Chapter Text
When Inej entered the Silver Six, Kaz’s world stopped spinning for a moment.
She had come directly from her ship-- there were tendrils of her hair around her face, coaxed loose from her braid by the wind. She was still wearing the wide-brimmed hat that she wore at sea to shade her eyes from the sun, rather than the loose hood she favored while in Ketterdam. Her gaze was piercing, and he felt a familiar heat twist low in his stomach. She smiled, moving like a predator through the crowd of pigeons toward him, and he let his own lips curl faintly in response.
His hand tightened on the head of his cane as he stepped forward to meet her.
They did not embrace. They did not let their guard down in public, because though it was common knowledge they were together, they each had their own reputations to maintain. But as they stood facing each other and their eyes met, Kaz felt the charge of their connection course through his entire body.
It had been months this time, and he ached for her so much that some nights he couldn’t sleep.
She stared up at him-- sharp, delicate features, parted lips, dark eyes he would happily drown in--and Kaz ached. He clenched his hand at his side to keep from reaching out and brushing a stray lock of hair from her face.
“To the back room, then?” he asked, and she gave a quick nod. His eyes and the deepening of his voice were the only things that betrayed his relief that she was home safe.
As they passed between the tables and into the hallway side by side, people hushed and moved out of the way slightly as they passed. Inej darted a wicked smile and a sidelong glance at him. Kaz just nodded curtly to a few of them, accepting their uneasiness as his due. He was far from idle while she was away, but Ketterdam had begun to realize that the riskiest of his plays for power always coincided with The Wraith in harbor and his Wraith there to watch his back. Inej by his side meant trouble for someone-- possibly everyone.
He led her to the second doorway from the end of the hallway. He desperately needed to feel her body against his, to bury his hands in her hair and feel whole again. He had planned to pull her into his arms the moment they were behind closed doors, but Inej clearly had more… detailed ideas. They were barely through the door when she slammed it behind them and shoved him against it. Kaz sucked in a deep, sharp breath, his blood rushing south instantly.
Kaz still had difficulty with unexpected skin-on-skin contact, and Inej did not like being suddenly put in a position where she felt trapped or helpless. However, they had found that if Kaz seduced her with gentle touches of her skin or she playfully pushed him around a little to signal her intentions, there was no need for words-- the actions spoke for themselves. The sudden press of his back against the wood of the door and Inej’s hands gripping his jacket lapels: I want you. The way he pulled his gloves from his hands in response and tossed them onto the table by the door: Let me touch you.
The Silver Six had a number of back rooms. They were generally used for pre-arranged private games, or as places for important guests who had overindulged to sober up before walking home-- for a price, of course. This particular one was arranged a bit like a salon, with a couple sofas and chaise lounges for the patrons to relax on as well as the usual card table and a window with heavy velvet curtains. While Kaz hadn’t actually planned for more than holding and kissing Inej somewhere private, the subconscious part of his mind had clearly been preparing for all eventualities in choosing this room.
Moving slowly, so that he had time to stop her, Inej brought her hands up to touch his face. He smiled as her fingertips grazed his cheekbones, before settling on his jaw. He let his eyes drift closed, and she pulled his head down to hers to kiss him. Her mouth was hot, insistent, fierce. He could taste the salt of the ocean air still on her lips. He melted into the kiss, returning it with equal fervor and deepening it.
He reached behind him and turned the lock, only letting his guard drop completely when he felt it click into place. Then he finally allowed himself to center all his focus on Inej’s body pressed flush against his. Between kisses he found himself gasping for breath against her lips, his tongue curling out to taste them again. Salt was the taste of reunion to him now, the taste of Inej, after long months without the quiet exultation he felt with her beside him and in his arms.
They drew back for a moment, breathing hard. She placed both hands on his chest and touched her forehead to his throat, and that small gesture, her curling into the shelter of his body, made his heart ache in his chest.
She made him feel like a whole man in ways he’d never thought he could.
Kaz realized something as he stole away her hat and buried his fingers in her hair. He had always let Inej take control-- it had been liberating for her to be the one who demanded and took and rendered him helpless beneath her. And Kaz had no complaints whatsoever. It was exhilarating, beautiful, and impossibly hot, being taken by his queen.
But tonight… tonight he felt a new boldness stirring in him. This had all been new to him at the beginning. He had still been tormented by his own disbelief that she could really want this, really want him, with all his flaws and limitations.
He had discovered over the last year of increasing intimacy between them that not only did she find him desirable, but he could make her want him so much that she lost control. A meaningful look at her while pulling off his shirt, a gentle but firm hand on her lower back, his lips and teeth grazing the sensitive skin of her wrist, and he could make her breathing quicken and her body grow wet and ready for him.
He was not sure if she would ever feel comfortable being pinned under the weight of his body as he made love to her, or pressed up against the wall as he took her from behind. Realistically, even if she wanted those scenarios, they would end up needing to readjust part way through before his erection subsided from the pain in his leg. But Kaz was nothing if not adaptable, and he had in mind a different idea to shift the balance of power between them and take control of their lovemaking in a way they could both enjoy.
During Inej’s last shore leave, Kaz had finally reached the point where he could pleasure her with his mouth without the old panic taking over. Then, he’d discovered the noises he could draw from her when he did, and well... suffice it to say that by the end of the week, his tongue and jaw had been cramping nearly as badly as his leg. It had been glorious and left Inej sprawled deliciously mindless and shivering through the aftershocks.
It had been the discovery of a new kind of power, and now he wanted to have fun with that power.
“You look wicked,” Inej whispered, pressing a lingering kiss to his crooked smile. “Just what are you thinking?”
“Want to find out? Take off your clothes for me,” he urged, running a finger down her throat and over the vee of skin revealed by her unbuttoned shirt collar. He hooked his finger beneath the fabric and tugged gently.
One of the things they had agreed upon early on was that Kaz would never undress her. Inej removed her own clothes-- or not, depending on how sensitive to triggers they both felt that day. But Kaz had never asked her to undress for him before, and he watched her carefully as her breath caught at his phrasing. He was asking her for a new kind of vulnerability, one they had not yet fully explored.
Inej swallowed and nodded. Her cheeks flushed slightly, and that blush did things to Kaz. A moment later he abruptly realized the reason-- it was a faint echo of the high color that flushed her cheeks when she was about to climax.
Well then. He planned to see a good deal of that, too.
He moved back from her and sat down on the chaise. He did not touch her or himself while she undressed. It was another of their hard and fast rules. But he watched her, and instead of worship, tonight, he let his eyes linger on her body with possessiveness and promise.
The slight fumbling of her hands and the way she bit her lip when their eyes met revealed that she liked it. Good. He shed his own jacket, draping it carefully over the back of the chaise, followed by his tie. A slow smile formed on her lips as she mirrored his actions, slipping off her jacket, then unbuttoning the thick silk brocade waistcoat that Kaz loved both for the protection it afforded her in battle and the way it fit the curve of her waist. She pulled off her boots and stockings as he unfastened his own, considerably more somber waistcoat. Then she went to unstrap the knife she had named after Sankt Vladimir from her ankle.
“No,” Kaz told her firmly, with a slight smile. “Leave the knives on.”
He wanted her to feel completely safe, able to take back control at any moment if she needed to. Also, Inej wearing nothing but her knives? Unspeakably sexy. She raised an amused eyebrow and carefully strapped the knife back on once she’d stepped out of the trousers. She knew him too well to be surprised by this request.
He watched her strip away the layers that hid her body from his hungry eyes, making no secret of how it affected him. She did not make a show of it, precisely, but her slow, deliberate process of revealing her body to him, the way her eyes met his every time his breath caught, was its own kind of sensuality. Someday, he hoped to see her fully glory in her effect on him, even tease him, but for now, he was grateful that she could just let herself enjoy the act of undressing before him.
She didn’t always remove her shift. Today, she did, and he marveled silently at the utter perfection of her breasts, the way the tawny glow of lamplight gilded her bronze skin, turning the fine hair on her thighs translucent. She had removed the knives she wore over her clothing and was now strapping them carefully back onto her bare limbs; the others had already been hidden beneath her clothes, against her skin. He swallowed hard and held out his hands to her, a silent invitation. She glided to him, her feet soundless on the plush carpet, and turned, knowing what he wanted.
He never undressed her, but he could unbind her hair. He pulled loose the tie and combed his fingers through the silken strands. A man touching a woman’s hair was incredibly meaningful among the Suli, and indecently sensual to Kaz. He dragged it over his face and throat-- cool, smooth strands over hot skin-- and bit back a moan.
Kaz used the arm of the chaise to pull himself to his feet and traced his fingertips over the sleek lines of her body-- from the bones of her wrist, up her toned arms, along her collarbones, down her spine, over the curve of her hips, until she just leaned back against him and reveled in his touch. Then he slid his hands up her sides to cup her breasts in gentle hands. He circled his thumbs around her nipples, teasing them to hardness and making her back arch.
He knew precisely how she liked them touched, soft and light at first, then surprisingly roughly. When she made the little whimper that meant that she needed more, he tugged on them, pinching just enough to send little shocks of arousal through her and make her rock her hips back into his with need. He could not resist pressing back against her, but before she could distract him completely that way, he turned her gently to face him. She looked up at him with smouldering eyes. He tangled his hands in her hair and bent to kiss her, deep and hard. Inej moaned into his mouth.
“ Sajnii,” he whispered the Suli endearment to her, still so close that his lips brushed hers as he spoke. “Get on the chaise.”
Every time he called her that, Inej seemed to glow from within for a moment. The look that crossed his face at seeing such pure happiness in her eyes was one that no one but Inej had ever witnessed: a soft, tender expression that took years of hardness from his face and left only a twenty year old boy looking at the girl he loved.
Inej draped herself on the chaise and looked up at him through her eyelashes, and his heart clenched in his chest. He knelt before her and repositioned her legs slightly, coaxing them apart. Her breath caught a little as she realized what he wanted to do.
He was about to shove aside the small ottoman to get it out of the way when he had a better idea. He pushed it against the chaise between her parted legs, and with gentle hands stroking her ankles, he bent her legs up so that her feet rested on it. He pulled his braces off his shoulders to ease the tension in the fabric of his pants and leaned forward, trailing little kisses up her calves to the sensitive crease of her knee. She hummed softly in pleasure. He leaned over the ottoman as he moved up her legs, letting some of the weight of his torso rest on the plush surface. It relieved some of the strain this position would put on his leg and put him precisely where he wanted to be.
Inej's back arched as he placed little bites on her inner thighs and laved the faint marks with his tongue. Her eyes were shut; her lashes were a dark crescent against her skin. The light caught the curve of her shoulder, her parted lips, the rippling fall of her hair; Kaz felt dizzy with desire.
He leaned forward and breathed in the scent of her. It was an immeasurable help in keeping him anchored in the here and now, the rich, heady aliveness of her arousal, so utterly unlike the canals or the Reaper’s barge. He had confessed this to her once and gotten a Look. In retrospect, it was not the most flattering compliment to tell his lover how much he appreciated that she did not smell like rotting corpses between her legs.
He was terrible at romance. Fortunately, he thought as he curled a hand around her backside to tilt her closer to his mouth, he had cultivated other skills.
He took his time about it, running his tongue over her slowly and drawing the most beautiful soft sound from her lips. She wrapped one leg around his shoulders, stroked her foot down his back in an idle caress. He circled her clit with feather-light licks and caressed the folds of her entrance with a finger that never quite dipped in, but brought her to shivering sensitivity and reminded her that there was more yet to come. She spread her legs further, braced her feet on the ottoman, and let her head fall back as he eased her gradually into pleasure.
Kaz was fully hard now, his cock straining against the seam of his pants as he closed his mouth over her clit. He sucked gently until he could feel it growing swollen against his tongue and Inej was moaning and making little rocking motions with her hips. He could make her come two or three times in a row by just doing this for long enough.
If he had been a nicer man, he probably would have. But he was a terrible man, and he planned to make her beg for it this time.
He teased her with delicate flickers of his tongue that made her arch and drew little cries from her-- cut off, as he did not linger long enough for the pleasure to intensify. Her hand gripped his hair, pressing him closer, urging, and he reached up with the hand that was not still tracing her entrance and twined his fingers with hers, pulling her hand from his hair and tangling it in his own fingers.
Neither of them liked their wrists held down, but they had discovered that Inej could hold Kaz's hands and pin them that way without triggering him. Kaz wanted to see if the same trick would work for her. Giving her time to pull away if she needed to, he slowly brought her hand to the cushion of the chaise and held it there, giving it a quick squeeze.
She squeezed back.
He felt a hot little surge of victory and pride in her and swiped his tongue over her clit more directly, delighting in the way she gasped and pressed up into him, her hand twitching in his. Another firm stroke, then another, and her breath was catching with every lick of his tongue. He could feel the tension growing in her body and picked up the pace, lavishing her with pleasure until she was crying out.
"Kaz," she said urgently. "There, right there, like that-- just like that-- yes--"
He took her right to the point where her hips were bucking up into his mouth and her body was taut and trembling--and pulled his mouth away. Inej's head shot up, her eyes dark and desperate and her lower lip caught in her teeth. She made a startled, frustrated sound.
"Kaz!" She reached to pull his head back down, but he ducked to the side, evading her. "Kaz!"
He let a slow smile grow on his lips, watching her hips twitch and listening to her whines as the climax slipped out of her reach. Then, as she was still whimpering, he slipped two fingers inside her and curled them. Her body rose up off the chaise for a moment.
"Yes, there, Kaz-- Kaz!" He stopped again. "Don't tease," she whined.
"But it's so much fun," he countered, pressing his fingers slowly in and out and watching her hips catch the rhythm and push into each stroke.
"It's not ," she protested, but Kaz just smirked, his eyes lingering on the high color in her cheeks and her hand still firmly twined with his.
"Oh, yes it is." He lowered his mouth to her again. She let out a deep moan of relief as his mouth closed over her clit. He made love to her with spirals of his tongue and the curling of his fingers. She was even wetter now, hot and swollen and slick around his fingers, and he couldn't help imagining what it would feel like to hitch her legs over his shoulders and slide himself deep into her.
No, not yet. Inej was whimpering again, her thighs tensing around his ears, her hand almost painfully tight on his. He sucked on her clit hard and then pulled away again as she began to arch, trembling, a cry on her lips.
The cry turned to frustration once again. "Kaz, come on !"
"Not yet, love," he told her and bent back to dragging his tongue in wide, indirect circles. She made a muffled sound of frustration at him that made him chuckle.
"You're terrible."
"Of course," he agreed, blowing cool air over her clit, then licking it, then blowing lightly on it again to make her squirm.
"Kaz," she whined, her head thrashing.
He thrust harder with his fingers, adding a third, letting himself imagine he was opening her up for his cock. She moved her hips into each stroke and whimpered, her brow furrowing as she tried to race back to that point before he could stop again. She wouldn’t usually come from just this. Kaz drew back again to trail delicate bites up her inner thighs, and her hand tightened on his as if she wanted to grab him by the hair and drag his mouth where she wanted it. But her other hand was clenched into the upholstery of the chaise. Elation swept through him as he realized that she was giving him this power over her pleasure.
He lowered his head and circled her clit with the tip of his tongue and she keened. Every muscle in her body tensed and the strength of her legs shoved the ottoman several inches and pushed the cushion of it directly into Kaz’s erection. He pressed his hips into it with a gasp, watching as Inej drew closer, almost, clenching tight around his fingers and then--
“Oh, you bastard!”
He grinned at her unrepentantly and then bit his lip as he pressed his hips against the ottoman again, chasing the relief of the pressure against his cock. He pulled his fingers out of her and licked them, not breaking eye contact, and Inej made a despairing sound.
“Do you want me to stop,
sajnii?”
he asked, his voice low and rough. She groaned.
“I want you to stop stopping!” she bit out. Her hair was a wild mess from thrashing her head and her eyes flashed at him. Rage and passion and knives against bare skin. He wanted her forever. He arched his hips again, rubbed against the ottoman, letting himself devour her beauty with his eyes.
“I mean it, Kaz! Let. Me. Come,” she demanded, pounding her fist on the cushions.
“I thought one of our rules was that either of us could stop any time we wanted to?” Kaz taunted her. “That was the deal.”
She stared at him for a long moment, then collapsed back on the chaise, muttering something complicated in Suli that Kaz could not translate but which was definitely not fit for polite company. He tried not to smirk and failed.
“I will get you for this, Rietveld,” she told him, and he drew in a breath at the sound of the name he’d been born with. Very gently, he turned over the hand he had twined in his, brought it to his mouth, and kissed the inside of her wrist, then grazed his teeth over her pulse.
“Not if I get you first,” he breathed against the sensitive skin there, rocking his hips steadily now and biting back a moan because the friction felt incredible.
“Oh, you’ve got me, but it appears you’ve forgotten what to do with me,” Inej said, her tone a challenge.
“Have I?” He pressed her hand back against the chaste and leaned in, letting her feel his breath at the apex of her thighs. She arched up toward him, rocking against his mouth, and he let her desperately try to rub against his face before he gave in and closed his mouth over her clit, sucking steadily and rhythmically. She sobbed in torment, in pleasure, writhing as he kept the pressure just firm enough to make her rise steadily toward climax-- and yet not nearly fast enough to satisfy her.
“Kaz-- please, I need it-- so much-- oh, I hate you, please-- ngh, oh, oh Saints, Kaz, Kaz--” she dissolved into wordless sounds as he brought quick, hard strokes of his tongue into play.
Such beautiful, unspeakably filthy noises. His love straining toward climax under his mouth, begging incoherently. This was the memory he would be getting himself off to for the rest of his life. She began to cry out, her hips bucking sharply, and felt power spark through him like electricity as he pulled away.
Suddenly there was a flash in his peripheral vision. Inej was holding a knife inches from his throat.
“ Finish,” she demanded, her breathing ragged. Gorgeous, flushed, bare moments from climaxing, and the knife in her hand gleaming a deadly threat…. Kaz’s hips stuttered against the ottoman. His climax hit him before his mind could even fully process what he was seeing, and he came possibly harder than he ever had in his life.
He shuddered helplessly, grinding erratically against the ottoman. Inej pressed the cool flat of the blade against his jaw as he curled into the space between her thighs--if he had not been too far gone to care, he would have been shocked at the sheer desperation of the noises ripped from his throat. He finally gasped for breath as the evidence of his orgasm soaked through his drawers and clung to his skin, wet, sticky, and hot. Then, still trembling and shuddering in the aftermath, he lowered his mouth to her clit, slid his fingers deep into her, and finished what he had started.
He heard more than saw the knife tumble to the carpet as she clutched at his hair, rocked against his tongue, and moaned his name--not just once, but again and again and again. Her climax was spectacular-- her entire body shaking and spasming, tears running down her cheeks, her mouth stretched into a soundless, ecstatic scream. He did not stop his pressure on her clit, the curling of his fingers, pushing her higher and higher until her body tensed and jerked and he knew she couldn’t bear anymore. Then he slowed his ministrations, gentling her through the aftershocks and letting her bat him away with a clumsy hand when even that became too much. He trailed kisses down her thighs even as she pushed him away.
Inej let herself sink into the cushions of the chaise, boneless with exhaustion, and he rolled onto the floor. An elated high pulsed through his blood, something sharper and sweeter than adrenaline and far more wicked.
“You… bastard…” Inej breathed, her voice still quavering as she shifted to lie on her side.
“Mmhmm,” Kaz agreed happily. “‘-s what they call me.”
There was a pause, and then a sound that it took his sex-muddled brain a moment to recognize. Inej was giggling.
“I can’t believe you came when I--”
He shrugged, unashamed. “So?” He knew what he liked.
“So… is this something we explore further or something we never speak of again?” He could still hear the laughter in her voice.
Kaz gave this the serious consideration it deserved. “Don’t know how much further I’d want you to take it, to be honest,” he told her. “I have pretty bad associations with the actual edge of a blade being held against my skin. I’d probably lash out without thinking. It’s more the idea than the actual thing, if that makes any sense.”
“Mmm.” There was a pause, then she quietly said, “Like what we just did, with you not really holding me down...”
“Exactly like that.” He sat up, leaning his elbow on the couch so he could see her face. Her skin glowed with a fine layer of perspiration, and curls of her hair clung to her neck. Her eyes were shut again as she tried to regain some semblance of control over her breathing. She was so impossibly lovely, and she was his . He wanted to reach out to her, but experience had taught him that touching skin damp with cooling sweat was never a good idea for him. “Was it okay?”
Inej opened her eyes and he could see a startling vulnerability in them. “I… really liked it. More than I expected to, after…”
Kaz nodded, carefully brushing a strand of hair out of her face with the ghosting touch of an expert pickpocket that did not touch her skin. “I’d never realized what it would be like when you were in control, as much as I had fantasized about you having your way with me.”
“What is it like for you, when I'm in control?” she asked a little shyly.
“Different than I thought it would be. Better. Like something in me just… relaxes, and I don’t have to think. I can just feel .” He paused. “And this time, being in control… I loved that so much, Inej.”
“I think you loved it a little too much,” she said dryly, though she was smiling a little.
“I love you too much,” Kaz tried to say in Suli, and Inej slapped a hand to her face in amused consternation.
“I see what you were going for there, but what you actually said was you value me too expensively. How are you so abominably Kerch, even in another language?” she lamented.
“Oh, right, the words change when it’s a person,” Kaz remembered belatedly.
“I find it horrifying that they don’t in this language, but I love you too, you shevrati bastard,” she said, smiling. “And it was sexy when you took control, though if you ever tease me for--” she glanced at the clock on the wall-- “Saints, nearly an hour? You’re terrible. If you ever tease me that long again, I will do the same to you until I make you cry.”
Kaz shivered. “If that was meant to be a threat,” he told her, “I think you may be going about this the wrong way.”
“You’re incorrigible. I’m praying for your soul.”
“I think we've established that I haven’t got one.” Kaz smirked a little, then winced slightly as he pulled himself to his feet and began to put his clothing to rights.
“Kaz,” Inej began reproachfully.
He interrupted with a quiet curse as he stared down at the stain on his pants. “I can’t go out there like this.”
Inej was silent for a long moment and he glared at her, knowing she was trying not to laugh. He took a deep breath and swallowed his pride.
“Inej…”
“Don’t look at me. I’m not the one who came on them.”
“No, you came on my face instead, and now you’re laughing at me,” he said, slightly petulant.
“Well, your face is easier and less expensive to clean. I’m demonstrating the Kerch values of thrift and practicality.” She smirked at him. ”I’ve learned so much from your culture.” Damn it, she was enjoying this, wasn’t she? Maybe he should have let her come sooner.
Kaz tried charm, leaning towards her with one hand on the arm of the chaise and smiling down a bit crookedly at her. “You know, if you wanted to express your gratitude for my services, you could go get the long coat hanging in my office upstairs.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s the voice you use to talk pigeons into giving you their money and it doesn’t work on me. Try again.”
“Inej!” He gestured at his pants in frustration, abandoning the posture. “You know I can’t walk out there like this. People will notice.”
She sat up and and he found himself distracted by the sway of her breasts and the muscles in her legs as she swung them to the floor. "What do I get in return for fetching your coat?"
He groaned. "Ghezen, I don't know. What do you want?"
"An apology, for one thing."
Kaz raised an eyebrow. "It would be a lie. If I have anything to say about it--" his voice deepened slightly and he smiled in anticipation-- "this action will have many echoes."
She scowled at him but he could see her pupils had dilated at his promise. "Then I want payback."
"I thought you said you liked me taking control," he countered, though he kind of enjoyed her ferocity.
"Taking control, yes. Not letting me come for so long? You're in trouble for that."
"Name your price. As many orgasms as you want?" Kaz proposed.
"I can get that already if I take off my clothes and smile at you. Raise your offer."
He grinned. His Wraith knew how to bargain. "A new knife."
"The one you bought me already and are keeping in your desk at the Slat?"
"How did you know that?" He demanded, caught off guard.
"Your new spiders keep me informed of your every move, just in case you get into another situation while I'm gone again."
"I was only in Hellgate for a few hours, Inej!"
"Nine hours, and you came out with a broken arm!"
"Less than a day, and it was a crack in the bone, not an actual break!" he argued.
"And you didn't tell me so I wouldn't worry, which is why your spiders report to me now. Raise your offer ."
"I'll never make you wait an hour to come again?" he tried, already considering how much he could accomplish in 59 minutes.
"And?"
"Just tell me what you want,” he said, giving in.
“Hmmm…” Inej dramatically tilted her head and thought about it. “I want you to take me out to the Artig Meid and buy me an expensive dinner.”
“All right,” Kaz agreed, though his inner Barrel urchin quailed at the idea of spending 40 kruge on a single plate of food.
“Then I want to go back to your rooms and I want to keep you on the edge of orgasm until you beg me to come.”
“Sound carries in the Slat,” Kaz said, frowning.
“A hotel room, then,” Inej compromised.
He suddenly found himself needing to clear his throat. “Done.”
“The deal is the deal,” she said, and rose. She stretched and sighed as she pulled on her clothes more slowly than usual, and once again, Kaz felt a fierce, triumphant pride at how visibly well-pleasured she was. When she had finally slipped on her socks, she left the boots where they lay-- she wouldn’t be able to climb properly in them-- and disappeared out the window into the night. After only a few minutes, Inej was back from his little office upstairs, and wearing his coat. To his minor annoyance, she looked better in it than he did. She took it off and presented it to him with a flourish.
When they had fully dressed, they slipped out the back exit of the Silver Six, Inej’s laughter ringing into the night air as they headed home. If the guards stationed at the exit noticed the flush on his cheeks and the way his hand lingered low on her back, no one dared to say anything.