Godsbane

Chapter 18 #2

My breath catches in my chest. The gods must have one hell of a sense of humor to trap us in not one but two inns at max capacity.

I’d bet all the coins in Emerald’s vaults that there’s no rat-infested broom closet for Cal to hide in this time.

No, tonight he’ll be here with me and all the tension that’s been building between us.

I should tell him that we can find another inn, but I don’t want to further risk Rollins’ or Marks’ men discovering me.

I should tell him that the floor looks comfortable, but the scuffed wooden planks don’t look like they’ve been mopped recently.

I should tell him to leave me and see if he can find someone else’s bed to sleep in, but a greedy, possessive part of me rages at the thought.

I’ve always been great at denial, but this …

this magic-fueled lust … even I can’t deny the primitive part of me whose only care is pleasure.

The deep, savage need to be physically claimed by him, consequences be damned.

I’ve never given myself to anyone without a mask or an alias, and maybe just once, I’d like to know what it’s like to be fucked relentlessly by a man who calls out my name in his sleep.

“You could have just asked, you know,” I tease, turning to face him.

“Asked what?” Cal asks tentatively, his voice filled with a restraint I don’t possess.

“Asked to share my bed instead of planning this,” I wave my hand around the small room, “elaborate ruse about a missing couch.”

“You think I need an elaborate ruse?” Cal steps towards me, hunger coloring his gaze.

“Wrong question,” I taunt. “We both know what you want to ask.”

Godsdamnit. This could very well end up being the worst decision I’ve ever made. I suck in a ragged breath, steeling my nerves and prepping for utter destruction. Fuck it.

“Ask me, Cal.”

“What exactly do I want to ask?” He closes the distance between us, continuing his pursuit until I’m forced to take a step back.

“Ask if I can sleep in your bed?”

Step.

“Ask if I can kiss your luscious, poisonous lips?”

Step.

My back hits the wall with a thud, my breath hitching in my chest as Cal moves closer to rest his arm above my head. His breath is hot on my neck as he inhales my scent, dragging his chin roughly across my tender skin, causing me to shiver again. He’s a man who remembers.

“Ask if I can strip you down and worship every inch of your body?”

Cal’s large hand grips my chin, forcing me to look directly at him—directly into dangerous eyes of molten silver that threaten to swallow me whole. His face is inches away from mine, our shared breaths commingling.

“Which one are you asking?” I manage to ask on a shaking exhale.

His breath rattles in his throat in a near growl. “I’m a greedy man when it comes to you. I want all of it and more. ”

My thighs clench at his words, his sinful tongue darting out to wet his lips. Lips that I need to feel on my body. Potent, intoxicating power rushes through me, heightening my growing need for contact. I lean in, angling my lips towards his, but Cal pulls away.

“Not so fast, princess. I told you that when you kissed me it would be because you couldn’t imagine living one more second of your life without knowing how I taste.”

He leans in, lips tracing my jawline and moving upwards to delicately nip at my ear. “Are you there yet?”

His seductive words pour into me like honeyed wine, making me drunk with anticipation as he presses on. “Is that how bad you want me?”

I nod my head, barely able to form a thought and definitely unable to form a sentence.

“Mean it when you say it, Ivy. Because one night with you will never be enough to satisfy me.”

Godsdamnit this better be worth it because I’m fairly certain he’s ruining me for anyone else.

I don’t just want Cal, I need him. I know it in the fibers of my soul and the marrow of my bones.

This is the beginning of something so much bigger than I could have ever imagined and there is no way to stop it now. I am already far too gone.

“I mean it.” And gods help me, I do.

The words haven’t fully left my lips before his mouth is on mine, rough and demanding. Cal drops my face, moving his hand to the back of my neck to pull me even closer. I angle my head and open my mouth, letting my tongue join his in a dangerous dance.

He tastes like salt water and divinity. Like the sea god came down from the heavens to pour life into my parched soul with his salinated kiss. Every mouthful brings me closer to full submersion. I could drown in him and thank him for the gift.

My fingers tangle in Cal’s dark hair as I pull him deeper into me. His free hand luxuriously explores my body, trailing over my breasts and down my side before finding my ass and lifting me to wrap both legs around his waist.

My back arches as I feel his arousal pressing into me, only our riding leathers separating us from each other.

I break the kiss in a moan, exposing my neck to him again.

Every part of Cal is electric and my entire body hums under his touch.

Magic sparks along my skin everywhere his lips touch, incinerating me thoroughly.

The fingers of my free hand blindly work the laces of my corset in a frenzied attempt to remove the layers between our bodies.

The image of Cal with my blade in his teeth flashes in my mind causing my hips to roll against the hard press of him.

Cal runs a finger up my corset, hooking it in the middle of the binding.

With a single tug, the laces snap, the leather-wrapped blades clanking to the wooden floor below.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Cal growls before his mouth is on mine again.

He tugs on my shirt, forcing the hem out of my pants until his hands can roam over my stomach and ribs. I let him explore, reveling in the feel of his skin on mine as my hips rock against him. I’m wholly consumed by him and yet it’s not enough.

“Cal.” His name, spoken on a breathy exhale, elicits another desperate growl.

“If you’ve changed your mind, tell me now.”

His body tenses in restraint and I know without a shadow of a doubt that he would do it. He’d set my feet on the floor, lower my shirt, and walk away from the burning inferno between us if I wanted him to. But there’s only one thing I want him to do right now and it damn sure isn’t walk away.

“Fuck me,” I command.

Cal surges at me, our lips crashing in a fervent, passionate kiss.

He strips me of my shirt before reaching a hand over his head and shedding his own.

My hardened nipples rub against the tattooed serpent on his chest as Cal removes my boots, his mouth never leaving my skin.

The sharp sting of his rough bite on my neck forces another pleading moan from deep within me.

He wasn’t lying about biting … and godsdamnit, I like it.

Cal spins us, moving to the bed with predatory speed. He wastes no time. The moment my back hits the feather mattress, his mouth moves to my sternum and then my stomach. His fingers deftly unlace my pants as his lips continue their descent, leaving tiny fires in their wake.

“Every man who has ever had you has thought they were a god. They thought they owned you, claimed you, conquered you.” Each phrase is punctuated with a seductive kiss, dipping lower until his breath caresses my inner thigh. “But they were too dense to know they were in the presence of a goddess.”

Like a devotee at an altar, the great Captain of Corinth drops to his knees before me.

His hands grip my hips, pulling me to the edge of the bed until my legs are draped over his broad shoulders.

He spreads me wide as his fingers begin to move in slow, teasing circles over my most sensitive area.

Pure greed colors his expression as he wets his lips.

“Let me worship you the way you deserve.”

My back arches off the bed as his tongue trails up my center.

“Let you?” I ask breathlessly. “I command it.”

The last remaining hold on his restraint snaps.

Another moan sounds through the room as his tongue fills me, swiping in and out rhythmically.

He spreads my thighs wider as he alternates sucking and lapping, the pressure within me mounting as he feasts.

I writhe against him urging him deeper, but he doesn’t let me.

His hand moves, pressing firmly below my navel and pinning me in place. In just the right place.

Cal’s fingers join his tongue as he beckons me closer to the edge. Sparks fly from his fingertips, boiling my blood. Power ripples across my body, sucking the air from the room as I struggle to contain it.

“Let go. Unravel for me, princess.”

His words, hot against my skin, push me over the cliff, wave after wave of pleasure washing over me as I pulse around him. He stays there, working me relentlessly until my orgasm recedes. Air rushes back into my lungs and I’m on him in an instant. We are nowhere close to done.

Lifting his wrist, I pull his soaked fingers into my mouth, my eyes never leaving his as I suck them clean. Both sets are full of lust and hunger. We are both starving, the other the only person who can nourish our famished body.

I lie back, guiding Cal up from the floor. He sheds his pants as he moves and I barely have time to glimpse how low the tattooed sea beast’s tail dips below his hip bone before he’s on top of me.

“Are you…” he starts.

“Yes.” My answer is yes to every question he could ask.

Yes, I’m sure.

Yes, I take a contraceptive. (It helps that I can grow it myself.)

Yes, I want this.

Cal kisses me roughly as he lines himself up to my entrance and presses in. I moan loudly at the intrusion, growing fuller and fuller with each slow, tortuously luxurious stroke. When I am full to the brim with him, he thrusts harder and impossibly deeper.

Our bodies move in perfect synchronicity like waves crashing upon the shore. I claw at his back, desperate for more. More friction. More power. More him. In this moment, I need Cal more than I need my next breath—and I’m not certain how I ever breathed before him.

“Fuck,” he says against my lips. “You are perfect, Ivy.”

Heavy rain pounds on the window, casting the room in a dull light as magic barrels through me.

He lifts my knee, angling himself until he hits the spot guaranteed to make me fall apart.

As my pleasure builds, the grip on my power slips.

If I don’t do something, the very walls could sprout flowers in seconds.

I mentally picture the clearing where we sparred earlier today.

Casting my power out towards it, I imagine vines of ivy wrapping around the trunks of the trees.

Magic erupts from my body as I orgasm around him.

I scream out at the simultaneous release, the physical and the magical coalescing into a holy absolution.

Cal tightens inside me, thunder shaking the thin window pane as his own groans of pleasure fill the room. He holds me tight against him as we pant, riding out the final swells of bliss.

Cal places another, wholly different kiss on my lips.

It isn’t rough or eager like before, but delicate and full of adoration.

And, even though I don’t want to admit it out loud, I know deep down that we are both thoroughly ruined.

Power warms my blood, relishing in the endorphins that flood my brain and aching to be used again.

“Do you feel that?” he whispers against my skin.

We have to talk about the magic we both possess, but I’m not broaching that subject while he’s still inside of me. I’ve taken lovers to bed before, but no one has stripped me of my control over my magic. Whatever I’m feeling in my veins right now, Cal clearly feels it too.

I nod, unable to form a sentence that feels appropriate for this moment. Unable to say anything without giving a voice to the one thing I don’t want to talk about. Whatever the gods have in store for us, I fear we have catapulted into an orbit not even they could stop.

Cal moves to grab a small towel from the bedside table, standing to his full height.

In the dying light of the stormy evening, I take in all of him.

From the broad expanse of his shoulders, to the rippling washboard of his abdomen, to the tattoo of a thick ivy vine that wraps around the top of his muscular thigh.

Without thinking, I reach out, tracing the ink with my fingers. That godsdamned tattoo was never the sea beast, was it? I look up to him, desperate for answers to the hundreds of questions that fill my head.

Cal motions for me to lay back, delicately cleaning my inner thighs with the thin cotton towel. He hesitates, clearly weighing how much to divulge in this moment.

“All of it,” I say. “Tell me all of it.”

“I have dreamed of a woman every night since I was ten years old. A woman who has hair the color of a newborn fawn.” He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear as he continues.

“A woman of porcelain skin,” he says, dragging his knuckles across my cheekbones, “with a dusting of freckles and emerald green eyes.”

“Those aren’t uncommon features,” I deflect. “It could be a coincidence.”

“Coincidence?” Cal cups my face in his hands, forcing me to look fully into his stormy eyes. The rain outside intensifies as his words boom like thunder in our space. “The woman in my dreams has the power to make the earth tremble at her whim. Does that sound like coincidence to you?”

I swallow thickly at his admission. My fingers absently trace the tattooed vine again, gently grazing the crescent-shaped birthmark hidden within the largest leaf as I let his words sink in.

“Five years ago, I saw you in Amale protesting on the palace steps. I was buying a pastry from a cart when I heard your voice above the crowd. My heart recognized you immediately.”

“That’s when you got the tattoo?” I ask.

“No. I’ve had that for much longer.”

Cal’s thumb gently swipes away the tear that leaks from my eye against my will. He brings his forehead to rest against mine as if it’s always meant to be there.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Ivy.”

And I know, deep in my soul, that he’s telling the truth, even if I don’t want to believe him. I could grab my clothes and bolt out of the room right now and it wouldn’t make it any less true. This man, this fearsome and unexpectedly compassionate man, is mine.

And there’s a very real, very scary possibility that I might be his, too.