Free Mercy by Eleri Stone

shoulders as leverage to haul herself up and then using her clenched thighs to slow her fall down. She found her rhythm—fast and demanding, determined to have him and be gone before the guards arrived to delay them again. He’d offered his body. His perfect, willing, marvelous body, and she intended to use it while she still had the opportunity. He grunted with every bounce of her hips but he kept his legs braced and his hands resting with light support under her ass.
    Those strange eyes tracked the rise and fall of her body but his face was expressionless. The clench of his jaw was the only sign that he was exerting any effort, that he was even interested in what she was doing. It goaded her, that seeming indifference, and she rode him harder, grinding her hips forward on the down stroke. It wasn’t enough. She hooked one arm around his neck and bit into the firm flesh of his shoulder, trying to rouse some response from him. He flinched but then steadied. Snaking her other arm down between their bodies, she worked at her clit. Close. She was so fucking close but she couldn’t quite get there and her muscles were beginning to fatigue. She swallowed down a whimper, tasting his blood. Gabriel’s fingers flexed briefly into her skin. He let slip a long low growl of desire and it pushed her over the edge. She cried out and choked on the sound. The muscles in her thighs finally gave out and she started to slip. Gabriel held her up, digging his fingers into her skin as he moved her body to massage his cock.
    She dropped her legs from his hips and he turned her, putting a firm hand on her shoulder to force her down to her knees. She was still reeling, sweating, gasping for air and she didn’t realize his intention until he bent over her back and whispered, “My turn.” And he was inside her again. He planted one fist in the dirt beside her hand and wrapped his other arm low across her abdomen, trapping her against the shock of his heavy thrusts.
    They were facing the mouth of the tunnel and the voices were definitely louder now, clearer. A shadow that seemed human in its movement crossed to one side. The guards had arrived. They would find them. They would see this. Gabriel was wrong. It didn’t worry her. It wouldn’t shame her. Her body jerked as Gabriel pounded into her and she hoped that they would come.
    Gabriel righted his upper body and dropped a heavy hand over her ass. Each stroke was hard and deliberate. He was close. She felt her own body responding to his urgency. His thumb moved down between her cheeks, stroking slowly to where his cock was pounding into her and then back up. Again and again. He paused and probed inside her. “If there was time, I’d take you here.”
    Iada stiffened, not at his words but at the curse that sounded sharp and clear and very, very near.
    He probed deeper, slowly twisting his thumb. “Would you let me, Iada?”
    She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out. He thrust hard and she came sharp and suddenly. He made a startled sound and then he was there with her. Giving two quick hard plunges, he held her tight, buried so deep she could feel the jerk and spasm of his cock. He was still breathing heavily when he pulled back and climbed to his feet. Wordlessly he helped her up and pushed her into a jog.
    They made it through the last tunnel without being spotted and slowed to a walk. Iada pulled her hair into a loose ponytail while Gabriel walked silently beside her, seemingly distracted. He kept walking past the small boats the children used, past the relatively still waters of the inlet. He stopped on the bank about fifty feet downriver from the tunnel and looked out over the wide river.
    “I’m not ashamed to mate with you,” she said to his back.
    His head came around sharply but he didn’t say anything, only watched her expectantly.
    She met his questioning gaze head-on. “You expect me to think like a human. To hold grudges and lie to you with my body. You should