novelxo : Chapter 3
“Don’t hold back,” he tells me.
So I don’t.
I open my eyes, planting my feet flat on the floor and bucking my hips up with all of my might. Tristan jolts forward, thrown off balance. He has to let go of my wrists to use his hands to brace himself on either side of me to stop himself from falling face first.
With his body leaning over mine, rather than pressing down against it, I bring my legs up and wrap them around his waist, hooking my feet behind his back. Then I push my right arm out from under him, my forearm pressing against the crook on the inside of his elbow, forcing his arm to bend and his weight to shift to his side as he loses his center, toppling again. As he’s thrown off me, I use the momentum and roll over.
As we roll and he lands on his back, I unwrap my legs from around him, letting my knees come to either side of his torso. Our positions reverse— now I’m on top and I can’t help the spark of triumph as I look down at him.
“Good girl,” he says, his voice low and breathy in a way that makes me want to wrap my legs around him again, but for an entirely different reason.
“Don’t stop. Don’t think about it too much,” he says, his eyes burning into mine beneath his sweat-beaded brow. “Come on, flower. What now?”
I have him pinned beneath me, but I know if I try and keep his hands pinned down the way he did with me, he’ll easily overpower me. If I try and hold him in place, he’ll wrestle out and knock me off him.
So, I lean forward, pressing my entire body against his so that I’m parallel to the ground and I won’t lose my balance the way he did. I let all of my weight fall onto him and wrap my hands around his neck, my touch too gentle compared to the hardness of his body beneath mine.
“Now I squeeze.”
His eyes bear into mine, and I’m aware of every place where my bare skin rubs against his, hot and sweaty.
“Not bad,” he says, but the teasing doesn’t quite reach his gaze, which is far too intense for the lightness of his playful words. “But maybe next time, don’t warn your enemy before you try to strangle them. Just for future reference.”
I scoff slightly but don’t pull away, my hand sliding further back around his neck until my fingers are tangled with his hair.
“You’re not my enemy, Tristan Lyall.”
He quirks his head slightly to the side, looking up at me with a glint of curiosity.
“Aren’t I?” he asks softly, and I can’t tell if he’s joking anymore. “I’m the Rouge Alpha, sword rival of the Banes. I kidnapped you from your home, stole you away from the only life you’d ever known like a thief in the night.”
I see it then for the first time, the guilt hidden behind his words. It never occurred to me that he sought me out to protect his pack. Sophie told him my future was linked to the fate of the Rovers, and it’s become clear that he didn’t claim me as his mate to satisfy his own desires. He thought he was doing what was best for his people, and while I’d worried that the choice weighed on him because of his reservations against the mating bond, I never realized he felt guilty over it.
“No,” I breathe, shaking my head as the edge of my lips twitches into a soft smile. “The Banes were never my family, and that place was never my home. What you stole me away from… you could hardly call it living.”
“And now?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
Now I can see myself having a future in this place, among these people. His people. For the first time ever, I’m getting to know myself, allowing myself to want things and dream of things for myself. I’m finding a home.
“Now I’m awake,” I say at last.
His smile is a soft, dazed sort of thing. I wonder what he sees when he looks up at me with those amber eyes of his, filled with a quiet kind of wonder.
I lean my face closer to his until I can feel his breath caressing my lips. My lashes flutter as my eyes flicker closed, and I lose myself to a sensation that feels foreign and familiar all at once, my body moving of its own accord, like the words of a song I’ve always known.
This is a different sort of dance than sparring, and I feel myself tighten at the feel of him beneath me.
He tilts his chin up, his lips brushing against mine, soft as a breeze. The phantom touch is enough to give me goosebumps, and suddenly his hands are on my waist, rough and calloused against the sensitive skin of my abdomen.
My breath is coming in fast, and when I open my eyes again to look at him, his brow is furrowed, eyes narrowed as if struggling to physically restrain himself.
He looks so beautiful, longing etched into every crease on his handsome face. His skin glistens with sweat, and his own breath is ragged. One of his hands travels down to grip me by the hips, his fingers digging into my skin in a way that’s far from unpleasant, and he holds me in place on top of him like he can’t decide whether he wants to push me off, or pull me even closer than physically possible.
“Now it’s your turn,” I whisper, and his eyes flutter open to meet mine, a silent question written in his gaze. I lean forward, so my face is beside his, my lips grazing his ear as I breathe the words back to him, “Don’t hold back.”
He doesn’t.
Tristan unleashes himself against me, his mouth crashing against mine like a wave onto the shore, washing everything away until nothing exists but the two of us in this moment. His kiss is hungry, sucking and licking at my lips until my head is spinning, and I swear, in spite of the daylight, I see stars.
His arm wraps further around my waist, gripping me tightly as I meet his passion, his other hand still holding my hips tightly against him. I feel him harden beneath me, and a little moan slips past my lips in between his kisses, the sound only fueling the fire that burns between us.
The pain returns.
I don’t know if the mark on my chest is glowing, but I feel its power and recognize it this time as an icy shock course through me, but I push past it.
‘Not now,’ I silently beg. Pain and I are old friends, and I speak to it in my mind as if I could pray to it. ‘Don’t hurt me now. Just wait. You can consume me later.’
The sensation persists, and a chill runs through me as I feel like I’m both freezing and burning alive all at once.
‘Please… just don’t take this away from me. Not this. Not now. Not him,’ I think to myself, holding on to Tristan with a fierce and desperate need that makes me want to push back against the pain.
But I’m getting dizzy, my breathing labored as the shocks of agony continue to spread through me, my chest screaming from the sensation.
The last thing I see is Tristan’s worried face as I pull away with a gasp, and everything goes back.