39. Slow Burn #2
“Kiss my chest,” I said, and he did, licking streaks of heat across my breasts and sucking on their peaks until they ached with pleasure. “Yes,” I breathed, and he answered with a groan and a bite that had my head spinning. “More,” I panted.
He rolled halfway on top of me, the hair on his chest scraping my skin.
Rather than feeling overwhelmed, I welcomed the sensation of his nearness.
My magic led my curious hands over the rugged lines of his back, the smooth column of his neck, his rough jaw.
He felt so good beneath my palms—virile yet controlled—and I gripped his biceps, his shoulders, losing sense of time within the steady rhythm of our breathing.
“Feel how wet I am,” I whispered.
There was a slight hitch in his movements, the faintest pause. The candles in the room had reduced to faint flickers, and I couldn’t read his face in the dimness—not, except, for the slow reveal of his teeth. “Now who has the dirty mouth?”
With delicious pressure, he smoothed his hand over my belly and down between my legs. His fingers found what they sought but avoided my most sensitive place.
“You’re soaked,” he remarked, sliding one digit inside. The pad of his finger stroked my inner wall as he gradually withdrew it. “Still good?”
I let out a rough sigh. “Again.”
He dipped in again, curling his finger in a way that made my magic sing. “Are you ready for more?”
“Please.”
“Fuck, I don’t think you’ve ever said that to me before.”
“Don’t get used to it,” I said.
He drew his finger up, sliding it across my clit. It was like a strike of flint, making my body jerk.
“Was that too—”
“Please.”
He laughed into the side of my neck, kissing the tender place behind my ear as he began to rub consistent circles.
It felt transcendent—divine—until suddenly it didn’t. My magic flared too hot, too sensitive.
“Stop,” I panted.
He stopped at once, withdrawing his hand and resting it innocently on my inner leg. He stared down at me in question, and his patience, his kindness, his dirty words—I was immediately, horribly furious with my magic for ruining this.
With a frustrated growl, I covered my face with my hands. “I’m sorry,” I said. “My magic—I feel too much.”
There was a puff of breath on my forehead. Then the gentle coaxing of my hands away from my cheeks. “Look at me,” Faren said, meeting my gaze with intensity in the dark. “You feel exactly the right amount.”
“But—”
“No debate,” he said. “You might feel like your magic as a curse at times, Mariana, but don’t think like that when you’re in bed with me. Your magic is a gift. This”—he squeezed my thigh—“is a fucking gift. We have all the time in the world.”
I frowned and cupped his stubbly cheek. “You’re a very good man, you know that?”
“I’m not so sure.” He sucked on my bottom lip, making my toes curl. “But you are a very devious woman.”
I laughed, my head bouncing against the pillows.
He canted his chin, as if he had an idea. “You seemed more comfortable when you were on top of me—more in control,” Faren said. “How about—”
I was already moving, sitting astride his hips again, this time without any barriers.
He let out a soft ooph of surprise, which I swallowed with a messy and determined kiss.
His hands came up to cradle my neck, the back of my head, his thumb pressing into hollow of my nape.
It sent a shiver down my spine, and I rocked back instinctively, his cock sliding against my entrance.
Faren groaned, gripping my waist as if to steady me.
But I didn’t want steady—I wanted movement.
I reached between us, angling him against me. His eyes met mine, and I felt like I was on a cliff’s edge, a precipice of no return. All my sensitivity homed in on that one place, on the promise of him inside me, and the power and safety of controlling exactly when it happened.
On top, in charge, the overwhelm disappeared, replaced by a ravenous desire. His lips parted as if he were about to speak—I told you so, perhaps, or maybe something encouraging—but the sound died as I eased down, taking him inch by inch until there was no more of him left to take.
“Fuck,” he said, drawing out the word on a rough breath. “Mariana.”
I undulated my hips, testing his exceptional depth. He filled me with a stretch that bordered on discomfort, but I was ready for him now, my magic no longer frantic, but receptive, practically purring.
“How are you?” The question was a pant, a plea.
I didn’t know how to answer him. Not when I felt this triumphant and aroused. So I simply began to move, rocking so that he slid over and over against that place of pleasure deep inside me.
He matched my pace with controlled thrusts, his hands clutching my ass, grinding me against him. The friction on my clit was just enough, sending me toward a peak I’d been craving for weeks. I braced my hand against the headboard as I chased the feeling.
“Yes. Fuck. Look at you,” Faren growled, his fingers digging deliciously into my flesh. “So. Fucking. Good.”
And suddenly I wasn’t burning anymore.
I was cool as a river on a hot summer’s day, floating and buoyant with pleasure.
Faren seemed to sense it, the way my body began to ripple around him.
He dared to stroke my clit again, and with a soft gasp, I gripped the headboard harder.
Encouraged by Faren’s steady pace, his clever touch, the wave took me up, up, up—then gushed.
I arched, my mouth opening in a silent scream as a great luminescence flooded me. My magic rose with it, swirling around each and every nerve until my entire being was pleasure, and I had no memory or sense or purpose other than to spill it like a torrent from the heavens.
Wave after wave of it came, until finally it began to ebb, giving rise to a rush of emotion. A tearful, undignified, giddy joy leaked from my eyes as I came back to myself, and our rocking ceased.
Faren eased my grip from the headboard and sat up, his arm banding around my back, holding us—holding me—together. With his free hand, he brushed the hair out of my face, taking in my tears. “Are you hurt?”
There was no room for humiliation when he was still inside me, my body still shuddering around him. Caged in his arms, I’d never felt so free.
“The opposite,” I answered, laughing wetly as I wiped my face. “For the first time in my life, I feel grateful for my magic instead of resenting it.”
His expression quaked with tenderness—then turned rakish. “Careful when you say things like that,” he said, catching an errant tear with his finger. “You’ll inflate my ego.”
I pushed him back against the mattress once more, my hand fitted loosely over his Oath tattoo. “Have you already forgotten the last time I sat astride you?” I asked, thinking of how I’d woken him on the first day of our mission. “I can still best you.”
“How could I forget?” He turned his head and slid his tongue along my wrist; I squealed, and—while I was distracted—he jerked his hips up.
I landed back against the pillows, laughter dying in my throat as I stared up at the man now on top of me. His eyes were dark, his face serious. He began to move again, thrusting into me, slow and punishing and divine. I hooked a leg over his hip, my arms circling his neck as he picked up his pace.
A second wave of pleasure rose, my magic playing a symphony in my veins, and I was surprised Faren hadn’t come yet, himself.
Then I remembered his bragging remark downstairs. “Are you dulling your senses?”
The smirk returned. “I told you my magic helps me last longer.”
How was it that the uniqueness of his power and the uniqueness of mine would make such a perfect match?
A sudden melancholy pinched in my heart.
It didn’t matter how well-suited we were or how much I wished for this to last longer than a single night; by our Orders or the forces of Fate, I was guaranteed to lose him.
It was quite possible that this might be the only time I’d get to have him.
I tugged on his neck, bringing his mouth to mine, and said against his lips, “Let go.”
He was still driving into me, but his rhythm faltered. “What?”
“I don’t want you to last longer. I want you to feel”—I let out a soft pant—“everything.”
“Okay,” he breathed. “Okay, get ready.”
Holding my thigh against his side, he began to thrust harder, faster.
On the verge of coming again, myself, my nails bit into his shoulders, and perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought I felt a murmuration of tension and heat in his skin, a ripple of awareness as his magic heightened, edging him closer.
“Come, Faren,” I whispered—a final command as I felt the tremors of my own orgasm take shape. “Come with me.”
He groaned, hips snapping forward. A pulse of heat—of him—hit that place inside me, sending me back to the heavens.