Chapter Fifty-Four
Nicole
NICOLE’S BODY HAD BECOME A THING OF PLEASURE, LIQUID thrills rippling from wherever Kyan touched with such decadent heat she felt drowsy and delirious.
‘We should use protection,’ Kyan said, his body flexing as he laid her down. ‘I have—’
‘I have some—’ she said at the same time.
Nicole blinked and then laughed. But the humour was quickly, savagely eclipsed. This meant they could do this. This meant she could feel this.
‘Please,’ she murmured against his mouth. He kissed her. ‘Oh god, don’t stop this time.’
‘I won’t, honey.’
Kyan’s hands slipped from her as he got up.
Cool prickled her bared skin, still drenched from the shower.
But it only electrified every sensation, only made her more aware of her body when she’d tried so hard, for so long, to ignore it.
It gave her a moment to relish the lingering pleasure and sit up slightly to see him return.
All of him.
Her legs pressed together softly to try and stop the pulsing reaction.
His eyes were darker than the storming forest, and as he walked towards her, he didn’t hide what he sheathed over himself, the hard curve—
Nicole’s hands fisted in the sheets.
‘No one keeps me away from you, Nicole,’ he said, rough voice pebbling her skin.
‘I don’t care’ – he climbed back over her slowly, body heat delicious, bed dipping either side where his arms rested, his chest grazing her fluttering stomach – ‘if it’s forbidden.
’ He settled against her, the weight and shape of his arousal pressing against her thigh.
She swallowed a whimper. ‘I’ll prove it as often as you need. ’
Tears burned at the backs of her eyes. She stroked his face and saw all that feral protector not yet appeased, his body still tense and wild.
‘Thank you,’ she said, brushing his lips. She didn’t know how to tell him how much she felt. Didn’t want him thinking that only that would make him deserving of her feelings. ‘But, Kyan—’
He must have read the conversation in her eyes because he kissed her again. Kissed her until she parted her legs, her thighs cupping his hips, the action so exposing it felt just as symbolic as it did physical.
A desperate groan stirred at the back of his throat. He took the hand she’d stroked over his jaw and kissed the palm, then bit the side of it softly. Her hips tightened around his waist, inner thighs meeting hard muscle, and then all of him was sliding against her slick centre.
That ache worsened, his words, his vow hot in her blood. She needed him to touch her, to alleviate it.
‘Kyan, please—’
His hips moved in a slow, testing grind. He groaned as pleasure hooded her eyes and he nuzzled her throat.
‘You can have whatever you want,’ he said darkly. ‘You want this?’ He ground again, sliding easily now.
Her eyes nearly went through the back of her head as the pressure there eased momentarily.
‘Yes.’
‘Does it ache?’ he rasped against her mouth.
‘Yes,’ she near sobbed.
‘You want me to fix it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good.’ The word was guttural, desperate, his heart knocking against hers.
Nicole’s breath turned to a gasp as he reached between them to set himself at her entrance and nudged harder.
Her breath caught at the size, the intrusion. Then, there was a filling stretch and slight sharpness as he slid in, deep and so slowly she near screamed. With every inch, heat roared up her chest and face as her body accepted him.
His eyes were glassy, and the sound he made – deep, guttural, all devastated satisfaction – sent a hot pulse through her that made her nearly sob with pleasure.
The sight of him only made it better, the feel of his hands as he struggled, like she was the most precious, most essential thing in the world.
Like he’d never felt anything like this.
‘Nicole,’ he rasped. Her name a warning. A plea. His lips hovered over hers, a soft unintentional tease as her body adjusted and clamped around him while he moved deeper, so deep she scratched down his flexing back with a shaky gasp until he was finally seated.
His eyes cleared enough of their hazy darkness to reveal something more that made her heart skip. His shoulders bunched, almost trembling.
Then his lips were on hers, his tongue was in her mouth and he began to move. It felt tight, a little sore. But good – so good.
She must have said it because he rasped something she didn’t understand.
His hips drew back smoothly, slowly pulling out of her. Her nails dug into the muscle of his arms to stop him, her shaking thighs trying to clamp him with a sound of protest.
He rolled his hips again, a little smoother, gliding back deeply and rejoining his mouth to hers. ‘I’m here,’ he breathed, beginning a drugging rhythm, his thighs shifting rock beneath hers.
His hands smoothed down her body. One cupping her breast and running a thumb over her in time to his movements, stroking. Again and again.
It was nearly too much.
His bare, warm skin, rasped here and there with dark hair on his thighs and his chest. The rawness of him inside her. It felt … decadent, blissful. So right and safe that her chest ached.
His hand moved back between them to where they were joined, light and rolling at first, then with more pressure and speed, each thrust of his hips reaching something inside that turned the world golden.
Her thighs began to tremble as the feeling built, as he kept up the easy, liquid movement he seemed to know her body responded to.
‘Kyan,’ she gasped, hands fisting in the curls of his dark, wet hair.
He ate the moan that came out of her mouth with a savouring sound before his tongue moved in the rhythm of his hips, and she suddenly couldn’t think of anything but him. How he felt, how much she needed him, cared for him, startled by the intensity of her body and heart’s response.
Mine, his kisses said, adding a little roughness to the pleasured, feeling. He squeezed her backside as he grazed his unshaven cheek against hers, and the scrape of his teeth made her a little wild.
It was so vulnerable a thing to momentarily lose control. This was so much more intense than the first times he’d brought her pleasure. Because of the events that had led to this? Because the joining was so complete?
It built faster than she’d expected. Then there was an almost frantic increase in the pressure, the pleasure.
It peaked to such heights she couldn’t control her body.
It was like a transformation, full-body, intense and desperate enough that she screamed, shuddering as relief turned her blood to liquid gold.
Kyan snarled a curse and a string of praise as the last of his control was ripped away.
He followed her, hips jerking up harder, choppier, that powerful body unleashed.
Seeing the surprise and relief wiping clear his features and hearing the low, raw sound of him set another intense aftershock rippling up her spine.
She swore.
‘Nicole,’ he rasped, with a reverence that set off another shockwave of shudders.
She fought a sudden rush of tears as bliss bathed her bones.
She loved that he was her new safe place; that he had helped her understand she was her own one, too. That she could come apart and put herself back together in his arms and he’d protect her the whole time. That she could be vulnerable, and he’d be her snarling guardian if she needed him to be.
She’d do whatever it took to protect him.
Her lips parted to say the words as he gathered her closer, as her heavy arms draped around his shoulders. She closed her eyes, pressing her cheek to his chest, relishing the tender hope inside.
They were so close to this all being over, to them all being truly free. She’d tell him how she felt. Soon.
Because after months, it was finally, truly, within their reach.