54
Time
Callum
Whatever objections he’d had were lost in the kiss.
Her eyes were his north star, his direction, his everything.
He could never deny her, not when these emotions had been blossoming in his chest for so long.
Callum pulled her into him, clutching, aching for her in a way he’d never truly allowed himself to.
He didn’t deserve her.
He was unworthy of her affection, but whichever god had graced him with this gift, he would not sully it.
His hand slid up her lovely neck, his thumb grazing over the soft skin beneath her jaw as he savored her plump lips like fine wine.
That feral passion he had despised so much in the beginning now drove him to insanity.
She closed the gap between them and straddled him in the chair, her warmth infusing and imbuing him with a blazing heat.
He gripped her hips, clenching the fabric of her skirts for some semblance of control.
Her fingers drove into his hair, clinging, demanding, and tugged his head back to reveal his neck, and fuck it all, he let her.
Her lips left a scorching trail as she peppered kisses from his jaw to where his wicked pulse revealed the truth against her searing tongue as she tasted his skin.
She tasted like an addictive nectar, like those toadies she had told him of so long ago.
Callum would gorge himself on her, destroy himself, just to have her light cast on him a moment more.
He’d tossed his career into the fire, his life to the winds just for her sake, and he’d do it all again.
He’d break every rule he’d ever vowed to follow, if just to keep her with him a while longer.
She kissed her way up his jawline, the softness of her lips captivating him as she reached his mouth once more.
A low groan came unbidden and vibrated against their lips, but he let her have this.
Let her have him.
His body was ablaze, lighting up where she touched him, her fingertips leaving the hair on his head and following the collar of his shirt until they met the buttons.
A single look up at him from beneath her lashes was his undoing.
He could hold himself back no more.
He scooped her up, her breath hot in his ear, and carried her to the bed.
He laid her on the duvet like the precious treasure she was.
Her dark hair splayed around her head and her skirts all askew, the heavenly sepia of her skin a stark contrast against the pale covers.
He nearly fell to his knees right then.
Oh to worship at the altar of her body, to taste the richness of divinity in her affection.
She saturated his lungs with her vibrancy until he was breathing in vivid color and heard the song of the winds, and still, he couldn’t get enough.
He’d set aside his moral code, the rules he’d been taught, the dishonor of stealing someone else’s fiance, and by the gods, he would claim her.
Where her skirts rode up, he drew his fingertips along the soft flesh of her thighs, his breath catching somewhere between his heart and his throat.
His arousal threatened to burst from his pants, but he withheld, eager to discover how pleasure would paint devilish hues over Rumi’s features.
He traced fingertips up her corset to where her breasts nearly spilled out from the top, her gaze burning into his face.
“This is what you want?”
he rasped, licking his lips.
“Yes,”
she replied, no hesitation in her voice.
She allowed him this exploration, this moment, to gather his thoughts.
“But what of your Ti’la.
You said it was…an intimate thing…I don’t want to sully your soul.”
She reached up again to cup his face, and damn him, but he melted into it when she held his gaze.
“I choose you, Callum.
Only you.”
His axis tilted, canting to align with hers and forsaking whatever gravity had held him up thus far.
“Then be mine.
I’m already yours.”
The words stuck in his throat, heavy and true, tasting like the richest of chocolate.
Undoing the laces of her corset, his lips sampled the long lines of her neck, giving into the desire he’d felt since they roamed the desert together and perhaps long before that, if he was being honest with himself.
A throaty sigh lifted from her lips when he nipped at the sensitive skin on her neck, and he wanted to devour it.
The corset loosened and her breasts fell free of their gilded cage.
He swore by whatever gods she worshipped, he’d thank them forever for creating her.
For gifting him this wonderful creature.
Her heartbeat resounded against his mouth, his tongue, when he brought her breast into his mouth.
When she moaned, all manner of filthy fantasies implanted themselves in his brain.
Even if his whole life had been tossed into a bonfire, he could at least have this. Give her this.
“Do that again,”
he urged, the words a growl against her skin.
He felt her shiver, and when he claimed a nipple between his lips and swirled his tongue over the dark bud, she did.
There was no time to fully remove her clothing.
No need.
Something about seeing her in such delicious disarray made his mind go blank.
There was nothing.
Nothing but her.
His hand slid up her thigh once more, the warmth between her thighs beckoning.
She whimpered, arching against him when his fingertips brushed over her, caressing the apex between her thighs.
Then her hips swayed, rocking into his hand, begging for more.
How could he resist? How could there have ever been any choice but her?
While he sucked on her nipple, his thumb circled.
Quested.
And when her head fell back, and her whole body tightened like a strung bow, he repeated the movement and slid his fingers inside her, intensifying the cadence, until she began to shake.
The noises spilling from her lips were enough to drive a man to the brink of destruction.
Cal pistoned his fingers and swirled his thumb in tandem, drawing her spirit to the surface in a scattering of colors as the wave of pleasure peaked and crashed around his fingers.
He bent to kiss her again, capturing and swallowing the sound of her climax like a man starved, the scent of her skin making his head spin, when the boat lurched and nearly sent him sprawling over her.
He yelped, catching himself on the headboard.
Cal cleared his throat, his neck turning red as he straightened and glanced out the small circular window.
“Looks like we left the port,”
he said, sitting beside her on the bed and tracing the tattoos on her forehead and cheeks with his left hand.
“I want nothing more than to…”
the corner of his mouth lifted and his eyes drifted over her body, already imagining her arching in pleasure once more, “…continue, but I have a feeling if we don’t go up soon, Jameson will come looking for us, and I don’t intend to share.”
He hid his disappointment behind a wicked grin that made her smile in return, hunger lighting her eyes.
“We have time.”
She winked as she sat up, cheeks flushed.
“Yes, yes we do.”