Chapter Eight.
Taj remained in silent meditation for some time. When she was through, she tapped a wand against a metal bell etched with ancient Siennan runes, sending her prayers to the Ever After, where her pleas would be considered by the Great Mother Herself.
She'd done what she could. Now at least Romjha might be protected. At the thought of what the man intended, though, her ire began to grow. Gritting her teeth, she pushed past her heavy door and strode from her quarters.
As Taj's anger took over, the thick ache in her throat and behind her eyes subsided. Her blood heated, her stomach burned, and she began to feel more like herself. Not good but more in control. Less vulnerable.
"Ah. There you are."
She jumped, startled, and spun around.
Romjha's shoulders appeared to fill the entire tunnel as he walked toward her. "I feared you'd disappear to . . . wherever it is you go," he said.
The spring. No, she wouldn't be going there tonight. The spring was her sanctuary, a place for when she wanted to escape the world-not for when she wanted to fight with it.
He halted, looming over her. How did he do that? Men stood, they loitered, they even loafed; they didn't loom. "Go back to your dinner, Romjha."
His mouth spread in a determined line. She should have learned her lesson from their encounter the day before, when she'd first asked him to bring her topside: Romjha B'kah did not take kindly to being dismissed. "If I'd wanted to remain at dinner, I would have done so," he said.
"What, then? What do you want? Have you come for your apology?" She fisted her hands at her sides.
"Here, I'll give it to you. I'm sorry I implied what I did about your family. I had no right. I-"
"You had every right, Taj." His expression didn't change, but his eyes gleamed strangely. She wasn't sure she liked the fire burning in them. It'd be an impressive show if he loosed his wrath, but he didn't. She thought of stepping around him, but his tall, muscular body left little space to maneuver. "Please move aside. I have to work.""I had a feeling you were going to your lab.""You know me so well," she retorted contemptuously.The answering heat in his stare told her that perhaps he did indeed know her well. Too well. "You haven't slept yet. You've been working long enough, Taj. It gets to a point when it's dangerous. You're at that
point."
Her temper rose. "Dangerous?" she hissed. "Don't talk to me about dangerous. You, who praised the raiders for what they did yesterday. You, who dreams of taking on the entire galaxy."
With a visible tamping down of his frustration, Romjha exhaled. "Taj, I'd rather you didn't work tonight. In
fact, I'm asking you not to."
His manner was careful. Almost gentle. Sweat prickled Taj's forehead. She was looking for a fight, and had thought she'd get one. After the wounding remark she'd made about his wife and child, she was surprised Romjha bothered speaking pleasantly to her at all. "I work when I need ... to think."
He started to reach for her arm, then let his hand fall. She couldn't pull her gaze from those blunt,
long-tipped fingers. "Do your thinking in bed," he suggested.His eyes glinted with what seemed a promise. Her skin heated; her breasts tingled. Crat. She was actuallygrowing aroused arguing with him. Stop it. Her fantasies were getting the better of her. Again. This wasneither the time nor the place.
"I'm not sleepy." She took a breath and pushed past him. "Good night, Commander."
He followed her. "You're relieved of duty. That's an order."
She turned around, walking backward. "We're not topside. Here you have no authority over me."
"The chemicals you use are hazardous; they require concentration. You haven't slept," he repeated.
She spread her hands. "Who has?"
"You're exhausted."
"Pah!" She thumped her fists onto her thighs and marched back to him. "I'll tell you what I am. I'm furious.
I'm so furious I could tear you apart, limb by suicidal limb."
He raised a brow. "Suicidal?"
"Yes, suicidal. I can see it in your eves. You're going to leave with them." Her stomach twisted. "Am I
right?"
His voice was both resolute and rueful. "Yes, Taj. I will be leaving when Jal and Cheya depart."
The blood drained from her face. It was one thing imagining the truth; it was entirely another to hear it confirmed.
She bunched up her hands and pressed them to her stomach. Frantically she tried to work up a good, seething rage, but for the first time since losing her father, she failed. She could only find hurt and fear.
"You're going to die and break my heart." She swallowed convulsively. "Aren't you?"
His eyes were suddenly so dark and profound that she feared she'd lose herself in them. "I have every reason not to," he said.
"By the heavens, I hope I'm not one of them." She marched close enough to him to feel his body heat. "You said you couldn't promise me tomorrow," she accused.
"A knee-jerk response! I was angry. I didn't want to contemplate losing you."
"Well, I'm angry, too." She reached for his collar and tried to shake him. "But one thing I won't contemplate is you not giving me tonight." She tugged him down to her and kissed him.
A deep sound rumbled in his chest. He tasted sweet, like root ale, and his lips were salty. Shyness didn't matter. That she'd wanted him like this forever didn't matter. What he thought of her audacity didn't matter. This was all she'd have. This moment. This night.
She wrapped the fabric of his collar around her knuckles and thrust her tongue deep into the dark, sweet heat of his mouth.
If he had any reservations about what she'd demanded of him. Romjha didn't show it. His arms folded around her, molding her to his body. The pressure of his lips forced her head backward, triggering a flood of desire that pooled low in her belly.
His kiss was ravenous, not tender; it was scorching and unrepentant. Taj's anger dissipated like so much ash, burned away by something even hotter.
It was clear, now, how badly they'd both wanted this-and that they'd waited too long for it.
Romjha's hands moved lower, stroking and kneading as they went. He found her backside and hauled her close enough for her to feel the proof of his arousal. If radite crystals were volatile, this was spontaneous combustion.
Taj kissed and caressed him frantically. They stumbled backward into the closest room. The lab door slammed closed behind them.
She tore through the fasteners on Romjha's shirt, yanking it down his shoulders. Her fingers raked over the swell of his hard chest, her palms dragging across his flat stomach, riding the muscles that rippled under taut skin there; they ruthlessly explored his warrior's body, the thick, rugged belt slung around his waist, and then lower.
Reaching between their bodies, Taj cupped her hand over the hard bulge in his trousers. He pushed her up against the wall.
Her needy moan seemed to encourage him. The scrape of his teeth on the side of her throat made her shiver as he fumbled with the fastener at her waist and shoved her pants to the floor.
His hand slid up her inner thigh. When he touched between her legs, her body gave an involuntary jerk.
Thick, callused fingertips explored her, found her wet and hot. His breath was harsh against her skin. "I've wanted you, Taj. Wanted this. Longer than you know." He kissed her again.
She moaned into his mouth, her legs suddenly weak. He found the small nub of her sex with breathtaking skill, rasping her gently with two slowly rotating fingers. Her hips writhed. A shattering rush of desire wiped her mind blank of anger and fear.
She grabbed his wrist, slowing him. They kissed feverishly as she worked to free him from his trousers. His erection was thick and hard, heavy with desire. Caressing, stroking, she took him into her hand. Her thumb circled over its rounded tip, spreading a hot bead of moisture she found there.
Something seemed to let go inside him then-an explosive reaction that she had the giddy feeling she wouldn't be able to control. He groaned her name, thrusting hard into her hand, stopping himself with a shudder, only to sweep her off her feet so fast she lost her breath. His arm muscles bulged as he slung her legs around him. Her shoulder blades pressed into the wall behind her.
The sensation of his hot flesh colliding with hers was almost too much. With a single jerk of his hips, he entered her, pushing deep, stretching her to a point of exquisite tension. She clung to him, muffling her cry of shock and pleasure against his shoulder.
Clutching her hips, Romjha rocked inside her with long, powerful, upward strokes, sending shock waves of carnal pleasure all the way to her toes. Pinned between his body and the wall, she could do little else but hold on to his heaving shoulders and make small, pleading gasps.
"Ah, Taj . . . don't make me stop," he teased gruffly, pretending to misunderstand.
She choked back a laugh of joy. "You're kidding," she gasped, running her hands over his biceps, feeling the muscles flex under his skin. Reaching around, she loosened his hair from its binding. It fell shaggy and free around his neck, and she reveled in the silky strands.
He bit her neck, thrusting deeper inside her. His blond hair was dark with sweat; his shirt, hanging halfway down his arms, was damp with it, too. He radiated the scent and heat of insatiable hunger, of the fierce desperation of a soldier leaving home, likely for good. With that realization, anguish and anger invaded Taj's mind, twisting together and sharpening her need.
She and Romjha were wild and rough. Whatever one hungered for, the other seemed to know how to supply. Taj's entire body trembled and ached from exhaustion, but it didn't make a difference. It didn't stop her from asking for more. All he had. All he could give her.
Without thinking, she clamped her legs tighter around his hips. Deep inside, she convulsed. She hovered there, at a peak so intense she was sure her heart had stopped beating, until at last she shattered, a cry of joy and astonishment exploding from her throat.
Ecstasy swept her away to a new and temporary sanctuary better than her spring, a place where there was only sensation, all of it pleasurable, where there was no fear, no sorrow, no pain. A place where there was only now.
Romjha threw back his head, hissing through clenched teeth, as if he'd only barely managed to hold back until that moment. His buttocks went rock-hard. His hips jerked once, twice, and heat pumped into her- a release as powerful as it was prolonged.
Taj clung to him, her lips pressed to the tendons straining in his neck. At last, with one last jolt of his pelvis, Romjha let his head fall forward and buried his lips in her hair.
He was still semi-hard and deep inside her. With each small movement of his body, aftershocks of pleasure rippled through her. Time seemed to stand still as they remained wrapped around each other. In unison, their breathing slowed. The sweat on their skin chilled.
Taj felt emptied out, for once too tired to be truly angry, too satiated to be terrified.
Slowly she became aware of the odors of chemicals she stored in the lab, able to differentiate them by scent alone. Over Romjha's shoulder, she glimpsed boxes of fuses, empty metal shells waiting to be filled, bullets, flamethrowers, dynamite-instruments of destruction, all. She might like to think she was a survivalist, but she was as much a part of this blood-madness as Romjha.
What if his brazen plan was able to bring a return of technology, of modern medical care, of living without the constant threat of attack? What if he did achieve peace for all time? Would he be satisfied coming home to Sienna, to a new and simpler life as a gentleman farmer or a shopkeeper, or whatever else men did during peacetime when every breathing moment wasn't taken up by the demands of survival or battle?
Something told her he'd never be satisfied with such a mundane life. He'd never be a man satisfied being tied to a hearthside. He'd always look to the stars and dream.
As if he sensed her escalating unease, he stroked her hair. A shudder ran through the tight muscles in his arms, and he lifted her and eased her to the ground. Her legs wobbled under her weight, and she clung to his forearm with one hand as she pulled her pants over her bare backside with her other.
Romjha said, "We're in your lab." He glanced around, blinking.
"It was the closest open door. Remember?"
"Actually, no."
She'd never seen him this bemused. She quite liked it.
Romjha dipped his head to brush his mouth over hers. His hand slipped under her shirt and cupped her breast, dragging his thumb back and forth over its sensitive tip.
Taj sucked in a breath, her loins heating all over again. Romjha made a soft, pleased growl when her nipple hardened.
"We rushed just now. Haste leaves many loose ends." He spoke quietly against her parted lips. "Let us tie them up in your bed."
She remembered her wobbly legs. "If I can walk there."
His mouth spread, a private smile, and he pressed firm lips to the side of her throat. "Who says you have to?"
Searching for the waistband of his pants, he pulled them up but left his shirt open. Shadows played across his powerful shoulders and chest, rippled over the ridges of his stomach like dark honey. His abs flexed as he buckled his waist belt.
"To your bed," he said then, with finality, and swept her off her feet. Taj wrapped her arms around his neck and let him carry her from the lab.
Chapter Nine.