He leaned back just enough to allow her to twist so that they were facing each other. This required the chain to come out from under his legs to over them, like an insufficient blanket. Her nose brushed against his and for a second, he found his gaze being drawn completely into the obsidian of her eyes. There were times, rare times, that he’d been able to just search her face and take in how beautiful she really was. Most of the time, though, her mouth ruined the effect. Tonight, for just a moment, he could. The firelight teased across her features, plunging the rest into shadow. Night was far kinder to both of them than daylight had been. Under the sun’s harsh scrutiny, they’d both fail to look halfway decent.

Akila got that littlest bit of a frown between her brows as she spoke, evidently trying very hard to remember. Lukos listened but even while he did so, his hand traveled down the length of her back to settle on the swell of her ass. His head shifted so that his mouth rested against her shoulder but he didn’t actually kiss her there. There were some girls who were the ones he’d trail kisses along their spines and who he could be somewhat gentle with, if the mood struck him. Akila was not that person. He nipped the exposed skin where her dress didn’t cover. She tasted salty and he supposed that was appropriate.

He figured she might not speak but when she did, he settled his head against his makeshift pillow again and watched her mouth. His thoughts wheeled back to the day in question and he frowned but the memories weren’t coming. At least, not clearly. The whores he vaguely remembered but forgot them entirely the second Akila bemoaned the two of them not having snuck off somewhere to fuck each other’s brains out. It would definitely have been more preferable to now - with them stuck in entirely strange clothing, digesting a charred goat leg, and having to press together for warmth rather than desire. Though, on Lukos’s part, anyway, his desire was very evident if Akila decided to take notice.

Whatever contract he’d been arguing about, though, he did not remember. The slaves were offloaded...he remembered that clearly. He remembered selling quite a few of them to a man of considerable wealth but...hmm. Was that something they’d argued about? He was sure that he’d been paid generously, right then and there...so it had to be something else. Now he did remember something about a tiger. He’d hugged it. But the bone dice lady...that was a complete blank and from the way Akila described her, he was glad. Lukos didn’t really like to speak to ugly people (Arktos excluded).

The tiara he’d honestly forgotten about. It was so tangled up in his hair that he was likely going to have to saw it out with that dull as fuck knife. “Can’t do anything about it tonight,” he mumbled, nipping the end of her nose and grinning. Immediately he pulled his own face back so that she would have a harder time retaliating.

He’d assumed there would be an immediate and vicious retaliation but Akila surprised him. Instead of biting back or snapping at the air just in front of his nose, she wriggled out of his arm and turned, pushing his shoulder. Lukos’s brows rose a fraction but he let her move him how she wanted. Flat on his back, the cold stone pressing through the chiton, he watched as she shifted the chain so that it was on the ground on their right. Akila straddled him and he felt a bit like a horse as she gripped his hips with her knees. His hands settled on her hips as his eyes drifted up her body. This wasn’t a surprise, exactly. She’d promised sex if he killed the goat, but he had forgotten until now. They’d had more pressing concerns.

Her ass teased back and forth against his cock and he grinned, but it was fixed. Akila was nothing if not a tease and he still wasn’t entirely sure that she’d make good on her promise. After all, this woman liked to say a lot to lull the hearer into a false sense of security and then she’d do exactly as she pleased. That is to say, she promised a great deal and only delivered on what she felt like doing. He couldn’t blame her; he was the same.

The finger twisting in his chesthair was a little distracting and he finally dropped his gaze to look down at what she was doing. There were nice twisted tufts looking like wooly tornadoes all over his chest. Sexy. He batted her hand away and smoothed his hair back down to a respectable flatness. Akila took that moment to lean forward and purr into his ear. His hand slowed and he paused, listening. “Hmm, no. Can’t do anything about it tonight.” An involuntary shiver of contentment swept down his spine. The shiver turned to a shudder when he heard her mouth open and he turned his head to try to get away from the bite.

That only served to offer up his jaw, which she soon kissed as she continued to speak. “So then, Lukos, what can we do?” It was a veiled offer he couldn’t refuse and enough to trick him into turning his head back so that he could properly gauge her facial expressions. What he got for his trouble was a nipped nose. He laughed and snaked his arm around her waist, twisting the two of them and rolling at the same time so that she was now the one pinned to the rock and he was on top.

“We can rid me of this,” he said and did the same thing to her that she’d been doing to him mere seconds before. He gripped her hips with his thighs, sat up, and pulled the wretched, disgusting chiton over his head, and dropped it beside them. Fuck, it could be a blanket, really. It was massive. What kind of monster of a human being waddled around in that? Whatever he and Akila had been up to, by the time they changed into their current outfits or were changed into them by force, Lukos didn’t have underwear anymore. He’d failed to notice this earlier but now...now he did and it bore further consideration. But later. For now, he was busy.

“You can keep yours on if you want,” he said, being entirely generous. All he needed was her skirt up. What a romantic. Except...his hand wandered over her chest. “Or, you can take it off. You look uncomfortable.”

It was hard to tell with this particular playmate if she’d tell him to fuck off or actually follow through with a promise but it was almost always worth the risk when she did. He moved with her as she sat up, having to it back on his knees, which put him hovering over her legs while she pulled the dress over her head. His expression softened once she was naked. There they were...perfect. There. Touchable.

Did it matter to him that they were far enough out that they could possibly die tomorrow if they didn’t find either a city or another oasis? Not with the promise of sex, no. It didn’t. In fact, to his mind, it would be a crime not to find solace where he could. The night was cold, she was warm and soft. He leaned into her as she rose up to meet him. Her kiss did taste like unseasoned goat meat but who was he to judge? The taste wasn’t distracting him from her fingertips gliding along his spine.

She pulled back first when her fingers wrapped around his length. Lukos half followed the kiss before realizing she was talking to him. “Someone’s prepared.”

He raised his brows at her and looked down at her hand stroking him and then back up to her eyes. “I think it’d be an insult not to be prepared for you. Now shut up,” he breathed and tilted his head to force her back into the kiss she’d abandoned a few seconds ago. It was easy to keep her from talking if he kept her tongue busy with his own, and while he did it, he pressed the two of them back down until her back was flush against the stone floor again.

If anyone knew how to please, it was Akila, and while she was very good with her hand, that wasn’t what he wanted, ultimately. Lukos was not usually a soft lover. He liked it rough and was soon nipping his way from her mouth, along her jaw, down her neck, moving himself out of the reach of her hands as he worked towards her chest. Her beautiful, wonderful, glorious chest.

“Did you think we’d die like this?” he asked idly just before he took her nipple into his mouth. Lukos wasn’t convinced they were going to make it out of this desert. Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn’t, but at least they wouldn’t be sexually frustrated when they did die. So that was a bonus.