Page 12 of Great Falls Protector
“I needed you to understand.” The escaped anger in his voice clips the words.
“That I’m an ungrateful charity case who doesn’t know a good thing when it smacks her in the nose?”
“That I’m not letting you walk out of my life without a bloody fight!” As suddenly as River grabbed me, he pushes me away to brace his trembling hands on his thighs. His nostrils flare, the quick gasps of air so unlike him that I stumble.
Not walk out of the Academy. Out of hislife.
My eyes widen. River’s raw glare confirms what I heard. His face has gone pale, lips tight. He said more than he meant to, and he knows he can’t take it back.
I shake myself, my mind screaming at me not to believe a word. He’s an immortal king and I’m a peasant. A stray who wandered into the palace. Without the bond’s magic, River can’t want me—can’t feel anything but a mix of pity and indulgence. Strip our souls to the truth, and I’m not meant to be River’s mate—I’m his project.
My eyes sting.
With a soft grunt, River snaps from his crouch, centuries of training giving his great body a predator’s honed power. Before I can move, he grips my hips with hard hands, lifting me clear off the ground. My legs dangle above the floor for one confused heartbeat before he sits me on the edge of his tall desk. Staking out a place so close to me that my thighs open to accommodate his body, the male brazenly puts his palms on either side of my face, locking our eyes in a vise-hard grip.
“You aren’t a charity case.” He spits the words, which seem to steam in the tension-filled air. Outside the window, a cloud shifts, a new tiny ray of sunlight now reflecting off the male’s storm-gray irises. A muscle twitches in his square jaw, every line of his hauntingly beautiful face filled with feral intensity. “You never were. Ever.”
“Then why—”
“Because I’ve fallen in love with you, damn it.” River swallows, his gaze rushing to the ceiling as he breathes deeply. Desperately. “No matter how much I’ve tried not to. And now I can’t bloody undo it. Can’t let you walk out that door and never come back.”
My mind stills.
“Leralynn?” River swallows again, the sound loud in the silent room. Leaning his head down, he lets his mouth hover inches away from mine, his woodsy scent filling me. Sharp and dangerous, like a cliff’s edge. “Say something,” he whispers.
My mouth is dry, the blood racing so quickly through my veins that the world dims at the edges. And yet, despite all the warning of my screaming mind, my body is drawn toward him. A mouse walking willingly toward a yawning trap that might still snap shut.
River closes his mouth over mine with a groan. After all these weeks without his skin on mine, the heat is intoxicating, the pressure of his velvet lips so perfect, I can’t help but respond with a hunger of my own. His tongue sweeps across my bottom lip before slipping inside with immortal confidence.
A cascade of heat and power slides from my mouth to my bunching nipples and open thighs. My senses revel in River’s leisurely exploration, his tongue sweeping slowly through my mouth once, twice, before the sensual kiss morphs into something different. Wrapping his hand in my hair, he plunges himself deeper into me, the assault primal and possessive and unyielding enough to lay his soul bare.
My breath hitches, my hands digging into River’s shoulders, then sliding down over his bulging chest. I want more than a kiss.Needmore than a kiss.
River’s muscles flutter and coil beneath my touch, his chest and abdomen tightening more and more as I wrap my fingers around the hard bulge pulsating beneath his tight britches.
Gasping for breath, he pulls his mouth away from mine, his large pupils fevered with pulsating need. “We… I can’t.” His voice is breathless, as if he’s calling from the midst of battle. We’re crossing a line that, in River’s veiled world, we’ve never before touched—the last line in the sand that the deputy headmaster inside River knows is there. “You are a student.”
“I’m Leralynn.” A pressure I didn’t realize was building inside my chest strains and breaks apart, spilling into my simmering blood. The lies and half-truths and pretenses and assumptions. Emotions wash over me in an unforgiving wave, pounding against my heart until it all forms into a single clear thought. “I’m Leralynn,” I say again, my voice filling with a power that’s of my soul, not of magic. “I’m not a student. I’m not a lady. I’m not anyone you think me to be or want me to be. I’m not anyone butme. Know that as you make your move, River, and own it. Because I am.”
River’s jaw tightens once.
And then he rips open my uniform jacket so hard that the buttons ping as they bounce off the stone walls.
10
River
Theping ping pingof Lera’s buttons against the stone walls of his office sent little shocks all the way to River’s cock.Good stars,he wanted her, his heart pounding from the toxic mix of desire and bewilderment—it was acadetwrithing with expectation beneath his hands. And yet, Leralynn was so much more than that.
Her destroyed jacket fell to the floor with a satisfying plop, the wide cloth belt dropping next, then shirt and chest wrap. With their bindings gone, the girl’s gorgeous breasts fell loose at once, the bunching pink nipples begging to be touched. Breath in his throat, River traced his thumb once around each tantalizing bud in wonder, savoring the feel of the delicate skin perking beneath his touch. He’d dreamt of this moment countless times, mentally traced these curves that he knew were not his to touch, but the dream paled in comparison to reality. Now that he was here, he knew no ready-dealt plan could do Leralynn justice.
Lera inhaled lightly, her pleasure at his touch making his cock throb so hard that his vision darkened for a moment. He drew a slow breath to calm himself, but the scent of lilac and arousal that filled his lungs had quite the opposite effect.
Hooking her legs around his hips, Leralynn pulled him in closer, gazing at the pulsating crotch of his britches with the same rapt attention he’d just paid her breasts. When her face rose, the sight of her full, slightly parted lips and penetrating chocolate eyes tightened River’s heart into a fist.
Diana. This was Diana and yet not.
The girl’s hands were on his shoulders now, yanking his jacket down his arms and tearing at his shirt with about as much respect as he’d shown hers. When his chest was finally bare, she spread her palms against it possessively, then slid them down his stomach to his belt with what he could have sworn was a purr, her eyes hot enough to melt steel.
