Was she becoming one of those women who fell in love with abusive men? Kett had known some absolute stinkers in her time, but no one had ever locked her in a cell and left her to rot.
But then, he did rescue her.
Eventually.
“Kett,” Bael murmured, and then she was back in her own body, lying under him, feeling his weight on her. He was warmer now, skin heating up as he got more energetic. The rough hairs on his chest tickled her sensitized breasts.
“Where did you go?” he asked, nuzzling her neck, her ear.
“None of this makes sense,” she said.
“What doesn’t? I want you, you want me, ergo, we have lots of explosive sex. It makes perfect sense.”
“Yes, I want you,” Kett said, “but I don’t actually like you.”
He lifted his head, his eyes very green in the moonlight. “I like you,” he said. “I like everything about you, Kett Almet.”
His voice shone with such honesty it almost embarrassed her. “Everything?” she asked. “Bael, I’m angry and rude, I swear at you all the time, I kept the biggest, most important things from you-”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“I’m a bitter, scarred freak of nature,” she said, “whose closest friends are sociopaths and lunatics.”
Bael gave a crooked smile. “Those are precisely the things I like about you,” he said.
Kett gave up. “You’re very weird.”
He kissed her nose. “Yes, I am. Now, I was trying to make love to you. If you’re done with the self-loathing, may I continue?”
That brought a smile from her, and she threaded her fingers in his hair to bring him down and kiss him. He bit gently on her lower lip then licked it, and Kett felt her body arch against him involuntarily, her breasts flattening against his chest and her hips rising off the ground.
Bael’s hand traced over her collarbone, her shoulder, her arm, then swept across to her breast. He stroked her, every caress making her shiver until she couldn’t take it anymore and thrust her nipple against his palm. He smiled against her mouth, rolling the sensitive nub between his finger and thumb and making her writhe.
“I love it when you do that,” he breathed. “I love the way you react.” Dipping his head, he kissed her breast, which elicited a small moan from Kett. “You’re so responsive. I could make love to you forever.”
“No complaints here,” Kett gasped as he sucked her nipple into his mouth. “Sweet merciful gods, Bael!”
He laughed against her breast and continued to suckle her, his hand sweeping down her left side, cupping the arch of her hipbone as if memorizing it. With his other hand he wrapped her right leg around his waist, opening her to him, pressing her wet flesh against his hard stomach.
“Do you want me?” he asked, fingers edging round her hips to stroke the soft, responsive skin of her inner thighs.
“You know I do.”
“Say it. Tell me.”
“I want you, Bael.”
He transferred his attentions to her other breast, leaving the first wet and sensitive to the cool air. “Tell me what you want.”
“Pretty much what you’re doing,” she moaned.
“A little more specific,” he laughed.
“I want you to stop arsing around teasing me and get your hands between my legs,” she snapped.
That made Bael laugh even more. He slid one hand between her legs and cupped her pussy-but didn’t do anything else.
“That’s not fair!” wailed Kett, who had never knowingly wailed before in her life.
“It’s what you asked for.”
“Bastard,” she said, and slid her own hand between them to cover his. Using her own fingers, she guided his between her folds, almost moaning with the bliss of being touched. She was slippery wet, puffy and swollen, desperate for relief, and she moved his index finger to her clit.
With her other hand she grabbed a handful of his hair and lifted his head.
“I want you to stroke me,” she said in his ear.
Bael smiled, a slow, melting smile that made Kett’s pulse kick up. “My pleasure,” he said, doing just that. “Believe me, my pleasure.”
She was so wet his fingers slid around effortlessly, first one hand and then both as he knelt between her thighs, circling and rubbing her clit, plunging inside her, stroking her labia and making her gasp, her fingers digging into his flesh.
His thumb pressed against her clit and she came, a wonderful release that had her clinging to him as the world spun around her.
“Like that?” Bael murmured against her breast.
“No. Hated it. Try harder next time.”
He chuckled and nudged her with his cock. “Do you want this?”
“Gods, yes. Fuck me, Bael.”
His mouth found hers as he slid inside her with agonizing slowness, so thick he filled her completely. Kett’s hands clenched his buttocks, pulling him deeper inside her until he could go no farther, and then she found herself holding him, cradling him, both arms wrapped around his back.
He felt so real, so big and hard and wonderful, so right.
“Bael,” she whispered, and he kissed her cheek, her jaw. “This isn’t a dream, is it?”
He pulled back an inch or two to look at her. “I thought it was.”
“Your dream or mine?”
“Well, I didn’t think it was yours.”
“It’s too real.”
He rocked his hips against hers. “Feels real.” Frowning for a second, he said, “Wait, let me try something.”
She thought he was going to introduce her to some new kink-or at least attempt to, because there were few kinks a shapeshifter couldn’t discover-but he closed his eyes as if concentrating and Kett felt the ground underneath her change, sand to grass, and the sky lightened.
They were lying in a meadow dotted with flowers. The grass tickled Kett’s back.
“This is near my house in Angeland,” Bael said. “It’s my dream.”
Kett closed her eyes and thought about Koskwim, and when she opened them it was to find herself lying on the bed in her room there, the canopy supported by marble angels, the sheets soft beneath her back.
“This is my room on Koskwim,” she said, figuring she was going to have to tell him eventually anyway. “It’s not your dream.”
“But I took us to the meadow.”
“And I brought us here. Does this look familiar to you?”
Bael admitted that it didn’t. As he twisted to look around, his cock slid out of her a little, and Kett wriggled against him.
“Look. This isn’t important. Weren’t you going to fuck me?”
He turned back to her and smiled. “I was.”
She flipped him onto his back and sank down on him fully, rubbing her breasts against his chest and kissing his face. His jaw was rough with stubble, abrasive against her skin.
“This,” she said, sitting up and riding him, “is Koskwim. Home of the Order. An elite group of highly trained mercenaries for hire.”
Bael put his hands on her hips and urged her on faster.
“Are you listening to me?” she admonished.
“Yeah. ’Course. Order. Hire. Elite. Uh, what do you do?”
She shoved his shoulder, squeezed him with her internal muscles, and he grinned.
“Mercenaries,” she said. “We spy, rob, fight, kill. Train armies. Run police forces.”
“Really?”
