Chapter 69
Chapter
Sixty-Nine
ZANDYR
“ I didn’t know if you wanted to,” her voice trilled into me.
I could live five different lives and still not have the words to describe how intoxicating it was to hear the murmur of Evie’s thoughts inside me, flowing in my brain as if she’d burrowed herself into my soul.
A rich, decadent sensation burned through me each time our bond vibrated with our secret conversations.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
I wanted to drink her very essence. I was a parched man lost in the desert, and she was the sweetest spring.
“I’ve traipsed all over your mind in the last few days, maybe you want some privacy,” she said.
“You can wander through my mind whenever you want. All of me is yours to explore.”
She blushed the loveliest shade of red, even as her eyes lingered on the old scar above my heart.
“Your turn,” she announced suddenly.
I frowned and watched her closely as she lathered her palms. We were naked together in a bath, and while every single fiber in my being roared at me to engulf her in my arms, I knew my menace, fierce as she was, needed time and patience.
Our connection was in its early, tentative stages of restitching, I wouldn’t pull the thread too hard or too fast.
Her soapy palms slid over my chest, igniting my skin. Despite her slow, gentle strokes, I hissed when she reached the scar spidering above my heart.
“Does that hurt?” She made a move to yank her hands away.
“No, no.” I gripped her left palm and settled it above my heart. The bond between us tightened until I felt her breaths as if I exhaled them, and the flow of blood in her body. “It’s exhilarating.”
Slowly, I raised my own palm and pressed it above her heart.
The connection flared, more potent than ever, our emotions blending together in a never-ending loop. The inferno which kindled inside of us, born of passion and desire, was primal and profound when it pulsed through our bodies, but this moment was different.
It was filled with calm and closeness and cherished little moments nobody else could witness.
Our own river of sensations branching out from the two of us.
Just us.
I saw myself through her eyes in a golden glow, like the one I had for her and only her. My own features appeared tamer, more open; maybe they were, because when I looked at her I didn’t need the The Dragon mask I wore for everyone else.
I was bare and bared, still brittle after being dragged back from the brink of death. The poison might not have claimed me, but it had ravaged my body. There was a worrisome numbness in my fingers and legs, and a wheeze in my lungs.
Evie saw and–sadly–felt all of that. Yet, she didn’t shy away. She didn’t see me as lesser or useless.
“Thank you,” I muttered before I’d even realized.
“For what?”
“For seeing the real me, just as I see the real you .”
Another smile bloomed on her face, just as open and vulnerable as I felt.
“I do see you. Big ears and all.”
Once again, I couldn’t help the laughter. It had been so long since we’d joked like this, face to face.
“In some Clans, it’s a great offense to discuss a future ruler’s appearance with anything other than the highest of praise. The Morgana queen would have had your tongue for that.” I leaned forward. “Maybe I will, too.”
Her sweet smile, which always disarmed me, turned to a grin that held a hint of wickedness.
I felt her curiosity and the growing desire, which matched my own. “Is that a promise or a threat?”
Her pupils dilated as the energy flowed between us and her tongue darted out to lick her lower lip.
“You get to decide,” I said. It was meant to be teasing, to redden Evie’s cheeks some more, but I realized it had a deeper meaning, one that made my chest hurt in ways no blade or arrow ever could.
A promise was a sweet future you looked forward to with excitement. A threat made you either fight or run.
Even with our palms on each other’s hearts, feeling our emotions so plainly as if they were our own, I wondered.
I doubted.
I craved.
“I made that decision the moment I tried to bring you back from the dead,” she replied what felt like an eternity later.
I continued to lean toward her. She reached toward me.
The air crackled with tension and promises –and I wanted to fulfill each and every single one of them for her.
Always her.
The moment I captured her lips with mine, I finally understood why so many men dedicated their lives to writing sonnets about love. A futile quest, because no words could describe the sensation of completion you could only feel in the embrace of your one person.
This was the first time I’d tasted Evie’s lips in real life after the kiss of death we’d shared in the Arena–and after the one she gave me while I’d been wrenched from this world. That had been a kiss of salvation, if there ever was one.
But this…this was the kiss of life. Eager, all-consuming, teeming with possibilities.
I teased her lips with mine, eliciting the loveliest little puffs of air from her. Soon enough, they would turn into moans, and I would not stop until my name was a chant falling from those same lips.
I made good on my first promise–I twisted my tongue against hers, sucking it into my mouth. Her eyelids fluttered at the sensation, her desire rising to match my own. Poison and all, I’d been hard and ready since the moment we’d walked inside the washing room together.
Her nails dug into my back as her body molded to mine. The palm I had resting above her heart slid lower, cupping her breast, as my thumb circled around her nipple, pebbling it.
She gasped into me, the smallest moan stuck in her throat.
“I want to hear you,” I whispered, barely recognizing my own voice in the echo of her mind. It was raspy and deep and commanding.
“I–” She arched her back, breaking the kiss, as her hips gripped mine tighter. She didn’t seem aware just how close her center was to me, but I knew–and I hungered for the moment our bodies and spirit would fuse together.
But I was a patient man. I’d waited for her my entire life, after all.
“Yes?” I asked, peppering small kisses onto her clavicle, as she held onto my shoulders for dear life. “Finish that delicious thought of yours, Evie.”
“I–”
As my lips travelled lower, I sucked her nipple into my mouth, tongue dancing around it. Finally, the moan I’d been waiting for fell from her lips. Sweeter music had never been sung.
“I like this,” she whispered, voice caught between wanton and inexperienced even in her own thoughts.
My arms tightened around her waist, bringing her closer to me. All of her.
Her hot center slid against me, eliciting a hiss. Then my little menace surprised me once again.
I’d expected a moment of hesitation, of worried exploration.
None of that.
She didn’t move away, instead molding herself to me, as if she’d been dying to do it for eons.
“I have.” She sounded breathless. “I want you, but I don’t know what I’m doing. Tell me what to do so it feels good. Please.”
Fuck.
“That’s it,” I said, almost delirious from pleasure. Gods, I couldn’t wait to be inside her. “Rub yourself against me.”
Her legs tensed around my hips, and without a lick of uncertainty, she ground herself against me, holding onto my shoulders for dear life.
“Keep talking,” she pleaded.
“The poison didn’t kill me, but you might.”
“Less joking, more teaching.”
Who was I to deny her anything?
“I love the feel of you against me,” I said. I’d shower her with praise for all eternity; not only did she deserve it, but each little compliment emboldened her. “I’ve been hard for you since that kiss underneath the Arena.”
As she undulated, my hands went straight to her breasts, kneading and circling until I earned another guttural moan from her.
“Arch your back,” I instructed and flexed my hips as she did so, matching her rhythm. “Such a good girl.”
She bit her lower lip, the pressure inside her so intense, it threatened to make me spill over the edge.
“You know what happens to good girls who do what they’re told?” I asked.
“N-no.”
“They get rewarded.”
Another moan, this time begging.
“Come here,” I rasped out, mind completely overtaken by instinct.
I grabbed onto her hips, raised her on the edge of the basin in a flurry of water.
“The best part of this little mental chat of ours,” I growled. “Is that I can eat you out while still talking.”
I wasted no time in doing just that. I grabbed her knees and opened her thighs. The redness in her cheeks traveled lower, until her entire chest was overtaken by that delicious blush.
I licked a straight line up her center, delighting in her surprised groan.
“I’ve been dying to taste you again,” I said, throwing her legs over my shoulders so I could feast on her. “You’re so sweet. Your scent is intoxicating.”
I sucked and licked her heated flesh, reveling in the way our growls blended together.
“Gods.” She twirled her fingers in my damp hair, tugging with a force I hadn’t known she was capable of. Those milky thighs of hers tightened around my head as her hips began to gyrate against my hold.
I felt her desire cresting. I could taste it on my tongue as it delved inside of her. “Mine. Delicious and all mine.”
“Y-yes.”
“Are you close?”
“Gods, yes.”
“Perfect.” My finger replaced my tongue, as my mouth covered the little bundle of nerves that made her thrash. I pumped in and out, listening to the beautiful sinful sounds she was making, caught somewhere between pleading and crying out. “Scream my name.”
Like a good girl, she did.
Her thighs clamped around my head and her hips lifted into the air, pulling my face after her. “Zandyr!”
Wave after wave of her release pulsed against my tongue and fingers, ricocheting deep within me. I had to blink myself back to reality to enjoy the full spectacle of Evie coming apart.
To think that, when I first met her, I saw her as a nymph. She was a true goddess and nothing less, and I, the mere mortal she allowed to worship her, body and soul.
As she came down, chest rising and falling with great big gulps of air, I left a trail of small kisses on her soft flesh. I untwined her legs from my shoulders and slid up her body.
One orgasm down, many, many, many more to go.
When I finally reached her face, she welcomed me with a warm, tired smile. “That was…amazing.”
“You’re amazing.”
“No, you are.”
“If you still have the energy to argue with me, I didn’t do my job right. No worries, I can–”
We both froze as hurried steps crashed into our room.
“Where in Xamor’s name are they?”