Into His Command (8 page)

The stillness pushed down on us, more weighted than before, as I hurried across the
room. I battled not to watch how he matched my pace, the moonlight dappling his legs,
the shadows a perfect match for his dark warrior’s grace…

I suddenly stopped short. Who wouldn’t, when looking at the newest surprise of this
place: a section of the room that opened into a rotunda with a window seat, allowing
a more breathtaking view of the lake? As I gazed, a pair of white swans floated onto
Sagique’s surface, gliding peacefully through the liquid moonlight.

“Wow.” I was glad for a chance to embrace something like friendly chit-chat. “This
place gets better and better, doesn’t—”

I had to go and think of chit-chat.

When every concept of it fled my mind…as Samsyn yanked me around, into his arms—and
his hard, consuming kiss.

The noble brushes of his mouth from the falls? Also as gone as the chit-chat. He swept
his tongue down, demanding and passionate, raking the seam of my mouth just once before
pushing all the way in, commanding me to surrender in full. As if I longed to do anything
else. A tiny moan, a sigh of need, and he was all the way in. I gave him all of my
tongue, letting him take it, twist it, control it with his wet, unrelenting force.
Claimed him in return by delving my hand into his hair, curling fingers into the silken
lengths, dragging him harder and deeper down into me.

But I couldn’t call it the kiss of my dreams.

Because my dreams had never been this good.

So hot. So jolting. So conquering.
Oh, so good…

And just as quickly, with a rush of freezing air, it was over.

“Fuck.” He threw back his head, limning his bold features in stark moonlight, before
dropping back down. With his hair draping our faces and his forehead pressed to mine,
he sucked in fast, frantic breaths. “
Fuck
.”

I didn’t know how to interpret that. Didn’t know if I wanted to. The desperation in
his voice was echoed by the rush of my blood, the rise of my arousal. It was torture.
It was perfect.

I fought through the chaos of my senses, lifting a hand, tangling it in his silken
mane, letting sound spill from my tingling lips. “
Samsyn
.”

“Starlight.” His voice was just as ragged. “I…should not have done that.”

“Why?” I tightened my grip. “I’ve wanted you to do that for six damn years.”

“I know.”

I paused, weighing the wisdom of what I yearned to say next—but was there a way to
scramble back up a cliff once one had jumped over? We were already airborne. If the
landing hurt, there was nothing to be done.

“And you’ve wanted it, too.”

His head jerked against mine. “I have. Creator help me.”

“Why?” I strained the anger from my voice only because of the pain in his. “
Why
, Syn?”

He wrapped his hand around mine. Used the tension of the hold to push back by a rough
step. He had the balls to keep looking at me, though his stare was still tormented.
“I cannot want this. Want
you
like this.”

“Dammit. I’m not a girl anymore, Samsyn!”

“I am well aware of that,
astremé
.”

“Then…what? Is it because I’m American? An outsider?” I wanted to bite it back as
soon as he glowered harder. The assumption was ridiculous, since few in Arcadia had
championed King Evrest’s choice of an American bride like Samsyn, but I had little
else to grab at. “Then what? Why are you glaring like this is wrong? You want me.
And I sure as hell want you. Since the moment you bent over my hand, on the night
I arrived—”

“Dammit!” He spun, clawing back his hair again. “Brooke…
please.
”

Over the cliff, all right.

My heart hit bottom in the emotional valley below, splintering harder because of the
height to which he’d already made it soar. It made me whirl then stumble, heading
the only direction that felt right. But even surrounded by the full beauty of the
rotunda, I shuddered as if he’d tossed me into a freezing cave.

What the hell was wrong with him? With
this
? With wanting it?

The air vibrated as he stalked over too. The power of his presence pushed into the
rotunda, the massive T of his posture on the threshold reflected in the round glass.

“You are angry.”

I tossed my head back on a bitter laugh. “Give the prince extra points.”

He growled. “This—us—confounds me. I cannot—”

“Believe you’re actually attracted to the silly little refugee?” I snapped my head
back down. “The fool who’s mooned after you for six damn years? I’ll bet you didn’t
even plan on us being here that long. I’ll bet you even hoped it would be a few months,
then I’d be gone.”

He muttered another Arcadian oath.
Ding, ding, ding
.
Way to hit that target, girlfriend
.

But then he lifted his head—with pure accusation in
his
stare. “Yes, dammit. I prayed they would find Kavill swiftly, and your family would
leave the island.” His fingers clenched the archway’s edges, tips turning stark white.
“But not because I could not bear you here. It was because I did not know what to
do
about
you…about what you did to me.”

My teeth ground. Shit. Just when I’d made up my mind about being pissed-off at his
arrogant ass, he proved his head was nowhere near it. That his heart was in even more
alluring places.

“I have never met anyone like you, Brooke Valen. Nobody brighter, bolder, cleverer,
smarter…yes, even on that night when you first stepped off the plane, so terrified
yet so full of fire. Tossing your bright, choppy hair, calling me ‘big guy’—”

“You like it when I call you that.”

“I like it when you call me
anything
.”

Well, shit.

My chest twisted. My eyes stung. My chin wobbled, fighting off the heavy burn of emotion—even
as he swayed forward, leaning his powerful body in, making me hear
and
feel the sincerity in his words.

“No one has ever made me feel as you do, Brooke. No one has ever looked and seen what
you do.”

My knees were butted against the window seat. I pushed off, re-approaching him. “And
what do I see, Syn?”

His lips firmed. Then smiled. “The good.”

My own lips pursed. “I don’t…understand. How does anyone
not
see that?”

“Oh, starlight.” He sighed, indulgent as if explaining playground rules to a child.
I visibly prickled. He ignored me and went on, “I do not have a degree on my wall,
as my brothers and sister do. I cannot quote classic novels or poetry. I do not know
the Table of Elements, or even the damn Dewey decimal system. I do not rely on books
to tell me facts. I learn things for myself, through instinct and attention and guts.
Because of that, I am often labeled as the Cimarron good at but two things.”

I kicked up a brow. “Fighting and fucking?”

He matched the expression. “You
do
catch on.”

“I’ve also lived in your kingdom for six years. And heard the same labels. But that’s
all they are, Syn. Stupid labels.” I waited for his gaze to return to mine—as I knew
it would. Needing the connection as much as I did. “You’re more than that.”

“But maybe…I should not be.” That took us right back to the realm of quiet, cryptic,
and confusing. “Not now, Brooke,” he emphasized. “Not to you.”

I didn’t mask how that felt like a slap. “Why?”

“Because believing anything else would be…”

“What?” I bit it out and didn’t care. Until this afternoon, I’d always just accepted
his purposeful distance, assuming there was nothing I could do about it. I figured
he’d mentally frozen me at the age of eighteen, and that was that. Learning that wasn’t
the case had brought the most exhilarating thrill—and the most maddening perplexity.
“Would be
what
, Samsyn?”

He gripped the walls harder. His arms coiled, straining the sleeves of his Henley.
He finally broke the tension, baring his teeth—and rasped one word through them.

“Pointless.”

Forget words being slaps. This was a gut punch. I staggered back from the force, fighting
nausea—and rage. All the years I’d waited for this. Ached for him. Yearned for a time
when we’d be able to free our feelings into actions and passion and
connection
that was so right and so good…

Pointless
?

I couldn’t think straight anymore. Nor did I try to.

Three steps, pounding and furious. One grab of his elbow, hell-bent and hard-gripped.
I destroyed his pose in the doorway—
yeah, you big ox, this is me, pissed at you
—before slamming him against the wall, as hard as I could. Didn’t give him a chance
to process his shock before kissing him with just as much violent need.

“Mmmmph!”

His lusty grunt was finished by a guttural moan, torqueing my drive higher. I was
enraged and empowered, and it felt amazing. I clawed into his jaw with one hand, his
scalp with the other.

At first, his lips opened, giving into a wave of shocked surrender. Then he started
fighting back. Grabbed at my forearms. Finally, seized hard enough to shove me back
by a step.

I didn’t wait to reclaim the space. Reached up at him, delving for the passionate
kill again—until he bared his teeth once more. “Stop.
Stop,
damn you!”

“Damn
you
.” I refused to surrender the lock of our glares. He was going to see me, dammit.
He was going to look into the pit of my soul, and see every drop of confusion and
pain roiling there. “How dare you. How
dare
you do this, Samsyn. And don’t you dare glower at me like that. I’m not your fucking
baby sister, who’s just pulled the dog’s tail and blamed you for it. How the
hell
do you get off finally exposing your heart to me—the heart I’ve honored all these
years, cherished all these years—then call the whole thing
pointless
!” I leaned back over, jabbing a finger into his chest. “You aren’t pointless.
We
aren’t pointless!”

He let go of me—to drive both his fists down against the wall. The rotunda’s windows
visibly shook. I welcomed the impact. Even wished he’d do it again. Maybe then my
hurt and rage would get their perfect expression.

The corners of his eyes tightened. Again he parted his lips, exposing the feral gnash
of his teeth. “My heart,” he echoed from between them. “You think this is me showing
my pretty little
heart
?” Suddenly he was in motion, pushing past me, pacing in front of the window seat.
A terrible sound vibrated through him, a snarl and moan mixed. “You cannot have my
damn heart, Brooke. No one can. I am the commander of all the warriors of Arcadia.
I am not allowed to have a fucking heart!” He splayed his hands up again, this time
stamping their fury into the main window pane over the seat. “You have honored nothing.
Cherished…nothing.”

It wasn’t like another slap. Or a punch. But God, there was pain. So much of it, in
so many torturous new ways, tearing me deeper than ever before. From the midst of
it I reached out, grabbing at the only comfort I knew would work.

Him.

It didn’t make sense. I didn’t want it to. I only knew that imagining a world without
him—
my
world without him—was like an alcoholic pondering a life of drinking water. He might
be the poison that killed me, but one last minute with him was better than years without
him.

I greedily gathered up his shirt, using my crawling fingers to drag back over. He
let out that sound again, though the groan of it took precedence now, as I forced
him to face me. I breathed him in, all the leather and cinder and wind of him, and
burrowed right into him…

Before I simply climbed him.

Yeah, right up him. I whimpered as I went, becoming his needing, wanting, ninja-bitch
in heat, letting him grip me as easily as he would a doll. His breath was hot on top
of my head…then the side of my neck, the space over my mouth—

Before he claimed me there again. Openly. Wantonly. Smashing his tongue against mine
in time to what his hands did to my ass, sliding the core of my body tighter against
the ridge of his…

Oh God, he was big.

And hot.

And perfect.

In less than a minute, my sex was soaked. I knew it with certainty as I writhed my
pulsing cleft against his growing length, riding his erection as thoroughly as he’d
allow. His strength banded me. Guided me. Controlled me.

I didn’t ever want him to stop.

I didn’t ever want this to end.

When our mouths broke apart, he growled into my neck. The sound turned my blood to
fire. The harsh heat in his stare flared along my skin, once more zapping the sensitive
tissues between my thighs…especially as he widened his stance, compelling my gaze
downward.

Getting a chance to look at him—

there.

Even in the shadows, he was huge. Perfect, bulging man…perfect, bulging erection.
I swore it grew bigger as I watched, pushing at his crotch, speaking his meaning to
me with blazing, blatant, beauty.

A meaning as undeniable as my own breath.

Or the words in my heart…as I pressed a hand over his.

“If this is nothing, what’s the harm in giving it to me for a night?”

‡