Chapter 23 Caelus
Caelus
Excruciating: the only appropriate word to describe the state Nyssa had left my balls in. Watching her shower was so agonisingly sinful, it left me walking that tenuous line between anticipation and torture.
First, she demanded I set her down the second I crossed the bathroom’s threshold.
Second, she ordered me to step back and not lay a hand on her until she said otherwise.
And then? Then she’d dealt me a death blow. Nyssa undressed so slowly, letting her fingers linger on pale skin in places I would have given anything to kiss, until there was nothing separating her skin from mine — had I been allowed to touch her.
She stepped into the running water without taking her eyes off mine. It poured down her perfect body, honed from years of steadfast training. Even her scars were perfect; weaving the tale that was her life.
There, the remnant of a hydra bite marred her right thigh — a souvenir from Artemis’ trial — when I realised just how tenuous the hold I had over myself was when it came to her.
And there, the token of my mother’s love at her shoulder — a dagger she’d taken when Hera sought to save herself from Nyssa’s wrath — because my heart had intercepted the one intended for her own.
And there, just above her left breast, at the soft junction between shoulder and chest, a thick, jagged scar lay — courtesy of Kronos’ bone sword. A permanent reminder of the precise moment her ferryman had been stolen from her.
Never more than in the spaces between those heartbeats had I wished that her skin be flawless and free of pain — in all its forms. I wished that she had never suffered — but she had suffered more than most. I wished that she had not known loss — yet she had lost almost everything she’d ever loved.
And I wished that love could show scars, too — so that I could cover her with evidence of my complete and eternal devotion, erasing the proof of her torments.
“Come here,” she called softly — less of an order than a request. Like she did not understand the depths I would sink to for her. Like she did not know that I would tarnish every ounce of my soul if it spared her own; that I would willingly throw myself into Tartarus if she asked it of me.
I rushed to obey, freezing abruptly when one dainty, wet hand struck out. Nyssa held me captive — quite literally in the palm of her hand — braced against the centre of my cuirass, halting me.
“I did not say you could touch me yet,” she murmured, emerald eyes flashing with mischief.
“Wicked woman,” I murmured, allowing the floodgate of pent up emotion to crack open.
I shoved it all down our bond — all the love, desire, and blatant need coursing through my veins, through every fibre of my being.
A self-satisfied grin twisted my lips as she stuttered a rasping inhale.
Her palm slipped off my armoured chest and the sound of her thighs slapping together followed right after.
But it did nothing to smother the rich raspberry scent of her arousal engulfing the air like an avalanche shrouds a mountain.
She bit her lip, tempted… but ultimately remained steady in her resolve.
For the moment, at least.
With renewed purpose, Nyssa reached out and grasped my left hand with both of hers.
For a minute, I was captured by the simple feeling of her hands in mine.
Mesmerised by the way my scarred fingers dwarfed hers.
Enamoured by the startling differences between us — skin like moonlight, skin like sunlight; cold like winter, warm like summer.
There were so many opposing factors between us that should have dictated we were too dissimilar to ever coalesce — that we were too contradictory to ever last.
But I would never again let anything come between us, much less something as tempestuous as Fate.
Her fingers traced the path lightning had etched across my hand, flipping it over to expose my battleworn palm.
She tsked, indicating the black grime left behind from war — or rather, from my hurried attempt at washing it away — and unlaced the leather vambrace in such a way that I would never be able to remove them myself without first imagining her doing it — naked, and dripping wet.
The guard fell to the tiles with a dull thump, and the second followed soon thereafter.
“What now?” I queried, my voice betraying the raw hunger I felt for her.
In answer, she slid her hand beneath my bicep, earning a static zap for her efforts. She either didn’t notice or didn’t care as the lower buckle to my pauldron slid free, and then the upper, freeing them from my cuirass.
Two more solid thunks echoed off the tiles as both shoulder guards joined the vambraces.
“What now, my queen?” I whispered, throwing the gates wide open. The scent of caramel flooded the room, mixing enticingly with her raspberry. It took every ounce of my willpower to remain still — to follow her infuriating order.
“Turn around,” she murmured.
When I did not immediately move, one side of her lips tugged up into a smirk.
“Please.”
Grinning darkly, I pivoted on my heel.
“Lift your arms.”
I did that too, wondering how far she’d let this continue.
Flecks of water fell on my boots with tiny taps as she unlatched my cuirass by the buckles at my ribs.
We worked in tandem to lift the armour over my head — me, careful not to brush against her skin even though evidence of just how badly I wanted to was but a few stitches away from driving through my breeches; her, touching anywhere she pleased, and driving me all the madder for it.
When it, too, joined the pile of leather on the floor, I spun — no fucks given that she could see just how hard I was breathing, just how tightly my muscles were coiled — just how fucking much I wanted her, conveyed through my eyes and the lightning illuminating my skin.
Toeing her invisible boundary, I lifted a hand and cupped her face — with half an inch of air between us.
“You undo me, Nightshade.”
She swallowed roughly as that hand drifted lower, lingering over the curve of her neck, wavering over the lines of her shoulder. I paused and watched, enraptured, as goosebumps bloomed on her moonlit skin underneath my hand.
She loosed a heavy breath, closed her eyes, and tilted her face upward — as if praying to some far-off deity.
But the only gods here were us.
And the only one I worshipped was her.
I would not be the one to cross this chasm between us. No — she had set the order not to touch, so she could be the one to rescind it.
Perhaps I could tempt her just as fiercely, though.
With all the allure I could muster, I unlaced the front of my breeches and rolled them down my legs.
My lips twisted into a smug grin when her gaze snagged on my hardened length springing free — but my bravado wavered when the pants hooked on my ankles, ruining the moment with my apparent inadequacy to undress.
Nyssa’s soft snort made my cock twitch, and her eyes snagged on that movement too.
I wanted nothing more than to seize her; to capture her lips with mine and whisper entirely ungodly things against them. Instead, she forced me down onto the built in seat and removed my tangled breeches in one quick motion.
Her naked body sidled closer, slipping between my spread legs, and — fuck me sideways with a bident — she leaned in. Close enough that her breasts were in line with my nose, and if I turned my face even thirty degrees to the right, I’d be nuzzling them.
She pulled back with a wicked grin, clutching an emerald-coloured vial in her left hand.
It was only then that I realised she’d placed me directly under the shelf that housed her assortment of soaps and shampoos, and had not actually been taunting me with her peaked nipples, but had been reaching for the glass jar instead.
Nyssa’s lips pursed, her grin crooked and vexatious.
What? she said through the bond. It’s only soap. It won’t eat you.
I eyed her intensely, leaning forward to rest on my elbows. No, but you might. Or perhaps you’d enjoy being the one eaten.
A copper tinge flooding her cheeks was the only outward sign that she’d heard me.
You wish, she quipped with forced nonchalance.
Oh, you have no idea, I growled back.
Something about the intimacy of speaking this way sent shivers down my spine. It was like our souls were brushing up against each other, like we couldn’t possibly be any closer — yet a foot separated our bodies… and I was about done with that.
Before I could act on my relentless desire to pull her close, she tipped the vial over, pouring pink-tinted liquid into her cupped fingers. Those fingers then speared through my hair, lathering the soap into my short locks, massaging my scalp fastidiously.
I’d be a lying son of a bitch if I said it didn’t feel heavenly. My mother may be a bitch, but I was no lying son.
I went limp, instantly turning to putty in her hands. She laboured until I was certain my hair would sparkle in the sunlight, then rinsed it out with the moveable showerhead. When the water ran clear, she brought it lower, taunting me with nothing more than a stream of warm water.
And all the while, I stared at her.
I watched her work, meticulously erasing the stains of war from my body with reverent diligence.
I noticed how her long fingers massaged soapy circles into my skin, felt the callouses on her palms when they grazed my thigh, committed to memory the way the skin between her brows puckered as she lost herself to the task she’d resolved to undertake. For me.
“There,” she said softly, placing the nozzle back in its slot on the wall. “All clean now.”
Hardly.
“Can I touch you yet?” I asked, need straining my throat so that it came out as barely more than a strangled whisper.
That crooked smile reappeared as she stepped back between my thighs.
Then kneeled.
Fuck.
“Almost,” she whispered back, eyeing me even as she wrapped one hand carefully around my aching cock.
I hissed, jolting as her hand closed around it completely, her fingers just barely meeting around its width. I jolted again as she stroked downward, devouring the way she could make me move.
She did it again, this time adding an upward stroke, sinfully proud of the reaction she was causing. I knew this because I could feel it. Just as surely as she could tell how I felt through the tether that linked us.
I thought death was sharp, painful, and quick — but when she leaned in and licked the droplet beading at my tip; when she closed her lips around it, I discovered that death could be slow and endless as well.
I groaned, my hips bucking. It took every ounce of my focus to not spear the back of her throat as she took me deeper. Every muscle strained not to sink as far into her as I could go when she hummed against my length, her tongue tracing patterns along the underside.
Her mouth and hand worked in tandem to bring me to the edge of madness and desire. I knew it would be but seconds until I exploded — seconds spare to warn her.
“Nyssa, I’m going to—”
She hummed again, bringing her free hand up to drag her nails lightly against my tightening balls. And it was that sensation — that last overwhelming touch — that tossed me right off the cliff.
I erupted into her mouth, and watched her swallow as more flowed from my tip, dimly horrified at how quickly she’d made me finish.
“I’m so sorry,” I spluttered.
She withdrew, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Sitting back on her heels, she raised a brow and smiled in such a self-satisfied way that it had my cock twitching into a half-hard state already.
“For what?”
“That was so— I was so— Nyssa, I—”
She leaned forward slowly, crouched with one hand splayed on the floor, reminding me of a sleek feline hunting its prey. And I found myself coiling in anticipation of what she’d do next.
“You can touch me now… if you can catch me.”
Quicker than a fox, she darted from the room. I reacted without thinking — the primal side of my nature moving before I had consciously decided to pursue her.
Her glee echoed off the walls as I hunted her down the hallway. Raspberry wafted from her long, loose locks… from between her tantalising thighs.
She made it as far as her bedchamber before I pounced, vaulting us both onto the bed.
Grasping her wrists on either side of her head and landing with my hips between her legs, it reminded me so much of the first time I couldn’t stop myself from touching her — in the forest of Artemis, after she’d nicked me with a dagger of her own making.
I’d been enthralled then. I didn’t have words for what I was now because nobody had thought to invent them yet. What I felt was electrifying, spellbinding — it was soul-consuming.
Her hips rolled against mine, guiding me into place atop her.
Effortlessly, my cock was notched at her entrance, with no wayward spirits to interrupt us this time.
“Say it,” I breathed, agonisingly restraining myself.
She bucked, dragging me ever-so-slightly deeper.
“Touch me,” she whispered. “Oh gods. Please,” she tried again when I did not move.
“I love you, Nyssa,” I breathed, puncturing the statement with a deep kiss. “But the only god’s name on your lips tonight will be mine.”
I pushed forward, slowly, until our hips met and I could feel her clench around me.
Furies, it was almost enough to set me off for a second time.
Our racing hearts echoed each others’ beats, our lungs danced together in a tempest of galloping breaths.
The moment she’d adjusted to me, I withdrew slightly only to slide back in. Her whimper could have sent me to my knees. Her wetness only drove my longing higher, faster, further — and before I knew it, our bodies were writhing together in furious passion.
I knew not where I ended and she began.
I only knew that I longed to live here, with her — within her — forever.
Finally, our souls cried.