Chapter 34
Sephtis
“Do you really love me?” Cole’s voice was a husky warmth in my ear as soon as we stepped over the threshold and into my apartment. He’d been running his fingers carefully along the back of my hand, tracing the unfamiliar heat like it was something fascinating to him…
It was doing things to me—things I hadn’t expected. It made desire bubble beneath my skin, made my body clench.
I’d felt things before, but this was different. Every touch made my nerve endings feel…
Alive.
I was alive, and the only thing my body wanted was Cole.
“I can tell you again, if you want?” I leaned down and brushed my mouth against his as I closed and locked the door behind us.
Not because we had to be here—not because the apartment was a safe, neutral zone.
Because Cole wanted to go home, and apparently home was wherever I took him.
“I don’t want you to tell me.” He broke our kiss, but our fingers were still linked as he walked back toward the bedroom. “I want you to show me. Show me like it’s the first time.”
In a way, it was. It was the first time I felt blood rush to my face when he whispered in that soft, husky voice. The first time I felt my pulse leap into my throat, nearly choking me.
“Okay. Let me earn forever,” I murmured, pressing my lips against his as I walked him back to my bedroom.
Our bedroom.
I wanted to wrap myself around the thought of us and live somewhere in the middle of it.
“Lie back and think of what I’m going to do to you.” He whispered the tease against my lips, and my eyes widened.
“What are you doing?”
He glanced down at his chest—at the blood and dirt from the graveyard. “I’m going to go rinse off. Don’t worry, I won’t be long. Besides… you made me wait while you got kidnapped by Death.”
He turned his back on me, and I heard the shower start.
I took my time stripping, running my fingers along my burning skin.
By the time the shower switched off, my cock was hard and my body was trembling in anticipation…
and from the appreciative look on his face as he exited the bathroom with wet hair and a bottle of lotion in his hand, I was starting to wonder if he’d done it on purpose.
I was caught up watching him, enraptured by the way he looked when he stalked toward me…
and he stalked. Cole was nude and still a little damp from the water, moving like he was a predator with his eyes on something he wanted to devour.
I could see it—he’d told me he wanted me to show him…
but I had a feeling it was going to be just like before.
As much as I wanted, as much as I needed, he was going to be the one who took charge.
I was fine with that.
His hand planted in the middle of my chest and he shoved me back on the bed, crawling on top of me.
When his lips caught mine, I moaned into his mouth as he made quick work of slicking both of our cocks with enough lotion that our bodies moving against each other were nearly enough to drive me wild.
I could have gotten off like this—could have lived in his touch.
He was fire, and I could finally feel him burning all the way through me.
I could feel the way he made my blood rush, my body hot.
I could feel everything so much more than I had before, and I wanted…
I wanted…
I reached for him, my knees falling open in invitation. When he felt the movement, he sat back. Cole’s eyes drifted down, taking in the sight of my body, and he bit his lower lip.
“How about we do something different this time?” As he asked, he crawled up until he was straddling me, his thighs strong on either side of mine.
When he grabbed the lotion bottle this time, he tipped it up and pooled a generous amount into my palm, across my fingers.
“Open me up, Sephtis. I need to feel you… I want to feel how warm you are inside me.”
Warm.
No, I wasn’t just warm; I was burning alive at the heat in his eyes, at the way his lids were heavy and his pupils were blown at the suggestion. I was going to combust looking at his cock, thick and bouncing between us. I nodded, my mind racing back to what he’d done for me…
Thankfully, he was a generous teacher. He shifted his hips forward, spreading his legs and making it easy for me to slide my slick fingers between them so I could brush against his entrance.
He was so tight, and even that first touch made him groan.
My other hand came up automatically, wrapping around his cock and giving it a firm stroke as I started to rub against his ass in small circles that seemed to be a tease more than anything.
Cole rocked back against my hand, and the pressure of his body riding down on me made me shudder.
It was almost torture, having him hovering over me—so close to my cock, yet not touching me at all.
It was the kind of torture I’d happily take.
He ghosted his fingers over his chest, over the scars the Enmity had left behind, and looked down at me as he brushed and rolled his nipples.
“Harder, Sephtis. Get me ready for you.”
My body shuddered again, and I angled my fingers to press upward—he dropped down without warning, and the low hiss of pleasure and pain that tore from his throat told me he was showing me exactly how he liked to be touched.
Rough and a little desperate. Hard and fast, burning like the sun.
I could do that.
I crooked my finger and slipped it inside him, thrusting slowly the way he’d done for me back in Gethin’s library. The movement was slow at first, and he gave me a few minutes to explore, to slowly get drunk on the sensation. I was lost in him, in how good he felt squeezing around me.
I wanted to feel that warmth around my cock—I wanted to watch him fall apart. I understood now why he wanted to do it like this. We had the rest of forever to try everything.
“Fuck me with your hand like you want me to fall apart, Sephtis. Show me how much you want me.” He rocked back on my finger, then surged upward to thrust his cock into my fist. “Show me how much you love me.”
It was that demand more than anything that made me move. I pulled back and added another finger, working up and into his hole again, crooking them as I tried to find that same place inside him that had lit me up so much before.
When his head threw back and he cried out, I knew I moaned in satisfaction, igniting from how good it felt to make him make that sound.
My fingers concentrated on that place, thrusting in shallow little bursts that made him shiver.
I could feel it in the way his cock swelled, see it in the rise and fall of his chest.
I was getting him close with just my hands, and he was so eager to take it. He bounced on my wrist until my arm started to ache, until he could barely draw a breath… and then he fell against my chest, shifting his hips to pull away from me.
“Enough,” he gasped. “Enough… I need more. I need to feel you inside me. I need…” Cole shifted forward, pressing his mouth to mine and stealing a slow, aching kiss from my lips. “I need to know that you’re really here. That we’re here.”
That we made it.
“Take it then, Cole… take whatever you need. I’m here for you.
” He groaned at the invitation and sat back on his heels, rising up and reaching between us so he could line my cock up with his worked entrance.
He didn’t hesitate—he brought his eyes to mine and watched my face as he slowly sank down my length.
It tore another low moan from my chest as I felt every nerve in my body scream with the pleasure of it. He was so tight, so hot, clenching and silky around me…
Gods, was this what he’d felt when he fucked me before? If this was it, I understood why humans could get addicted to it.
He was perfect.
“Look at us,” he said, sinking until his ass met my thighs and I was fully sheathed inside him. “Look how we fit.”
“I was made to fit with you,” I gasped, and he started to move.
It was obvious from the first rock of his hips that this wasn’t meant to be something that lasted long. It was hard, hot, fast, and desperate. It was everything we’d gone through brought to a boiling point.
It was like my first time all over again, because I could feel the heat of my blood ripping through me and making me dizzy—the gasping need to inhale continually forgotten, so my breath came in little punched out moans that tore through the room.
It was Cole, his fingers clenching as he dropped down and pressed his hand over my chest to prop himself up.
Over the beat of my heart that I knew worked in exact tandem with his own.
It was us, created to fit, made to be together… connected along a little red line that had been born of hate and forged in love.
He fucked down onto my cock until I was gasping, and my fingers trembled when I reached between us to take his length in my hand.
I pumped him in time with the frantic motion of his hips rocking down, his pelvis rolling to take me as deep inside him as he could.
The room was a sweet litany of sounds—his breath and mine, moans, skin slapping against skin.
Soft, unspoken words of a love I wanted to earn, of emotions I’d spend the rest of my life trying to wring out of Cole one touch at a time…
“Fuck.” He surged up, nipping at my shoulder and collarbone, sucking on my skin and then groaning when he pulled back and realized he could leave marks. My free hand shifted, and I grabbed his hip, finally moving beneath him and catching his rhythm.
I was already so close—close when the sweat started to drip from his body, mingling with the water from his hair.
Close when he thrust back down against me and bit my chest, sucking hard enough to tear a cry from my throat and leave another mark.
Close when he finally rocked back, his head tilting and his eyes narrowing to slits. “Fuck… Sephtis.” His voice was a demand, and I knew I was going to give in before he even said it. “Let me feel you.”
I came with a low cry, thrusting into him harder as he dropped his hand to mine on his cock, fucking into both of our fists as he rode me through my orgasm so he could chase on its heels.
I’d never felt anything so good—never thought I belonged anywhere the way I belonged here, caught up in the heat of him and dying in one sweet breath, from one heartbeat to the next.
He came on a cry, the hot spatter of his cum spilling over my chest as I filled him.
Cole dropped so I was buried inside him to the hilt, and used our joined fingers to wring out the last bursts of pleasure that he painted my stomach and chest with.
With one final roll of his hips, he shifted forward and collapsed against me.
The soft press of his smile against my throat was almost as sweet at the little aftershocks of pleasure still rippling through my body.
“You know,” he purred, tracing his lips over my pulse with a soft sigh. “I think I might get addicted to you showing me how you feel.”
I let out a contented hum, threading my fingers through his hair so I could lift his gaze to mine. His expression was sex drunk and exhausted—we’d been through so much, and it was finally over. It really was like today was the first day of our lives, the first day of forever.
“Cole?”
“Mmm." He turned his head, kissing my palm sweetly.
“I love you.”
His gaze softened. His fingers were gentle when he brought them up to trace my lips, the curve of my jaw, the sweep of my brow.
“I know I said you had to earn it, Sephtis… but can I tell you a secret?”
My heart picked up in my chest, and I didn’t know if it was his nerves or my own when I nodded. “Of course.”
He leaned in, pressing his lips to my ear to breathe in a husky voice. “I'm pretty sure you had it all along.”