Chapter 4 #2
“They won’t separate us again,” I say. “We won’t let them.”
He strokes my cheek, considering my words. Finally, he speaks. “Agreed. They’ll have to destroy the whole world with us in it first.”
“Even then, there’s no getting rid of me,” I say. “Moorings still count in the celestial realm, you know.”
He laughs. “Damn, I forgot about that when I was binding my soul to yours. I wonder if Phaia knows a take-back spell.”
I swat him playfully, grateful beyond measure for his teasing. It’s exactly what I need to escape the heaviness of all we’ve been through.
“So that’s settled then,” I say. “And now we can focus on all the making up you have to do for leaving me like that.”
He tilts his head to one side. “That, and I definitely need to say thank you for you rescuing me.”
He kisses me again, his hands skimming down my shoulders and dropping to my waist. I feel a tugging sensation and look down to see him pinching at the thick material of my tunic, frowning.
“When was the last time you changed, or bathed, or ate, for that matter?”
I grimace. I have vague memories of people handing me water and food and fresh clothes while we traveled, but looking after myself wasn’t exactly high on my list of priorities. Leon makes a disapproving grunt at my silence.
“If we’re going to be cosmically bound, I expect you to take better care of yourself. Come.”
He leads me through to his washroom. It’s enormous, with a huge stone bathtub in the center of the room.
He touches a seashell set into the rim and the tub automatically starts to fill with steaming, citrus-scented water.
I admire the clever aquari magic as bubbles foam across the surface.
I inhale, already imagining how delightful the water will feel on my battered, weary body.
I start to pull off my clothes, then stop when I see Leon watching me with bright, interested eyes.
“Don’t just stand there,” I say, tugging at his tunic and pulling open the top of his shirt. “I’m sure you could do with a wash too. Besides, it’s ridiculous to make me sit in that huge thing all on my own. I might get lost.”
He smiles, obediently removing his tunic.
We take turns undressing each other, slowly easing the clothes off our bodies and letting them slide to the floor.
Then Leon scoops me up and steps into the tub, lowering us both into the perfectly heated water.
I groan at the wonderful sensation, leaning back so that I’m submerged up to my neck.
Leon slides up against the far end of the bathtub, resting his back against the edge.
“If I’d known those were the kind of noises you make while bathing, I would’ve invited you in here a long time ago,” he says, grinning.
We soak for a few minutes, my feet occasionally brushing against his thigh, until I require more contact. After being apart, I need to be closer, touching Leon, feeling him in every way I can.
I shift, kneeling in front of him, laying a palm across his chest to remind myself of the solid reality—he’s here.
Eventually, I let my fingers wander, tracing the familiar lines of his muscles.
I sense the tickle of pleasure my touch elicits across the bond, a feeling that warms into desire as my hand drifts lower across his abdominals.
“Come here.” He reaches out, his hands sliding across my breasts, the soap bubbles making my nipples tingle as he encircles one, drawing me to him with a gentle but firm grip. He takes my mouth with his, claiming my lips with slow, fierce pressure.
I nestle in closer to him, hooking my legs over his hips until I feel the thick length of him pressing between my legs. He’s hard as stone, and a rumble of interest vibrates in his throat as my soft flesh yields against him.
He breaks the kiss, running his thumb across the damp crook of my collarbone as his eyes flicker across my face.
“You’re not too tired?” he asks. I suspect he knows I barely rested on our journey here and haven’t slept soundly since the battle. There are probably huge dark circles under my eyes giving me away.
“No,” I say truthfully, and run my hands over his shoulders, then down across his chest. My fingers massage every knot I find. His body is taut and tense after its ordeal, and I don’t miss the way his eyes close with pleasure when I tend to those tight spots. He needs this as much as I do.
“I’ll never be too tired for this,” I say. “To be with you.”
I inch a little closer, though there’s already barely any space between us, until I’m pressed against his slick chest. I wrap my arms around him and bring my mouth to his ear, stroking the nape of his neck.
“You know, we still haven’t really settled the question of exactly how much you owe me, and how you could possibly go about compensating me for all I’ve endured,” I murmur.
He chuckles, his chest rumbling against me. At the same time, his heartbeat thuds against my ribs, just as it pulses through the mooring. It makes me cling to him tighter, reveling in the way his presence answers across the bond when I call for it.
“I can never have too much of you, Leon Claerwyn. You are the other half of me.” I speak the words across the mooring because my voice might break if I say them aloud.
He tilts his head back to meet my gaze, and I let myself fall into the gray depths of his eyes.
“My love, you made me whole a long time before you returned my soul to me. But a piece of you lives inside me now, and that truly means no one can separate us again,” he says.
I kiss him ferociously. So hard that when I tug his lip between my teeth, an answering thrill of pain runs through me, the bond mingling our two sets of senses. The ensuing spike of pleasure is so mixed up in the feel of us together I can’t tell if it’s Leon’s or mine.
Right now, I don’t have time to explore that particular experience. I’m too desperate to get as close to Leon as I physically can—to join us in every way.
“So why don’t we stop yapping and you can put a piece of yourself in me,” I mutter.
His laugh is louder and bolder than before, but I quickly cut it off by pushing his shoulders back against the edge of the bathtub so he’s leaning at an angle, his hard cock rising from the water.
I stretch myself over him, finding his lips again as I guide our bodies together, inhaling sharply as his thick head breaches me.
He groans as I lower myself and he slides into me, his eyelids drooping lazily.
“Being with you like this is always like coming home,” he says, cradling my cheek. “Every time I think I can’t possibly have forgotten how right it feels, and yet it still surprises me.”
He lifts his hips, pressing deeper into me. The heat between my legs burns as hot as ever, and I ache for him to touch me everywhere…and yet even if we stayed perfectly still exactly like this, I know I’d be satisfied, feeling Leon buried inside me and me wrapped around him.
He has other ideas. He slides his hand down my stomach, licking his lips as his fingers find my clit.
The water softens his touch, making the brush of his skin like velvet as he swirls his index finger across the sensitive bundle of nerves.
I buck into his hand with a feral noise, making his cock shift inside me.
“Good girl,” he murmurs in my mind. “Do that again.”
I begin to roll my hips in concert with his strokes, the water rising in small waves around us as we build speed.
My first climax breaks hard and fast, my muscles clenching around him as I gasp out an oath.
He doesn’t even break his rhythm, moving relentlessly inside me as I shudder with the ecstasy dancing across my skin and encircling my core.
He cradles my face as I climb down from the orgasm. It leaves droplets running down my neck, dripping off me onto the surface of the water. I feel utterly alive as we move against each other, basking in the moment.
Eventually, something shifts along the mooring, like a fire spreading across the horizon.
A hunger rolls through me, so powerful it makes my breath catch, and I see it burning in Leon’s eyes.
It tells me he wants more, wants me underneath him so he can take me at the pace he chooses.
I meet his gaze and reply to the hunger.
“Do it. Fuck me just how you want to.”
With a growl of approval, he lifts me from him. We move easily in the water, the soapy suds splashing and spilling over the sides as he quickly switches our positions. He grips my hips tightly, roughly pushing my legs apart with his knees to enter me.
Again, that thrill runs through me—the excitement of his strength unleashed, the spark of something sharp mixing with pleasure.
“You liked that, didn’t you?” he asks, a delicious lilt to his voice, even in my mind.
“I like it when you take control. So don’t make me tell you twice to fuck me.”
I make a moan of delight as he pulls out and drives into me again, the force of it meaning I have to throw my hands out to grip the edge of the tub so I don’t slide beneath the water.
I feel his own enjoyment mount as he watches me, breathless and obedient beneath him, arching out of the water as he claims me.
He holds my hips close enough that every thrust strokes his body against my clit, sending me careening over the edge once more.
This time I take him with me, and the sparks lighting up my nerves jump from his body to mine and back again.
In those seconds, we’re one being—a single, impossibly bright point, burning with pleasure.
I know then that we were right. Nothing can separate us again. In moments like this, it feels like nothing else exists. It’s only him and me and this perfect happiness we’ve found in each other.