39. YOUR HEART IS MINE
Chapter thirty-nine
YOUR HEART IS MINE
Sage
S ummer was driving me mad , and the worst part was that I didn’t want to be anywhere else at that moment.
She took her hands away and let me dunk my head to wash away the soap. I surfaced again, pushing my hair out of my face, and then froze when I felt her touch my back where I had been injured. I turned my head to look at her over my shoulder to try and figure out what she was thinking, but she kept her eyes on her fingers as they traced over one of my fresh scars.
“Are you—”
My breath hissed in between my teeth in surprise at the unexpected pleasure as she touched her mark. I quickly put my hand over hers to prevent her from drawing out more of a reaction from me, but she did not retreat.
“What does it feel like?” she wanted to know.
It feels like you’ve touched my soul, I said internally, directing the words down the rider bond that was like an empty tunnel between us with nothing on the other side.
“There are no words,” I told her instead.
“And you don’t like it?” she verified, almost sounding as if she hoped I would contradict her.
“It’s not that at all. It feels… really good,” I admitted and then removed my hand from hers. I wanted to know how she would proceed with the knowledge of how her touch made me feel. And I was unable to suppress a spark of hope when she did not pull away.
Instead, my anam pressed even closer to me, the tips of her breasts brushing my back, and I had to stifle a groan.
“Summer—” I attempted to speak, but she leaned fully against me with her arms perched across the back of my neck and shoulders. She rested her chin on her forearms and turned her face into my neck as if she were breathing in my scent as I tipped my head back toward hers.
“You smell of want, Sage,” she said, and I genuinely feared for a moment that I would lose complete control of my impulses and turn to pin her against the rocks.
What if this was some kind of a trick or a test like the ones she used to see if she was safe with me? Perhaps she wanted to know if I was as weak and salacious as so many of the other males she’d interacted with in her life?
“It doesn’t matter what I want if it is not what—”
“Of course, it matters!” she objected with confusion. “How could what you want not matter?”
“Please just use your words and tell me exactly what you are feeling,” I urged her.
I knew she had taken offense even before she abruptly pushed away from me.
“Do I actually have to spell out everything explicitly or can you not take some initiative?” she snapped.
I turned to frown at her, but all it took was one look for me to comprehend the reason for her lashing out. Her ears were pinned back, not in anger, but fear and insecurity.
“After our conversation last night, you will absolutely need to be explicit with me before I presume to take any kind of initiative,” I advised her.
Despite my firm tone, she still relaxed, relieved by the steady calmness that was beneath the anger in my voice, and her ears eased into their usual pose for aggravation.
“Thought I was clear enough,” she muttered.
“Summer, I’m unwilling to risk any misunderstanding, and we don’t always think about intimacy the same way, so you will need to communicate clearly and out loud what you want.”
She rolled her eyes, and it would have been easy for me to become extremely upset when she reverted to this dismissive attitude during such an important conversation. But I knew it was her self-consciousness and self-doubt making her defensive.
But that didn’t mean I was budging on my boundaries.
“Just last night you made it clear you were happy not to be involved with anyone—” I began to remind her.
“But you are not just anyone, Sage! You are my anam . You are my friend and my sanctuary. You—”
She stopped, and her eyes widened as if she was afraid she had said too much, and then she began to drift back from me. “Gods, I’m sorry! This was a mistake, I knew that I should not have—”
I reacted immediately and caught hold of her arm to pull her back toward me.
“I ache for you, Summer. You have consumed every part of me. Is that what you need to hear?” I asked her a little roughly, having lost my hard-won composure.
“Yes,” she admitted softly, looking abruptly emotional as she nodded. “Yes, that is what I needed to know.”
My heart was hammering so hard in my chest that it hurt my ribs, but I waited for her because I could tell there was more she had to say.
“I’m sorry, Sage,” she whispered finally. “I have never had this conversation before. I’ve always just known how it would go because males were happy to take what they wanted from me without question. I didn’t know how to ask or if it would be offensive for me to ask. You have not given an indication of how you—”
“Because I wanted you to be safe,” I broke in despite my intentions to let her speak, but my heart still felt like it was trying to ram its way out of my chest. “Your sense of safety with me is paramount. I would sooner suffer the consequences of forever wanting what I cannot have than have you feel again, for even a second, that your safety is secondary to the desires of someone else.”
Her eyes widened, her lips parting as tears began to gather in her eyes.
“So be clear with me,” I invited her softly as I drifted closer to her. “Tell me what you want.”
Her nostrils flared as she inhaled hard, but she came closer to me as her eyes lowered to my mouth.
“Kiss me,” she breathed. “Please, Sage, just—”
My fingers knotted in her hair as I closed the distance between us quickly. I wanted to slam her up against me and conquer every inch of her. I wanted to unleash all my suppressed desires upon her in a storm of passion.
But I was determined to restrain myself.
And then the first taste of her almost obliterated every intention to take my time with her.
The heat behind her lips, soft as petals, was as urgent and hungry as flame; her sharp inhale and soul-wrenching groan conveyed the depths of relief and want. Her clever tongue met and danced with mine in a perfect symphony. Her honeysuckle and rain scent intensified and seemed to flow straight into my veins. Every inhale was drawn sharp in desperation because we forgot to breathe, and every groan that wrenched free was swallowed and consumed between us.
That first yielding had my inner beast roaring so loud in my head that it shook my composure to the core.
Her hands moved down from my hair to my shoulders and around my back to my ass which she squeezed with a groan of appreciation. Her breasts were crushed against my chest, but I pressed a hand up between us to finally relish their heavy weight overflowing in my large palm. Summer uttered a breathy moan of encouragement that deepened into a growl of gratification when I shifted my hand so my thumb circled her pert nipple. She nipped at my bottom lip then sucked it hard enough to hurt.
And I abruptly needed to cover her gorgeous body in possessive bruises and teeth marks.
Summer felt similarly because she used her grip on my ass to undulate suggestively against me, teasing my cock that was already painfully hard and trapped between us.
With a rough groan, I gripped her hair and pulled her away from our frantic kiss before it escalated any more. And the sight of her with swollen lips, messy hair, and passion-sparked eyes almost became my undoing again.
“Don’t stop,” she growled, her voice guttural, and it made me grin cockily at her.
“We need to establish what this means, Summer.”
“ More talking?” she groaned, and then squeezed my ass harder to increase the pressure on my cock.
My composure snapped, my inner beast seizing the reins just long enough to reach up and grip her throat in authoritative command before I could catch myself.
“Allow me to clarify. If you do not set boundaries with me right now, then I am going to take you up against that wall as hard as I want,” I asserted firmly.
I watched her surprise evolve into curiosity and then uncertainty before she eased her grip to give me some space because she wasn’t ready. Just as I suspected.
“Sage, I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered.
My hand slid from her throat to pull her up against me, and I wrapped my arms around her as I began scattering gentle kisses across her face.
“It is alright. That is why we need to talk first.”
“But I didn’t think males liked to wait for—”
“I will wait as long as I need to until you are ready. You need not worry about that, Summer. Just tell me what you are feeling. Please?” I begged her softly.
She was quiet for a moment, her eyes closed and her head tilted up to soak in more of my kisses. Just to be able to let some affection out was an immense relief for me.
“I want this, Sage. I want you . That alone terrifies me,” she admitted with a soft snort of amusement. “But even though I know I am safe with you, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t still a little anxious about doing this.”
It was hard not to demand answers, but I stayed quiet and continued to kiss her jaw and her neck when she tilted her head up in invitation. Waiting for her to go on.
“You have all of my heart, Sage. I think you could kill me without making me bleed or breaking a single bone. Please trust that,” she stressed, and I hesitated in surprise at her heartfelt admission. “But I am also afraid to venture into territory that might make me feel the way I have with others in the past. When I… lost myself in them. I really do not want to feel like that with you, but I think that it could be different if you would… just be patient with me. Is that… Can we do this slowly?” she asked me, her voice trembling with barely repressed emotion.
“ Yes ,” I assured her as I gripped her jaw to lower her tilted head and meet her eyes. “Summer, I am all yours.”
“You were talking about other relationships just—”
“No,” I blurted, the word tearing from me. “I only said that because I did not know how you felt at the time. I just want for you to feel safe, to be safe with me, and I didn’t wish to put any pressure on you if you knew how I felt. But I want this. I want you .”
She smiled in relief, tilting her head against mine in a tender acknowledgement before she straightened and gave me a teasing smirk.
“You made it sound like you wanted to fuck me against that wall earlier. Are you sure you’re fine with it taking time for us to get physical?”
“I… will not pretend that I do not want that,” I said, drawing her closer through the water so she slipped her arms around my neck. She shivered in delight when our bodies pressed up against one another again. “But I am happy just to know that you feel as I do. It does not matter to me how long it takes before you feel ready to take that step with me as long as I know your heart is mine.”
Ornella
As long as I know your heart is mine.
His words were gentle and patient as ever, but there was a slight growl of possessiveness in his voice that was fucking exhilarating to hear.
But it was not at all what I expected from Sage.
All this time I’d been falling in love with the feeling of safety and belonging I felt with him not knowing there was another side of him. That he was not just a male who wanted me to feel safe at the expense of his own desires, but also one who would grab me by my throat and fuck me up against a wall.
And I was very much intrigued with that duality.
“My heart is yours,” I assured him. “I am all yours.”
“Good,” he said softly but with that cocky smile as his eyes dipped to my lips that were still a little swollen from our frantic collision of passion.
Gods, I had not been expecting that from him either.
There was no denying there had always been a crackle of attraction between us from the moment he touched me. The way his scent affected me was primal and irrefutable because we were anam . We shared the same essence of the Tithriall, the same breath of life, but I knew it meant absolutely nothing. My people manipulated the bond of anam for our males to achieve more power by harnessing a female in a one-way extortion of her magic. The bond itself was not romantic, it was merely a tether connecting two fey. I was not sure how to share magic with Sage naturally and by choice. The methods used by my people were invasive and painful to prevent the exchange from going both ways. But it was supposedly possible.
Since my capture, however, I’d been learning to trust him and after he nearly killed Ciaran for hurting me, I had come to feel safe with him. That was not wholly the bond. That was him . It was the environment he had worked hard to foster, often even in spite of me.
But the realization that other females could eventually become involved in our relationship had been intolerable. My heart had been ready to break at the thought that we might never take this relationship any further.
Then I’d caught a glimpse of something scorching in his eyes while he was watching me bathe. I’d seen that look a thousand different times in the eyes of other males, an expression that usually made me feel hard against what came next. But not with him. I’d seen that glimmer in his eyes and had felt only surprise and… relief.
But disturbing the perfect sanctuary we had built had taken more nerve than anticipated. When I finally touched him, and he made that breathless sound, my need to know if there was something more to explore between us had been undeniable.
When I asked him to kiss me, I had been expecting a gentle and chaste brush of our mouths that would be more in line with what I knew thus far of Sage. I certainly had not been expecting the eruption of his passion. I was not ready for him to pump pure need into my veins and then ignite me from head to toe. I felt like my eyes were open, like he had split open the shell of safety he’d built around me and a whole ocean of desire had come pouring in. Intoxicating me. Drowning me. My thighs were still slick from the effects of it even under the water.
I wanted to let him fuck me against that wall, but I also wanted to do things right and take our time to establish a proper relationship. Because I knew if I fell into him the way that I was tempted to do, then I might ruin everything by bringing my toxic past to his doorstep.
I leaned forward, lightly kissing his jaw and regaining his full attention.
“Tell me more about how you feel,” I suggested.
He was wholly sobered, his focus solely on my mouth. For a moment I was not sure he’d even heard me, but then he reached up to brush a lock of my hair back from my face with damp fingers. I closed my eyes as a drop of warm water rolled slowly down my cheek.
“What I feel is not… soft or gentle, Summer. It is hard to put it into words that will not sound violent to you.”
“I am not afraid of you. I want to know.”
He hesitated, his eyes rising up to mine as if searching them for the truth of my assertion before he nodded in agreement. Then he brushed his fingers down the side of my face so they tucked under my ear and his thumb rested tenderly on my cheek. His other hand was still resting on my waist to hold me close, but he did not crush me up against him. No one had ever touched me quite like that, at least not in a very long time.
“You have fully consumed every part of me. My mind, my heart, and my body,” Sage began tentatively as if he was nervous about my reaction to his intoxicating words. “Watching you learn to trust and break free from fears that have held you captive for so long has been the most breathtaking thing I’ve ever beheld.”
“It’s been because of you ,” I protested, but he slid his thumb over my mouth in a gentle bid for me to listen.
“Watching your smiles grow wider and more genuine, and your laughter louder and freer, has been enrapturing,” Sage continued. He offered me a tender smile when my emotions began to rise again, making it difficult to choke back the tears that wanted to overflow. “I am in complete and utter awe of you, Summer, not just of your magic but also your strength and your unflinching determination to protect all that you care about. You are as enchantingly beautiful and fierce as a thunderstorm.”
Sage hesitated with uncertainty as if he were unsure whether or not to go on.
“Don’t stop. It hasn’t even gotten violent yet,” I teased him as a traitorous tear spilled over my lower eyelid and rolled slowly down my cheek. Sage laughed as his thumb swept lightly over my skin to wipe it away, and I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“I crave absolutely everything about you. Your slow surrendering of trust to me, your every unrestrained smile, and your every burst of laughter. I crave the feel and scent of your skin,” he continued.
I watched Sage turn his head to brush his nose along my upper arm that was draped around his neck, and my skin pebbled in arousal as he inhaled. His soft groan of appreciation made me shift in the water as I tried to press my thighs together for some relief from the aching warmth that was igniting once again between my legs. But it was not enough.
“There is nothing I want more than to possess every part of you,” Sage continued, his voice growing rougher between the kisses he trailed down my arm. “Your trust. Your heart. Your body,” he whispered, and I hung on his every single exhilarating word. “All of it must be mine ,” Sage growled, his voice going so deep that it seemed to rumble in my veins like thunder, and my breath caught in my throat. “And I do not tolerate others having any part of what is mine, Summer. Everyone would need to know so that there can be no mistake about it.”
His lips parted, and he nipped my arm, gently enough to send tingles down my spine, but then his teeth pressed harder until the tips of his canines almost broke through. And the slow application of pain sent a new kind of thrill racing through me. One that was deeply unexpected but so deliciously wanton when he released the pressure and sucked on my aching skin with the same gradual increase of pressure until he’d left a bruise.
And the sight of my marked skin made him make that rumbling growl of satisfaction that made me tremble.
Sage kissed the bruise, his mouth so tender it made me melt toward him as if seeking more of that affection.
“It makes me want to display my claim all over you,” Sage informed me, sending more shivers down my spine with his gravelly voice. And I could tell this would be the part he worried I might find violent. “I want others to see and know you are mine, and I am yours. And I want you to see these marks, see me bruised and etched right into your skin, and know to whom you belong. I want to—”
Sage hesitated again as if unsure whether to go on.
“Do. Not. Stop,” I growled at him, my thighs pressing together harder to help with the pulse of desire, but it still was not nearly enough to alleviate the aching.
Sage raised his eyes from the hickey, and I swore that the heat in his gaze could melt metal. There was no trace of the sweet and gentle male I had come to know, and yet I was not even a little afraid. He looked at me as if he understood me, he knew exactly what I needed to hear, and his hand drifted down to grip my neck. He moved so slowly and gently at first to ensure that I was comfortable. And then he applied just enough pressure to make his hold firm and unquestionable.
“Very well, Summer, you really want to know what I wish to do to you?” he verified, and I nodded eagerly, even though I was sure that I already knew the answer. “What I want is to mark up this pretty throat and these gorgeous breasts with my hands and teeth. I want to own every inch of you, both inside and out,” Sage admitted.
I could not breathe. It felt like my lungs were on fire and my heart might burst out of my chest. And he was watching me closely enough that I was sure he could tell there was part of me that was unnerved by his declaration. But that disconcertion was only a little bit about him and much more about me. About how fucking turned on I was by absolutely everything he was saying to me.
“Holy fuck, Sage,” I hissed once I could finally suck in enough air to speak again.
“Which do you find more shocking? My words or your reaction to them?” he asked, and there was nothing soft or sweet in his wicked smile. His knowing smile.
“I just want to confirm… Do you want to hurt me?”
“No, Summer! I would never hurt you. Well… unless that was what you wanted,” he amended and then grinned at me when my brows rose in disbelief. “No, it is not the act of hurting you that I crave. I want to see the evidence of my loving on your body, to stake a claim, but it is even more than that. I want… it to be something you crave too. Something you display proudly,” he explained.
I nodded, glancing down at the hickey he had left on my arm as I tried to decide whether I wanted to run away from this level of intensity or beg him to show me more. This was not something I’d been given the opportunity to experience of my own free will before. Obviously I had known plenty of males who felt that leaving a physical blemish upon me exerted ownership. Sage clearly wanted that too, but I did not think it was what he craved most. Yes, he wanted to paint his claim all over me, and yes, he wanted everyone else to see it too, but he also wanted it to be my choice. He wanted me to take just as much pride in what he had done as he did.
“Is this something you have done with other females? Leaving your marks all over them,” I asked. I wasn’t even sure why I wanted to know such a thing, but that familiar hot anger was back from the night before and simmering away under my skin. “Orlaith?”
Sage looked confused and rather hesitant about how to respond which was enough of an answer to make me start to seethe without really understanding why.
“Why would you want to know something like—”
“We are beyond your modesty,” I maintained sternly, narrowing my eyes at him. “I want to know, Sage.”
He sighed, but his hand tightened on my neck a little.
“Yes, Summer. But she did not like for others to see,” he admitted. I cocked my head in confusion.
“But didn’t she want you to mark her? Is it not almost the same thing?” I demanded, my voice sharpening.
I saw him realize the source of my jealousy at exactly the same time I did. Marking one’s lover was a primal act between fey, one that carried a great deal of significance. My teeth in his skin were permanent while the bruises he left on my arm and on other females would fade, and yet, somehow my heart refused to accept the logic.
“She never displayed the bruises,” he told me gently as if in reassurance. “She thought they looked… aggressive. Violent,” he explained in reluctance.
“Violent,” I repeated, my eyes returning to the bruise. “And you are sure it is not about hurting me?”
“Absolutely,” he insisted firmly, and I raised my brows at him with mock seriousness.
“You think I do not remember the expert way that you were able to choke me when I was biting you?”
His eyes widened and dipped to my throat beneath his hand before he stroked his thumb down the side of my neck again.
“But I didn’t hurt you,” he pointed out.
No. No, he had not hurt me. Some masochistic part of me wanted to ask if he’d also done that to Orlaith, but I was able to control the impulse. I was not sure I actually wanted to know that answer because there was a good possibility it would only make these possessive feelings so much worse.
“Then mark me up,” I invited him, tilting my head back to offer my neck for his use. “Not with your hands. I’m not ready for that yet, but you can use your mouth.”