Chapter 24 #2
I tip my head against Hail’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you just stay away from them? You ended up at the school—Rollick must have heard something that made him think you needed to be ‘reformed.’”
Hail grimaces. “I didn’t want to let the humans win.
I had the idea—I still have the idea—that I could build a space in the human world, places for shadowkind to go where they’d be safe.
Why couldn’t we have our own parks and malls and theatres and…
whatever? Which I guess Rollick is kind of already doing, although it doesn’t seem as if he’s pushed all that far into the human world, only a hotel here and there.
I don’t want people to be able to stop us from enjoying everything about this realm that we want to. ”
With each sentence, his voice gains strength. It reverberates with more passion than I can ever remember hearing from him.
“That sounds amazing! It’s a wonderful goal. I’d like to see that too.”
He glances down at me. “Of course you would. You always want every being to be as happy as they can be.”
There’s no dismissal in his tone, but he slides his arm free from mine. I’d regret the loss more if he didn’t immediately wrap that arm around my back, nestling me right against his lean frame.
My pulse skips a beat and then thumps on at a giddy pace.
Hail strokes his fingers up and down my shoulder, summoning sparks through both my skin and his.
His words stay solemn. “I was getting ahead of myself. I didn’t have the knowledge or the control to put on a good enough front and actually start building an empire.
I kept losing my cool with the humans I had to interact with or be around.
But getting a little revenge was never satisfying for more than a few seconds. ”
His arm tenses against my back. “They’re so… everywhere, doing so many stupid things and not giving a fuck about anything other than themselves…”
I don’t think it’d help to tell him how many things I’ve felt humans caring about. Even things that seem odd to me, like characters who are only drawings on TV screens or how many times a bunch of them can kick a ball across a field.
Hail started out with a wound in his heart when it came to mortal people, and it’s tainted every observation he’s made of them. How could it not have?
He bows his head again. His voice goes quiet.
“Maybe I couldn’t stop myself from acting out because I knew I’d never accomplish what I wanted to anyway.
I couldn’t even defend the one shadowkind who deserved it the most. How am I going to stand up for anyone else?
Rollick would probably laugh if I told him what I’d like to do. ”
I slip one arm around his waist and lift my other hand to touch his jaw. “I don’t think he would. I think if he knew all that, he’d have an easier time helping you adjust to the mortal realm. And then you could do all sorts of great things for other shadowkind.”
“I haven’t been great to very many of them either,” Hail mutters. “I was so pissed off about being stuck at the school…”
He lifts his head abruptly. His eyes shine with the faint moonlight that filters into the glade. “But you saw right through my bullshit. You saw something worth believing in when I’m not sure even I totally did anymore. You’re still here, after all the crap I’ve thrown at you.”
A soft smile touches my lips at the awe that’s in his voice and resonating through the bond between us. “It was just talking. When it came to the important things, you had my back.”
He swallows audibly. “I can’t promise I’m never going to get cranky or hostile again. There’s still a whole lot I need to figure out. But I don’t ever want to take it out on you, not like I have before. I don’t…”
His voice drops to a whisper. “I don’t want to break this bond. Being around you, feeling the things you feel—it helps me remember all the things that were really important to me.”
The crème brulé sweetness of his admission shivers through me. I beam up at him, knowing my hair is beaming too from the pinkish golden light that tints his pale skin. “If you want to keep it, I’m happy to. Whenever your resolve feels shaky, you’ll always be able to find me.”
“You…” Hail makes a strangled sound low in his throat, and then his mouth is on mine, startlingly hot.
As he claims my lips, I kiss him back just as eagerly. The heat rushes straight to the apex of my thighs.
I press my legs together against the swiftly building pressure and clutch the front of Hail’s shirt.
He groans and kisses me again before marking a scorching path along my jaw to my neck.
“I screwed this up before because I couldn’t wrap my head around what I wanted.
I was stupid. I only want you. No one else at school ever saw me, not like you do.
None of them glowed like you do. None of them were half as sweet.
” He nips the side of my neck. “My cream puff.”
At the jolt of sensation, a gasp slips from my mouth. I tilt my head to give him better access. “You can be pretty sweet too when you decide to be.”
Hail hums with a vibration across my skin.
“I want to be, for you. Fuck, it’s incredible being able to feel how good I can make you feel.
” He teases his hand across my breasts, and I press into his touch, chasing more pleasure from the caress.
“Just like that. Just stay right here with me, Peri, and I’m going to take care of you so well. ”
A quiver of anticipation races right through my body. This shadowkind man has been hurting and harsh, but he’s letting down all his defenses for me. He’s letting me in like he never has before.
And I can feel how much it matters to him. Not only physical pleasures radiate through his nerves, but also tender wafts of affection that match his adoring words.
He tugs my jacket wide and eases down the neckline of my dress so he can continue his path of searing kisses past my collarbone. My voice comes out breathless but sure. “I’ll always take care of you too. We look out for each other. A real team.”
Hail makes a vaguely disgruntled sound. “You want the rest of them too.”
Is that going to be a problem?
My chest tightens. “Yes. That doesn’t have anything to do with how much I want you. But if you don’t want me like that—”
“No,” Hail breaks in roughly. “No, I couldn’t ask you— It’s who you are. Your essence came right out of you and connected you to all of us.” He lifts his head to meet my eyes. “You’re meant to be with us. You’re meant to be with me.”
My beaming smile comes back. “I am.”
“And this bond, it isn’t going away, is it? You’re always going to belong to me?”
The hope in his voice cracks open something inside me with an even brighter glow. “As long as you want me.”
He lets out an urgent sound. “Always, then. Never letting you go.”
He drags my dress a little farther and closes his mouth over the peak of my breast, and then all I can do is moan. As he flicks his tongue over my nipple and sucks harder, I squirm against him. The need that’s kindled between my thighs is becoming torturous.
Hail mutters another curse and teases his hand over my hip to the spot where I’m hungriest.
I arch into his touch with a soft cry. Bliss quivers through my veins with every stroke of his deft fingers.
“There’s so much I want to do for you, with you.” He steals another kiss as if he can’t help himself. “But I don’t think I can wait this time. I’ve wanted you too fucking much.”
I nod vehemently. “Yes. Yes, please.”
A little shudder ripples through his body. With his eyes smoldering, he eases me down on the log.
I blink in and out of the shadows so I can lie before him totally naked. There’s something deliciously gratifying about the widening of Hail’s eyes.
“Look at you. So fucking tantalizing.” He runs his hands down my sides and peppers kisses across my cushiony belly, my broad hips, before swiping his tongue across my clit.
My body bucks to meet him. Hail hums, the provocative sensation spreading through my sensitive flesh. He laps and sucks as if I’m the tastiest delicacy he’s ever devoured, until I’m shaking with the heady pleasure.
Before I’ve quite shattered apart, he pulls back with a strangled sound.
He wrenches at his slacks. “I’m going to fucking explode. Gotta take you with me.”
He bends over me and claims one more kiss before he thrusts inside. His rigid cock slides so perfectly between my folds with their slick arousal.
Yes. I need this too, so much.
I clutch at his shoulder, at his increasingly rumpled hair. He plunges into me deeper and deeper again.
The sensations of fullness and the heated friction expand through my entire body. With every slam of Hail’s hips, his own desire flares even hotter. Our joint sense of need swirls between us.
I rock to meet him, urging him to an even more desperate pace. Hail’s breath turns ragged, but he still kisses my cheek and the shell of my ear.
His voice spills out with his panting. “Never want anyone else. Just you. Nothing could be as good as this.”
He raises my hips to shift the angle of his thrusts, and I spiral even faster toward my release. A whine seeps from between my lips. Hail swallows it down.
He rams into me again and again and—
With a quavering cry, the pleasure sweeps me away. I tremble and clench around him, and Hail’s chest hitches.
He hugs me close, racing closer to the edge with every plunge into me.
When he comes, I tip over the edge again with him, floating on the decadent flood of sensation that passes through our bond.
The glow on his chest flickers through his shirt. The matching spot on mine dances in turn.
Hail gathers me tight against him and rolls us so I’m on top of his much taller frame. He tucks my head under his chin.
“We’re going to fix this, Peri,” he murmurs. “We’re going to fix everything that’s gone wrong. I know that because I know you. There’s no one else who’d stand a chance.”