my hand around him.

  He’s still painfully hard. His cock jerks, and his body tenses.

  I start to move down his body, past his glowing tattoos, past his abs, past the tantalizing triangle of muscle that makes up his pelvis, until I’m kneeling between his thighs, my hand still fisted around him.