Episode 102
Let Go, Love
It’s not as if they haven’t done this before—the opening steps in this lover’s dance. The moments of first touch and discovery.
Yet it feels new all over again as Rominy’s hand circles Elowyn’s lower back over the thin fabric of her dress.
Perhaps because he’s taken the lead this time. Romanced her. Made her heart race with longing to be near him.
Kept her from racing to the end.
She wants to be romanced by him. Seduced by him. Drawn moment-by-moment toward him until she feels incapable of resisting.
Not that she wants to resist. Not even for a moment.
But she wants to be swept away by this man she waited her whole life to meet. To hold. To touch.
He teases her with his kisses, playing with her lips. Grazing her with his teeth. Then his lips are on her jaw, and he pulls back every time she tries to draw him into a hungry kiss.
She laughs. “You are maddening.”
“Let me love you, El,” he says softly. “Don’t rush it.”
She looks into his eyes and gets lost there. So much emotion in their caramel depths. Love. Desire.
With a shallow breath, she nods, and he kisses her lips softly again. And this time, when his lips trail along her jaw, she relaxes into his touch.
“Focus on this moment,” he whispers. “Exist with me here and now. Don’t worry about what happens next.”
“What...what happens next?”
“You’re not very good at doing what you’re told, are you?”
She laughs. “Evidently not.”
But he already knows that about her. It feels like he’s known her forever.
“Relax, love. If you need water, you have it.”
The drizzle has been helping, but even it might not be enough.
“Just let go of your water magic. Let it exist with you in whatever way you need.”
She gazes into his eyes again and reads the sincerity there. There’s no fear. No doubt. He trusts her completely.
Is he offering to exist in her magic with her? The thought makes her heart trip over itself.
“Yes,” he whispers as he presses his forehead to hers. “I see the question in your eyes. Whatever you want. Whatever you need. My answer is yes. Always yes.”
“You want to get lost in my magic?”
“Yes, love.” His voice is soft as he leans near her ear, his breath sending shivers to her toes while both their hearts race.
When his lips graze the sensitive spot where her jaw meets her ear, her breath hitches.
“Let go,” he whispers. “Close your eyes and just exist in your magic.”
Breathing out slowly, she nods, and as he lifts a hand to her ear, she releases the control she maintains on her magic before pulling it back. “I don’t want to burn you. Or drown you.”
“You won’t.” He runs his finger over the tip of her ear. “Let go, love.”
“I almost drowned you at the waterfall. I don’t—”
“You were controlling it that time. This time, I want you to let go.”
“But—”
He cuts her off with a kiss so gentle and undemanding that she melts against him.
And lets her magic go.
It pulls at the sea, mixing with the growing heat of her fire magic as it draws a swirling swell of warm water toward them. Up their legs and around their waists.
He doesn’t even flinch.
It lifts them off the pebbled beach, and she relaxes into it, lying back as a soft bed of seawater holds them aloft with the weight of his body hovering over her.
He trails kisses along her neck, and she drops her head back and lets him follow his passion wherever it takes him.
She just exists, the burden of her powerful magic lifted and abandoned as it swirls around them and carries them.
“Trust your magic, love,” Rominy whispers. “It’s part of you. Feel it. Don’t control it.”
“Who have you been talking to?” She whimpers as she gives in to the desire to wrap him in threads of water magic like a caress, tracing every dip and flex of his muscles beneath the linen clinging to him.
And he still doesn’t flinch or pull away.
“Grandmera,” he says. “We talked for quite a while this afternoon about how you struggle to just exist. Well”—he presses his lips to the dip at the base of her throat—“she talked. I mostly listened.” He trails more kisses along her shoulder, pulling aside the sodden strap of her gown.
He’s so solid in such a human way. Her threads of water magic follow every contour of his frame, giving rise to the heat flowing from her into the water surrounding them.
He feels so perfect. So right. Every part of him begging her to touch him. To experience him in every way. To learn what makes his own heat build.
“Grandmera said you can feel with your water magic,” he says through halting breaths. “Is that what you’re doing to me now?” He hisses and buries his face against her shoulder. “Stars above, Elowyn.”
She pulls back on her magic, and they crash to the smooth pebbles below as he lifts his eyes to stare at her.
“I didn’t want you to stop,” he says softly.
“Oh.”
“But, love”—he traces a finger along her collarbone with just enough pressure that the touch awakens her desire rather than tickling her—“maybe slow down a bit.” Then he leans near her ear. “I’m only human.”
His words draw out her smile, and he kisses her again as he lies in a sodden heap half-draped over her, his weight pressing her into the smooth pebbles beneath them.
“Just exist,” he whispers against her lips as the notes of his piano continue to serenade them.
She lets go of her magic again, and the swell of heated water wraps around them once more.
Rominy’s hand on her leg sends shivers racing to her toes, and when he gently pulls her soaked gown up and over her head, her heart pounds to match his.
He could have wished it away, but he didn’t.
Something about the physical act of him helping her out of it awakens a burning fire deep within, and her aching need for him grows.
But she doesn’t hurry him as he runs his hands and lips over every part of her.
Memories of their twilight swim fill her, but this is so much more.
Because he’s seen her heart so much more clearly since those first heated moments together. He’s seen her fears. Her weaknesses. Her vulnerabilities.
And he exists with her there, in the hard moments when her world feels so small. So stifling.
And somehow it doesn’t matter. None of it matters as he pushes her to simply be here in this moment with him.
To just exist.
To make this moment last forever.
They were unhurried in their pool in the twilight, but not like this. Not with Rominy intent on sending fire shooting through every inch of her flesh.
She reaches for the hem of his own shirt, and he shrugs out of it for her before whispering, “I want to feel your magic washing over me.”
He looks into her eyes, and she frames his face with her hands, brushing his wet hair off his forehead.
And she lets threads of her water magic slide over his flesh once more. His breath hitches, but he doesn’t look away, and she doesn’t pull back.
Then he kisses her with a heat that scatters her thoughts, and she lets go of everything holding her back as her magic slides across his skin. The way he whimpers and groans and hisses whispered words she can’t make out feeds her own fire.
As natural as breathing. More like gulping for air while barely treading water. Her need for him is as consuming as her need for oxygen. Her water magic is out of control, fed by her fire in a swirling, heated wall of seawater surrounding them on every side.
“Don’t pull back,” he whispers. “Trust your magic the way I trust you.”
Her heart races along with his, and she takes a series of shallow breaths as she nods.
“There’s nothing but you and me, love. Let everything else fade away.” His voice catches a few times as he murmurs the words.
And they just exist in this never-ending moment, the passion between them chasing away thoughts of everything else.
His hands on her. Threads of her magic on him.
Nothing exists beyond his touch. His whispered words.
His kisses and the way his body reacts to her magic and her hands trailing across his skin.
And as their bodies entwine, it becomes so much more.
“Let go, love,” he breathes against her ear when every sensation of his flesh against hers leaves her gasping for air.
It’s like drowning in him in the most overwhelming yet perfect way imaginable.
Then his hand tightens around hers, and he groans as he buries his face in her hair while his chest heaves.
For a few moments, they just exist like that, tangled up together, their hearts pounding in sync, his breath heavy on her ear.
Her water gradually recedes as their racing hearts slow. Rather than the pebbled beach, the bed from their cottage is there to catch them. Did he ask for that?
As he holds her close, the emotion filling her is almost too much to process, and she clings to him.
“I love you, Elowyn,” he whispers against her ear. “In case there was any doubt. And I will never let you go.”
His voice washes over her, and she gazes into his eyes as she grasps at her own words in response. “My...my heart belongs to you, my love. It always has, and it always will.”
He finds her lips in a gentle kiss, and the solid strength of his arms and his body against hers chases away the overwhelm, leaving a connection between them so full and so deep she can barely put thoughts to it.
“Forever,” he whispers in Elvish when he rests his forehead against hers, and she repeats the word in Nunian.
Unrushed, they lie tangled up together, whispering about everything and nothing while her lingering heat warms them both. Eventually, her exhaustion bears down on her, and she doesn’t hide her yawn.
“I’m tired now,” she whispers, as she promised she would.
“Rest, love. I’ll be at your side when you wake. Wherever you wake.”
“You are worth every moment of my life I’ve spent waiting,” she murmurs as her eyelids grow heavy.
“Shh, love. Sleep now.” He presses a kiss to her temple and pulls a dry blanket over her as she gives in to her exhaustion.