Heart of Defiance (The Royal Spares)

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Signy

I ’ve kissed Jostein before, but it was nothing like this. His fingers tangle in my hair; his mouth captures mine with an urgent passion as if he needs me to survive.

The heady rush of the embrace floods my body. I kiss him back with all I have, giving myself over to the moment, to the thump of my pulse and the sparks racing through my nerves, confirming how alive we both are.

I grip the front of his tunic, caught up in the need to pull him even closer. My desire flares all the way down to the apex of my thighs.

We just did something crazy and incredible, and it won’t be the last time. There’s no telling what might become of either of us when we next face the Darium army.

I don’t want to think about that. I want to revel in the fact that we’re still here right now—that I matter to this daring, valiant man.

When Jostein draws back just enough for our mouths to part, his breath tingling over my lips, I murmur, “Have you got a tent?”

A partly suppressed groan escapes him, and then he’s ushering me with him, his arm at my back and his hand twined with mine. His musky scent and the heat of his body drown out all but the vaguest impressions of the comrades we pass on our weaving path between the trees.

Our soldiers have been pitching tents all around the campsite. Jostein leads me to one at the farthest edge—because of course he’d want to be the first line of defense.

I can’t be anything but glad for it now, because it means we’re well beyond watching eyes when he pushes back the flap and we duck inside.

The moment we’re kneeling together within the low, sloping walls, Jostein’s mouth descends on mine.

He’s been careful with me in the past, sometimes almost tentative, but it must have been because he didn’t want to overstep his welcome. There’s nothing but confidence in the way he handles me now, angling our heads to deepen the kiss, guiding my knee over his legs so I’m straddling him.

He’s a man who knows what he wants. A man who’s meant to be leading, even if his superiors haven’t yet recognized just how much authority he can wield.

I sit back on his thighs, splaying my hands against his well-muscled chest, and gaze at him with a spark of mischief tickling through my veins. “It seems I’m at your disposal, squad leader. How would you command me?”

Only faint lantern light filters through the canvas walls of the tent, but it’s enough to reveal the answering glint in Jostein’s eyes. His posture pulls a little straighter.

As he rests his hands on my hips, his voice comes out low but resonant. “Let’s have that shirt off so I can appreciate even more of you, rebel maiden. ”

With a soft laugh, I reach to peel off both my blood-stained tunic and the thin undershirt beneath. The cool evening air washes over my bared skin.

Jostein’s gaze drinks me in through the dimness. A brief doubt flickers through my thoughts—all those years of scrounging for food have left my ribs visible through my flesh, and I’ve hardly got the fullest breasts around—but when he brings his mouth back to mine, I feel nothing but hunger.

He kisses me with all the intensity he showed before. One hand rises to skim the slight curve of my breast and then cup it completely. His palm swivels against my nipple with a jolt of pleasure, and I gasp against his mouth.

Jostein hums in approval and eases away just far enough to yank off his own shirt. He pulls me close against him, skin to skin, one hand massaging my other breast while he reclaims my mouth.

The arm at my back slides down almost to my ass and tugs me closer. My sex settles against the bulge straining against Jostein’s pants.

I rock against it, propelled by my growing need, and he gives a strangled growl. His lips trail from my mouth to nip the edge of my jaw.

“Lean back,” he says in his commanding voice.

I’m all too happy to comply. As I tip against his supporting arm, he ducks his head to chart a scorching path along the side of my neck and down my chest.

When his mouth closes over the peak of my breast, I clutch his shoulder with a whimper. He rolls the nub beneath his tongue and tugs it between his lips, setting off pulse after pulse of bliss.

As he shifts to the side to be thorough in his attentions, my hand rises to grip his close-cropped hair. At the stroke of my fingertips over his scalp, Jostein makes an encouraging sound that reverberates from his throat to delightful effect.

He sucks my nipple deeper into his mouth with a sweep of his tongue, massaging my ass at the same time. When I grind against his erection, a breath shudders out of him.

He pulls my face back toward him, his gaze seeking out mine, his eyes intent despite the darkening of lust. “I want to make you feel every pleasure imaginable tonight, but I’m not looking just to get off. The past few days… I can’t imagine my life feeling whole unless you stay in it, Signy.”

Despite the ache of desire that’s gripping me, my throat constricts. How can any of us know what the future will hold, what he’ll want after we see this rebellion through?

But we don’t even know if we will see it through. And there’s nothing I’d like to believe more than that I could stay in this man’s life, whatever place I could find there. It isn’t as if I have a home to go back to.

“If I have anything to say about it, you won’t need to imagine,” I murmur.

A brilliant smile crosses Jostein’s face. He cups my face between his calloused hands and kisses me so hard I can barely remember anything exists except him.

I press into him again, the needy ache between my thighs getting hotter by the second. With a rough chuckle, Jostein tilts us over to lie on our sides on the spread sleeping mats. He ducks his head to lap the peak of my breast back into his mouth while delving one hand beneath the waist of my trousers.

At the first brush of his fingers over my clit, I have to bite back a moan. Jostein caresses me through my dampened drawers and then slides his hand right beneath the thinner fabric. I rock with his explorations, my hold on him tightening when he dips a finger right inside me .

Then, with a warble of fabric, the tent flap pulls back.

I freeze, and Jostein’s head jerks up.

Iko leans inside, his eyes gleaming and his striking face holding one of his sly grins. “I thought I noticed you two sneaking off over here. What happened to sharing, Jos?”

Jostein’s eyes start to narrow into a glower, but at the same moment, his friend’s words and the images they stir up set off a fresh pulse of desire through my body. To be touched like this by both of these men, the way they encompassed me in their kisses and caresses the other night…

Arousal pools in my sex with an eager quiver, and Jostein hesitates. He pumps his testing finger in and out of me while his friend watches, and his smile returns.

“What are you waiting for, then?” he asks Iko with a hint of a growl. “Get in here and let’s see that our woman is properly celebrated.”

Iko shows no sign of offense at being ordered around. He enters the tent and sprawls out at my back, immediately teasing one hand over my bare belly while he sweeps aside my hair with the other to kiss my neck.

Oh, gods. All I can do is tremble and sway between the two men as Jostein brings his mouth back to mine and Iko starts to fondle my breasts. The bigger man adds a second finger inside me, and I whimper into his mouth.

With a guttural sound, Jostein yanks down my trousers and drawers together. “I need to feel you around me.”

Having no interest in arguing, I fumble with the fastening on his pants. He guides one of my legs all the way up to his waist and enters me with one swift thrust.

“Fuck,” I mumble, the sensation of being so perfectly filled rippling through my entire body. I’m so wet there’s barely any friction at all as he pumps in and out of me, only the sweet burn of being stretched in just the right way .

Iko muffles a groan against my hair, pressing against me from behind as if to urge me on. As I buck with Jostein’s thrusts, he delves his hand between us.

When Iko’s fingers glide over my clit, I have to slam my mouth against Jostein’s to smother my moan. Iko circles his fingers around that most sensitive spot and nips my shoulder, Jostein plunges even deeper, and I can feel any shred of control I had left spiraling away from me.

I careen over the edge in a burst of pleasure that tingles all the way to my toes. My body shudders, lost in the flood.

My sex clamps around Jostein, and words spill out of him in a nearly incoherent muttering. “So good. Fucking incredible. Signy. Gods.”

After a couple more thrusts, I know he’s followed me. His head bows toward mine, and he holds me against him as if we could stay this way forever.

Iko nuzzles the back of my neck and peppers gentle kisses across my shoulder blades. He trails his hand up and down my abdomen as I come down from the orgasmic high.

“It’s an honor to witness you coming apart, Spitfire,” he murmurs.

Jostein presses his lips to mine once more and peers over me at his friend. He palms my breast with a flick of his thumb over the nipple, bringing it back to full stiffness. “You could do better than witness it. I’d imagine she could be even more satisfied.”

A giddy quiver shoots through me at his suggestion.

Iko lets out a light, breathless laugh and rolls me toward him. As I find myself straddling him, he grins up at me. “What do you think, Signy? Ready for another round?”

A flush spreads over my skin with a renewed throb of longing.

How is this my life? How have I ended up with two men who want me like this ?

I can’t see any point in denying that I want him too.

I set my hand against the erection straining against his trousers, getting a deeper thrill out of the ecstatic expression that crosses his face. “I think you’ve got too many clothes on.”

With another laugh, he wrenches at his trousers. “A problem we can easily solve.”

As Iko kicks off his pants, Jostein sits up next to us. He teases his fingers down my spine and along my inner thigh, apparently as intent on adding to my enjoyment as his friend was during our coupling.

Iko eases me down onto him slowly, inch by inch, dragging out the pleasure of the penetration. An impatient noise works from my throat, and he chuckles.

Propping himself up on one elbow, he grasps my hair and tugs me to him for our first real kiss tonight. As our mouths meld together, he rolls his hips and consumes my gasp of pleasure.

With a smile now purely wicked, Iko traces the curve of my ass. “You know, there are ways a woman can have two men at once, if you ever think you could handle it. More efficient—and I believe even more satisfying—that way.”

I shiver at the thought, licking my lips.

Watching my reaction, Jostein squeezes my ass in turn and then skims my back opening. The nerves there light up with a flare of sensation like nothing I’ve ever felt.

“A pity we didn’t think of that earlier,” he says in a low voice that melts me. “It’ll have to wait for the next time.”

My noise of agreement comes out like a mewling more than anything else. Iko groans and bucks up to meet me.

I sway between the thrust of his cock and the provocative pressure of Jostein’s fingers. I’d have expected to find myself too spent to reach my peak again at all quickly, but the pleasure swells inside me so rapidly I’m dizzy with it .

I run my fingers over Iko’s chest, loosening the ties on his shirt and delving to the taut skin beneath. Match him kiss for wild kiss. Hiss a breath through my teeth when Jostein works a finger right inside me from the opposite end, aided by the slickness of my own arousal.

“We’re going to give you everything you’ve needed,” Iko promises in an increasingly ragged voice. “Everything you deserve.”

He clutches my thigh as he picks up his pace, slamming me down to meet him and flicking his thumb across my clit. My fingernails dig into his sides, and he groans. “Fuck, you’re too delicious. Come with me, Spitfire. Come with me all the way.”

He swirls his thumb around my clit again with an even more forceful thrust. Jostein echoes the motion from behind.

With a whimper, I soar up and over my peak.

My eyes roll up, my vision briefly whiting out. Iko’s breath stutters, his hips jerking, and then he’s pulling me down over him, nestling my head against the crook of his shoulder.

Jostein withdraws his hand with one final caress of my back. He leans over to kiss my cheek.

I feel as much as see Iko gaze up at his friend through the dimness. “She is our woman. We can give her that much more if we’re in this together.”

He says it as a statement, but his muscles tense beneath me with a momentary uneasiness.

Jostein answers with a soft smile. “Our woman, for as long as she wants the both of us.”

I barely restrain a snort at the idea that my interest would be the deciding factor.

As if he senses my skepticism, Iko cups my face. His voice comes out more tender than usual. “You’re the only woman I can see myself ever wanting again, Signy. No one else has ever come close to matching you.”

I don’t know how to answer that statement of devotion except with a lingering kiss. He kisses me back just as ardently.

As I start to peel myself off Iko, a familiar voice carries through the tent wall.

“Signy?”

It’s Landric—looking for me, apparently. His tone sounds concerned.

Iko grumbles a curse, and I snatch at my clothes. Jostein yanks up his trousers.

We emerge from the tent probably looking like people who were doing exactly what we were doing. I’m still straightening my tunic, vaguely aware of my well-rumpled hair. Iko’s shirt hangs partly open, and Jostein is simply carrying his rather than pulling it back on. As if he wants our recent activities to be obvious.

When the squad leader folds his arms over his chest, staring through the forest, I get the impression he’s staking a claim, even if it doesn’t exclude his friend.

Landric has passed us by, wandering between the tents. I clear my throat, my cheeks prickling with a sudden heat. “I’m over here.”

He spins on his heel and then simply stops, taking in the three of us. The heat in my face flares, but I keep my chin high and my gaze steady.

A hint of a flush creeps over Landric’s face in turn, but to give him credit, he doesn’t avert his gaze or go storming off. “I didn’t mean to interrupt anything.”

“That’s all right,” Iko says, draping his arm across my shoulders in a possessive gesture of his own. “This lovely woman has been well taken care of. You wanted to talk to her? ”

Landric fumbles with his words. “I—yes—there—” He pauses, swallows, and seems to gather himself. “I wanted to speak with you before going to the officers, since this is really your rebellion. I had an idea for the next time we confront the Darium army.”

A hint of a smile touches his lips. “You could say your trick with the lissweld pollen inspired me.”