Episode 126 I Need You
I Need You
Sticky. Sticky everywhere. At least it feels like it’s everywhere. That may be an exaggeration.
Cerian pushes the awful sensation away as he leaves frosting on the door to his chamber at the castle in Levina.
It isn’t real. None of it is real.
None of it but her.
The door is barely closed when Arisanna wraps herself around him and finds him in a hungry kiss. Whistling wind.
Clearly, this re-creation of their wedding was a well-conceived idea.
“Is this what should have happened?” he whispers against her lips.
“I don’t know, but I need it to happen now.”
He suppresses a smile as she reaches for the buttons on his jacket, sticky fingers and all.
It’s not real. Nothing but her is real.
She pushes his open jacket over his shoulders, and he shrugs out of it, letting it lie where it falls. Then she tugs at his shirt, and his grin grows.
There’s nothing tentative about his human princess tonight. He’ll need water soon at this rate. Already, his fire grows difficult to control.
She tosses his shirt aside before wrapping her arms around his neck and hanging off him as she claims his lips again.
His chest is sticky now.
Why is he thinking about frosting when she’s kissing him like this?
Focus on her. He needs to focus on her.
“My turn,” he murmurs as he grips her wrists and unwraps her from his neck. Her eyes are wide, and her chest heaves, and he steals a kiss before spinning her around.
Laces. Why did he ask the heartlanding for a gown with laces? He doesn’t want to deal with laces.
“Don’t move.” He wishes for a knife, which the heartlanding is happy to provide. Then he brushes her hair aside and, with one smooth motion, cuts through the laces running down the back of her gown.
She gasps. “Cerian!”
“It isn’t real. And I want it gone.”
The heartlanding seems loath to make that wish come true the easy way. Not that it matters. As soon as the laces are cut, a gentle tug leaves the gown puddling on the floor at her feet.
“Much better.” He presses his lips to the back of her neck before pulling her against his chest.
“Your hand is really warm,” she whispers. “I think we need to find some water.”
“What did you have in mind?”
When she drags him to the water closet, he isn’t surprised, and he doesn’t argue.
It’s her shoving him in the shower half-dressed that catches him off guard. She seems to enjoy getting him wet with his clothes on.
He doesn’t have time to ponder that thought before she kisses him again.
“Arisanna—”
“I don’t want to talk,” she whimpers, and he barely refrains from laughing.
Apparently, all he needs to do to light her fire is put her in a scandalous wedding dress and dance with her for hours.
“I need to get this frosting off,” he says. “It’s driving me to insanity. And my shoes.”
He’s not particularly fond of having puddles around his toes.
She gasps. “I forgot about your shoes.”
“Just give me two minutes to be me, and then you’ll have my complete attention.”
She smiles, which is a relief. “Two minutes to be you?”
He scrubs at the frosting on his cheek as the water pours over them both. “You know. That ridiculous elf you binded with who hates being sticky.”
She reaches for his hands. “Let me.” She grabs a small towel from a shelf outside the shower enclosure and gently scrubs his cheek. “Should I be offended that you’re more distracted by frosting than by me?”
Her smile doesn’t fade, which somehow leaves him feeling loved despite his idiosyncrasies that others rarely understand.
Whether she understands or not, she loves him.
“You would have won out in the end,” he says softly as he rests his hands on her waist and presses his forehead to hers. “But I’ll enjoy you more when I’m not constantly reminding myself the frosting isn’t real.”
As the warm water washes away the stickiness, her gentle ministrations add to his longing. Longing for her. Every part of her. Her heart and her flesh. Her essence with no walls between them.
The water beading along her skin and soaking her hair draws out his heat as he looks at her, and for a moment, disbelief fills him. Not only that she’s his, but that there was ever a time he didn’t long for her with his entire being.
“I need you,” he whispers as he presses his cheek to her temple.
“Your shoes—”
Perhaps the heartlanding will understand this time.
He wishes them away, and they vanish. Thank the fates.
Her fire seems to have cooled a little. He’ll have to heat her up again.
“My head is full of thoughts of you now,” he whispers.
“Not frosting?”
“There’s still a little frosting claiming my thoughts.” He takes the cloth from her and gently washes away the frosting that made its way inside her gown, finishing with a touch that hitches her breath.
Then he stops, and after a few moments, she whimpers. “Cerian.”
“I thought you needed this to happen now,” he says near her ear.
Her eyes flash open, and she stares at him, breathing heavily as water runs in rivulets along her skin. He lets his gaze wander over her, and it takes all the control he can muster not to reach for her again.
Then he sets a hand on the shower wall behind her, leaning near her ear once more. “I was hoping you’d throw yourself at me again. But if you’ve changed your mind—”
She doesn’t give him a chance to finish before she clings to him and finds him in a kiss that sends his fire magic reeling.
Thank the fates for the water pouring over them both.
He follows her lead this time, even when she drags him from the shower to the bed before climbing on top of him. When a drizzle starts inside the castle, he doesn’t question it. He’s too busy trying not to light anything on fire.
Whistling wind. Where has she been hiding this passion?
He can barely think straight, so he stops trying. He just lets her have him, giving in to every touch of her skin against his.
Is she trying to kill him? If it feels like this, he may let her. It’s a good thing there’s hardly any wood in here, though he manages to wrap her in his vines anyway. She certainly doesn’t complain.
Every wisp of control he reaches for is like grasping for the wind.
His magic is wild, doing whatever it wants, leaving him completely at her mercy.
The words that fly from him at her touch would have earned a mouthful of soap from Grandmera when he was an elfling, but he doesn’t even try to rein in his tongue.
“Sanna,” he whimpers through gritted teeth when he can’t take the fire raging inside him any longer. “Sanna, please.”
And once she finally puts him out of his misery, every muscle in his body becomes jelly. There’s not enough oxygen in the heartlanding to fill his lungs as he gasps for air and looks at her in shock.
She seems as shocked as he is, and he weakly reaches for her, drawing her to his side on the soggy bed in this drizzly guest chamber in Levina. She’s breathless, and neither of them speaks for a few minutes.
“Should I ask what all those Elvish words meant?” she eventually whispers as she clings to him.
“It would probably be best if you didn’t.”
She laughs in response, and the sound draws out his own laughter.
“It crossed my mind that you were trying to kill me,” he says.
“Is that good or bad?”
“It would have been a good way to die.”
She buries her face against him, her shoulders shaking with mirth, and he plays with her hair that hangs in soaked tendrils down her back. Once her laughter fades, she runs a finger over his chest. Her touch is soothing now that his fire is spent.
“You called me Sanna,” she whispers.
He finds her eyes again. “Did I?”
She nods. “Only the people closest to me have ever called me that.”
“Is that good or bad?” he asks this time.
“I’ve never been this close to anyone but you, Cerian.” She presses a kiss to his lips, and he buries his fingers in her hair.
“Sanna,” he whispers against her lips. “My Sanna.”
“Yours.”
A moan slips from him as he breathes her in. “We should re-enact our wedding every night. And you may attempt to kill me every night.”
That draws out her laughter again. “May I be mortified now?”
“Never. I adore your passion. No more hiding it, not here with me.”
She sighs before snuggling closer.
“There’s one more part of this night we need to re-enact,” he says softly. “Look at every starry sky with me, Sanna?”
She answers with another kiss. “I would love to. Help me choose something to wear? You did spectacularly with my wedding gown.”
“I believe you need a gown like that in real life.” He grins at her, and she just shakes her head.
“I can’t wear a gown like that in public. Stars above.”
“I said nothing about wearing it in public.” He steals one last kiss before helping her off the bed. “My muscles feel like pudding. You did quite the number on me, Arisanna Montarac Westaria.”
“You didn’t seem to mind, my fire wielder.”
He pulls her close once more and whispers in her ear. “I didn’t mind at all.”