Chapter 38 #2
“The anticipation is killing me,” I joked but I found that it really was. I ached to know what this strange girl yearned for. What it was that her magic couldn’t provide and why she was looking at me like she thought I could.
She gazed at me, hesitating, and the silence filled with a thrilling kind of promise.
“Could you maybe…touch me?” she breathed like she was afraid to even voice the suggestion. “Just so that I know I’m real.”
“That’s what you want?” I asked, my heart leaping at the idea of it, the simplicity of it, and yet it felt anything but simple all the same.
Any time I’d come close to touching her before now, she’d recoiled or turned her body to smoke, and I’d begun to think that was just the way of her curse.
She was more than just some mortal bound with magic; she was pure power itself.
But the look in her golden eyes told a different story.
She was afraid of this. And I wanted more than anything to banish that fear and replace it with something so much sweeter.
Kyra didn’t look away from me as she slowly nodded, wetting her lips in a way that made me think she might just want this for more than one reason.
But was I insane to believe that? Hadn’t she made it clear she didn’t desire me at all?
And yet as I studied her intently, I could have sworn she was looking at me differently.
Like she was seeing something she hadn’t seen before.
I lifted my hand, and she drew in a deep breath as I reached for her, keeping my movements slow as I noted the fear in her eyes.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” I murmured. “I’d never hurt you.”
“I know,” she said, and I could feel the truth in those words as she held my eye.
I wasn’t sure anyone had ever trusted me like that before. Implicitly, completely, like she had no reason at all to doubt my word. And it felt good . Perhaps Cassius’s ideas about honour held some merit after all, though I would sooner eat my own foot than tell him that.
I moved a little closer, raising my hand towards her face and pausing just short of pressing my skin to hers as energy crackled between us, though I couldn’t tell if it was magical or not.
My pulse was pounding as if this touch meant so much more than any kiss or caress I’d ever known. It was like I’d never touched a girl before, and we were both held captive in the moment before it happened, the two of us aching for it and fearing it at once.
I smiled at the ridiculousness of the idea as it presented itself, but it wouldn’t go away.
There was a heat building in the space between us which held the promise of all her magic. I could feel it writhing in the air, dancing against my palm as I drew ever closer to the moment when our skin would meet, and our gazes connected as she held her breath in anticipation of it.
I pushed forward and my fingertips brushed along her cheek, sparks zipping through my flesh which had nothing to do with her magic and everything to do with her.
Her skin was soft against the roughness of my fingertips, flawless and satin smooth as I traced my fingers over it, watching her power flare to life in her golden eyes.
Kyra exhaled slowly as my hand moved across her flesh until I was cupping her jaw in my palm, my fingertips pushing into her dark hair, drinking in this moment as I felt the significance of it writhing through the air.
“Real,” I murmured, my voice rough, a ring of command to it like I was telling her it was so as well as proving it with this act.
She took a shaky breath as emotion twisted through her eyes, that fact sinking into her skin from the point of contact between us and stealing away her fear.
My heart was pounding too quickly, and I found I couldn’t help myself as I took a step closer, wanting more of this. More of her .
Kyra’s eyes widened as I closed the distance between us down to no more than a few inches.
I could tell I was overwhelming her. She’d been alone for so long and this was too much.
But it wasn’t enough at the same time, and holding myself there was akin to driving blades through my feet to pin them to the ground beneath me.
I didn’t move any closer despite every piece of me demanding I do just that. This had to be her choice. She had to choose it and want it, and her expression told me she wasn’t sure if she did.
I didn’t press forward but I didn’t pull back either, and after another moment she lifted her own hand towards me.
She reached for my hair first, pushing her fingertips through it with a smile almost capturing her mouth and I fought the groan which was building in my throat at the feeling of her gentle touch against my flesh.
Her hand shifted lower, her touch gentle as her fingertips drew a line of pure energy all the way down the side of my face, tracing the shape of my jaw and feeling the bite of stubble against the pads of her fingers until she reached my lips.
My grip on her tightened as I ached to pull her closer, my hand shifting in her hair and causing her to shiver.
I wanted to feel her mouth on mine, but her gaze flickered with fear, and I stopped, the fingers of my other hand biting into the stone of the wall as I held myself back.
A curse nearly escaped my lips as I denied my body the pleasure it craved from her, but I held myself in check.
Kyra almost pulled away and I stilled, letting her take the lead as I knew she needed to.
Her fingertips fell from my mouth, marking a trail over my chin and down my throat which bobbed beneath the pressure of her touch.
She skimmed the necklace which held the coin, lingering as she felt my heart pounding beneath my skin, my muscles tensing as I forced myself not to move, to allow this without trying to take anything in return for it.
Her eyes lit with some deep emotion, and I wondered if I was making her heart race too, if she was feeling the things she might have felt before she became a Blessing, when she was just a Fae girl who must have felt desire and lust just like anybody else.
Kyra’s fingers swept lower, tracing the lines of my tattoos, making them sing with her magic, heat radiating through each one she touched as if she was awakening something within them and calling it to her.
My muscles flexed beneath her touch, the effort it took to hold still increasing with every passing moment as she caressed the lines on my chest before trailing her fingers down my abs, travelling ever downwards, and making my cock harden in my britches.
She reached my waistband and I felt like I was about to combust with the desire she was building in me as her fingertips shifted along the line of the fabric while I forced myself not to react at all, though in the thin britches I wore it had to be damn easy for her to guess how much I was enjoying her attention.
My cock throbbed with the need for her, the tattoo on my right arm blazing with heat and my skin prickling with the feeling of my Affinities as my gift for pleasure and lust awoke with a fervour.
I needed this like I needed air in my lungs, like I needed the thrill of the fight and the rush I got from pulling a job.
The use of my gifts was as vital to me as breathing.
I hadn’t gone this long without the touch of a woman since I rid myself of my virginity, and I suddenly felt like I had reached my bursting point, my body aching with the desire to sate that need.
“Thank you,” Kyra breathed, pulling her hand away but I didn’t release my grip on her face. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
“Kyra,” I began, unsure what I was even going to say. But I had to say something. I had to know if she felt this promise which was building between us, or if I was going to drown in desire for someone who could never want me in return.
“Yes?” she asked, and I took hope from the fact that she hadn’t asked me to withdraw my hand from her face.
I tightened my grip, tilting her chin up as I eyed her full lips. Did I need to say the words? Or could I just close the distance which echoed between us and hope that she wanted this like I did?
We hung in that moment for several long seconds, and I knew if she’d been any other woman, I’d have taken this step by now.
But she wasn’t just some woman to me, some conquest to claim, or desire to sate.
She was the girl who looked at me and saw more to me than any other had before and I wanted to be that man for her, the one who held true value, the one worthy of the look she was giving me. The problem was, I wasn’t him.
She hadn’t pulled back. She was waiting to see what I would do, and it turned out I was too. The tattoo on my right bicep was tingling, whispers seeming to collide in the air which I couldn’t understand.
I leaned just a fraction closer, heart pounding, flesh demanding and my soul hungering for this creature who was a girl and something else entirely at the same time.
A flash of orange light lit the sky through the window at her back and my head snapped up to look as an echoing roar sounded across the entire city, making my pulse scatter as an enormous shadow moved through the clouds.
“Fuck,” I swore as Kyra flinched back, my hand slipping from her face as she pulled away from me, breaking the spell which hung between us and casting me back into reality with a finality that made me curse.
“What was that?” Kyra asked, twisting to look over her shoulder at the dark sky as my attention fell back to her.
“Whatever it is isn’t our problem. We could just ignore it,” I said, leaning closer again, unwilling to relinquish the moment despite feeling it shatter around us.
“Why?” Kyra questioned like she really didn’t know, and I felt that all too familiar slap of rejection from her which was only made worse by the fact that she seemed not to have even noticed she was rejecting me at all.