Slip Point (13 page)

She blinked back her sudden tears. She mustn’t cry, she told herself. She had to find the right words to keep him this time.

“I’m sorry I left you like that. Like I told you, I was overwhelmed about my father, and you should’ve been the first person I turned to, but then you got accepted into the Corps and…” She smiled ruefully. “I was jealous, plain and simple. So I ran.”

He watched her quietly.

“I would think about you sometimes and try to convince myself I was better off without you,” she went on. “But when I bumped into you on Ionia, I realized what I’d given up. And you’ve done so well in the Corps. To think that I missed that, missed ten years of your life and never got to tell you I’m happy for you—I really am.”

He still didn’t say anything.

“A lot’s happened since then and we’ve both changed a lot,” she said slowly, “but I think that being raised as a Steader has left its mark on me.”

“You?” But his laugh was forced.

“Yes.” She wrapped her arms around his neck again. “I’ve been seeking my hearth. And I found it. It’s you.”

He kissed her, long and desperate. She clung to him, wondering how she’d ever survived without the press of his body against hers. She was suddenly hungry for him, all of him. Her hands moved under his shirt and up his back, while his took hold of her ass and pulled her so closely against him she knew he felt the same need.

He finally broke away before they could start tearing off each other’s clothes. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him this happy. “Race to the room?” he asked her, eyes dancing.

“If it takes both people to actually have sex,” she said, “isn’t a race meaningless?”

He only grinned and set off at a dead run.

Her competitive instincts kicked in, and she sprinted after him. He had a good head start and was already out of sight.

“Sorry!” his voice floated back to her.

Running indoors was discouraged and for good reason. Shayalin careened around a corner and nearly flattened someone who was just rising from a defensive crouch after Jayce’s passage. So
that
was to whom Jayce had been saying sorry. She called out her own apology over her shoulder as she dashed onward.

She caught up with him just as he keyed the door open. He laughed as he pulled her in. “Not bad. You’ve gotten faster.” He crushed her mouth against his, then spun her free. “Get your clothes off.”

She cursed her boots as she struggled to pull them off without unzipping them. By the time she got them off, he was already naked and ready. He yanked at her shirt while she tried to unfasten her pants with overeager fingers.

“God, Shay, I’m going to explode as soon as you touch me.”

There was no way he was keyed up any more than she was. “Only after I come first,” she said with a wicked grin, kicking off her pants.

“Oh?” He pushed her back onto the bed and spread her legs with his knee, still standing.

“No fair!” she gasped when he seized her wrists to hold them down. “I come faster when I’m on—”

He drove into her, and she cried out sharply.

“You were saying?” But his voice grew ragged, ruining the arch tone. He began to move in and out of her.

She raised her legs along his body, and he let go of her wrists to rear back, take hold of her ankles and push them up overhead. The angle was incredible.

He slammed into her again and again, tearing cries out of her with each thrust. His gaze trapped hers. She couldn’t look away from him, his intent expression, the sheen of sweat upon his skin. The deep heat in his eyes every time he was fully within her.

She felt herself tightening, tightening—and then with his next thrust, the sudden release, a flood of waves that swamped her so that she barely noticed him stiffening a moment after. But she did notice.

When he finally lowered her legs and collapsed off to one side, she smiled at him, stretching her arms up and closing her hands in soft fists over her victory. “Beat you.”

“Just wait 'til the next round,” he said into the pillow, for all that he looked completely melted onto the bed and incapable of lifting a finger, let alone another session of energetic sex. “This time I’m betting on you. But give me a minute.”

“Always keeping me waiting,” she teased. She tugged at the coverlet trapped under his body. “At least share the blanket.”

He lifted himself enough for her to pull it out. “That’s what I did the first day we met, and look what happened.”

She smiled, remembering that evening on the hilltop. Her fingers feathered their way along his shoulder blade. “I’ll always be here for the next round,” she said softly. “And everything in between.”

Karalynn was born in Texas, raised in Korea and now lives in California. Despite having majored in English, she makes her living writing in programming languages instead. She enjoys early mornings, running, barley tea and watching football games in crowded pubs. More of her writing is available from Carina Press, Samhain Publishing, Drollerie Press and at her website, www.karalynnlee.com.

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