30. Ivory
“Are you asleep?” Adrian whispered as he turned off the TV.
Her eyelids refused to open—each must’ve weighed at least ten pounds—and the comfort of Adrian’s chest felt better than the plushest pillow as it rose and fell under her head. “Mmm, no,” she mumbled. “I think I will be soon, though.”
“Do you want to borrow something comfier?” he asked. “You don’t have to sleep in those clothes.”
She smiled, in love with the thought of wearing anything that belonged to him, but doubted her limbs would cooperate enough to change. “No, it’s okay. I’ll stay like this.”
His couch felt perfect, especially with him in it. She must be the luckiest girl on the planet, fed, warm, and cared for.
“All right, if you say so.” Her chest pillow shifted, and to her disappointment, he slowly untangled himself. She clung to the blanket with the little strength her body had left, not wanting to lose that, too. A sleepy haze washed over her mind, and she became faintly aware of the bathroom faucet running in the background. Then, the hinge of the bedroom door creaked before everything faded to black.
“Time for sleep,” her knight whispered, watching over her even in the realm of dreams. A set of arms scooped her up, and she blinked back into consciousness.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“To bed, silly.” He didn’t look down at her, too busy navigating in the near dark, but she stared up at his face all the same. The sharp angle of his jaw was jagged in the shroud of night, his stubble outlining two perfectly shaped lips and the slender rise of his cheekbone, feathered with thin stripes of his eyelashes. The solid hardness of his arms banded around her, but his strength didn’t come as a surprise.
“I thought—” She paused, focusing to remember correctly. “I thought you don’t bring girls into your bedroom.”
He sighed and cast a glance down as he stood at the side of his bed. “How many times do I have to tell you that you’re not some girl, Iv? And what am I supposed to do, sleep without a blanket? You’re currently wrapped in the only one I have.”
“Oh.”
He set her down on a cool mattress, and she sat up. It was too dark to see much, but she could tell his room wasn’t nearly as barren as the rest of the apartment. Silhouettes scattered the room, CDs and knick-knacks were stacked on his dresser while clothes were strewn across a pile of boxes next to his desk.
Looking at his personal space felt forbidden. Like she might find out some scary secret he kept from the rest of the world. But he’d already told her all his secrets, even though they had been scary. She didn’t know how to feel about all of it, or more accurately, how he wanted her to feel about all of it. About knowing his past and being the reason he’d almost given up on finding out the truth. About seeing a side of him he’d tried so hard to eradicate.
Her gaze honed in on the most important part of the room: her black knight. Broad shoulders rippled as he balanced against the dresser to take off his socks, then turned and stripped off his shirt.
She gasped, now wide awake.
“Adrian!” He faced her, and more of the sickly blue-green bruise wrapping under his arm came into view. “What the heck is that?”
Another bruise ran up his forearm, skin dark and mottled like spilled ink. It was the most painful thing she’d ever seen. “Are those from Jace?”
“ Shh ,” he whispered, switching off the light to hide his wounds and crawling into bed next to her. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll heal.”
“That,” she emphasized, “has to stop. You can’t put yourself at risk, either. It’s not how this works.” Her hand tenderly moved along his side, eyes adjusting to the dark. The ugly mark remained visible even in the shadows. “Did you get it checked out?”
He gave a resigned sigh as if remembering how stubborn she could be and placed a hand over hers. “No. All a doctor would tell me to do is get rest. There’s nothing else to do for a cracked rib.”
She groaned. “I hate seeing you like this. What if it was me who’d gotten bruised?”
“If Jace gave you a bruise, I would kill him,” Adrian said, suddenly not dismissive at all.
“Exactly. Now, what am I supposed to do? Go beat him up for you?” She was joking. Mostly.
He pulled her down beside him and drew her against his muscled chest. Furry wisps of dark hair tickled her cheek. “I explained he had to think he won, didn’t I? That means I took a few hits here and there. It’s nothing I wasn’t prepared for.”
She huffed against him, still annoyed, but his skin felt warm, and cuddling sounded much better than fighting. In the end, there was nothing else to do but let it heal. “I know,” she whispered.
But—one way or another, Jace had to pay. They couldn’t put this behind them. Not for his father’s sake or for his friend’s. Or for Adrian’s.
“You know how Eve was made from Adam’s rib?” he murmured, dipping his nose into her hair.
“Yeah,” she replied.
“Well I have you now, so I get an extra rib. No need to worry about my old ones.”
She scoffed and laid her head on his arm, careful not to pressure his side. “You only get one extra.”
He smiled. “I know. Ribs are pretty important. Do you know why?”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because they protect your heart.”
Hers gave a profound thud of its own at his implication, and she curled into him, moving her hand over his heart. She let her fingers run through the patch of coarse hair between his pecs, hoping her touch reached deeper than mere flesh and blood. “Then I’ll do my best to protect yours.”
“Thank you,” he whispered. For a moment, his hard exterior cracked, and the strong beat of his heart resonated under her hand. It reminded her of all the sorrow he’d held in for years, all the grief he didn’t know where to put, all the anger he’d tried to keep at bay. He’d been alone, too. He didn’t only need someone to hold, but someone who wouldn’t let go.
“Remember what you said about holding me?” she whispered. “That you wouldn’t be able to let go?”
“Mhm,” he hummed, wedging them closer with a strong pull of his arm. When she hesitated, he tipped up her chin, eyes black diamonds in the dark.
“You make me feel the same way,” she finished under her breath.
“Oh Iv…” His hand moved to her jaw, thumb dancing at the corner of her mouth. “I know. I’ve always known. And because of that, you have no idea what else I want to make you feel.”
The metal of his rings stroked down her cheek, warm and smooth, sparking her nerves to life. She could barely see, but every other sensation prickled with awareness. The heat of his skin against hers, the roll of his muscles as he leaned in, the way his breath teased her lips and the sound of his barely-there inhale. The softness of his lips finding hers.
Her world shattered—the same way it did every time they collided. The same way a collision of two neutron stars sent ripples through space and time, his possession rippled through her and left in its wake a mine of precious, elemental revelations. Her submission. His dominance. Power that was hers to claim. Control that was his to take. All of it coiled with a dense emotion that tugged on the fabric of her being.
There would never be enough kisses between them.
But tonight, it didn’t end there. His hand threaded through her hair and tipped her head back as he licked along the seam of her lips, then entwined their tongues. She let him press her into the pillows, arched her back as he bore down, caging her in.
Her hands roamed over his chest and abdomen, around the flex of his obliques and the bunch of biceps on his arms. He held himself close enough to let her feel his heat but far enough so her breath could expand into her chest with rushed gasps. Her nipples pebbled under her shirt, and she melted into the kiss.
“I never want you to stop,” she said, parting long enough to say the words before letting him continue his ministrations.
“Then I won’t,” he mumbled. “I’ll kiss you until you forget what it ever felt like not to be kissed. Then I’ll fuck you until you forget what it ever felt like not to be mine.”
As if that already wasn’t true. As if she could even recall a time before. Before he saw her. Before her name passed from his lips. Before she’d burned under his touch and bloomed under his praise.
She couldn’t help but squirm, panting as she kissed him back. Her heart pounded so hard it hurt. She’d waited so long for this. Waited for him for what felt like her whole life.
“Don’t stop,” she breathed, repeating it over and over again like a sacred incantation.
Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.
Her legs fell open as he settled himself between them. His lips explored hers, teeth greedily nipping until her skin stung and then licking away the pain. His erection twitched against her pelvis, fully hard and perfectly placed to rub her clit. Even through their clothes, she could tell he was big and delicious, her core eager and greedy to be filled with pleasure.
“I should wait,” he said, even as his hand grazed down her side and inched up her shirt, tracing the curve of her breast. “We should talk first—”
“Yes,” she interrupted. “We should wait but don’t. Please don’t stop.”
He groaned, scraping stubble and teeth along her jaw, burrowing his nose in her neck and smelling her hair against the pillow. “Just a little, to make you feel good.”
His fingers dipped between them, hot and sure, finally slipping into the secret place between her hips and under her clothes. Then they were there, right where she needed them. Right where every emotion blended into the next, and nothing was his or hers or wrong or right . It just was. And hell, it was good. So good that she moaned under her breath, so good that he bit her neck in response and then pulled her into another searing kiss.
He parted her folds that were already wet and slippery, perfect for him to find the rhythm and pressure that sent her to the brink in record time. Their breaths mingled, catching as he twisted inside of her and teased out a kind of pleasure she’d never experienced.
“So soft. So sweet.” His thrusts deepened to reach an impossible place, and she whimpered. “Just how I knew you would be.”
His thumb rubbed her clit with precision while his fingers stretched her pussy, curling and thrusting until she cried out beneath him. Her body wanted to break, but she wouldn’t let it. Adrian wouldn’t let it, forcing her to take as much as he could give. Inevitably, her climax grew closer until she couldn’t contain herself, until it filled and consumed her.
“I’m—I’m going to come,” she whimpered through their kiss.
“Good girl.” His lips grew more demanding, teeth grazing her with a ferocity that matched the onslaught building in her abdomen. As if for all this time, it wasn’t her that had been denied the pleasure, but him—he who had been denied the right to feel her come, he who was punished by not touching her, by not claiming her.
A second finger joined the first, picking up the pace until her legs shook and her hips bucked into his hand. Her nerves frayed as her mouth opened in a silent, desperate cry. Bright spotlights of color scattered over her vision, and then pleasure tore through her body.
Wave after wave, she resonated like a well-tuned instrument. But instead of slowing down, his two fingers sunk further into her pussy, fighting their way through the contractions and shaking her to the core. They plunged in and out, curling and scissoring and pushing, pushing, pushing, until she almost burst from the pressure.
Once wasn't enough. He was going to make her come again.
“That’s it. Give me another.” His palm ground into her already sore and sensitive clit, coated with the residue of her first climax, and she moaned into his insistent mouth. “Hush, you can take it,” he mumbled, kissing her all the while.
She tried, focusing instead on his warm lips and the erotic dance of his tongue. The reprimand of his teeth. His firm arms and legs and torso that overshadowed her own.
A second orgasm crashed over her, shaking each cell until it hummed with a stream of endorphins. If she cried or screamed or both, she didn’t know. All that mattered was clinging to this one singularity in time, this one paradox where she felt more alive than she’d ever been and, at the same time, had ceased to exist.
“Rest now, my sweet witch,” he whispered, withdrawing his hand and laying back on his side, pulling her into his chest as she regained a sense of reality. “I have so much more planned for you.”
Her lids were too heavy to open, limbs too relaxed to move, but even so, she didn’t want him to take the honorable route now. She didn’t want him to think she’d take a single thing from him and not give a piece of her in return.
“I want you to feel good, too,” she mumbled. His dick was still hard, conveniently wedged between her thighs, and she gave it a little nudge. Reawakened, it pushed back through his pants.
“For that , I do insist we wait,” Adrian chuckled, tucking himself away so she couldn’t keep teasing. “Don’t worry. As long as I can feel your heart beating next to mine, I’ll feel good.”
There were no words she could utter in response save a contented sigh and all the adoration in the world.