Chapter 5
Five
Iwake sometime in the night, unsure what woke me up.
I stare forward into the dark, waiting for my eyes to adjust, to remind me where I am, when I hear something shift behind me.
I flip over onto my back, and it takes me a second to figure out what I’m seeing in the pitch black darkness of my new cave.
A dark form stands beside my bed, two flames burning bright in his face. I sit up, dread settling in my stomach. “Cage? Is everything okay?”
In the light of his eyes, I see him nod. “Yes.” He steps forward, planting one knee on my mattress and then both of his hands. He seems to slide across the sheets to me, until his face is inches from mine. “I woke wanting you. I must have you again. May I?”
I’m nodding before the question is all the way out of his mouth, a kind of relief settling into my bones that’s completely unexpected.
I wanted him here, yes, I definitely did, but I wasn’t going to be the one to make the first move.
And now he is, pushing the covers off my body and crawling on top of me.
His eyes are nothing but small flames, almost not even there, when he bends down to kiss me.
There’s a moment when doubt becomes vapor in the air with nothing left to make it concrete, and when Cage’s tongue finds mine, my doubt vanishes like a bad dream in the sunlight.
He came to me. I didn’t have to go to him.
He came to me, he wanted me, even if it’s just sex.
He has my clothes off in seconds, the ones that were left at the end of my bed, probably some kind of ceremonial sleep garment or something, And then he starts to devour me.
He kisses his way down my neck, but it’s like he’s tasting me, opening his mouth against my skin and licking with every kiss.
Down my chest and across both of my breasts and then to my stomach.
The kisses aren’t urgent. They’re slow and sweet, and it’s like he’s still waking up himself, moving slow and sleepy.
And when he finds his way back to my mouth, covering me with his huge, hulking frame, he gently pins my hands above my head and kisses me deep.
Before, in the throne room, that was him claiming me in front of everyone, but now, this feels like he’s claiming me in secret. He’s showing me that I’m his.
Pushing my legs apart, he settles between them. He slides into me deep, and I whimper against his mouth. My knees brush against his sides, and when he frees my hands, I can’t help but clutch him tighter to me. When I wrap my legs around his waist, he grunts.
It’s surprising to me how gentle it is, gentle enough that I almost feel bad for how rough I was with him earlier.
He was a virgin, after all, if what everyone says about the Isiriel is true.
Maybe this was what he wanted on that throne, slow and steady, instead of the way I took him.
But he wasn’t exactly complaining when we were up there.
I want to make this good for him, though.
I want him to know all the different ways that sex can be good.
He buries his face in my neck, lips trailing down my skin. I clench my inner muscles, focusing more on his pleasure than my own, but when he groans, clearly liking it as much as I hoped he would, pain blooms on my neck.
“Ow!” I shout, and Cage jerks away from me. Going up on his elbows, he presses the palm of his hand against my neck, but the heat of his body just makes the pain worse. “Fuck,” I hiss, pushing his hand away, and then he’s gone completely, sitting on his knees at the foot of the bed.
I press my own hand to the burn on my neck and look at him. It must have been his eyes. I got him too excited, and they must have flared too high.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice thick. “I’m so sorry, my love. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“It’s okay.” I push myself up and look at him sitting there, his eyes locked on me and his mouth turned down in a frown. Every muscle in his body is tight, and between his legs, his cock is still standing at attention. If it wasn’t for the look on his face, I would laugh. “Cage, it’s fine.”
He bares his teeth. “Fine? I hurt you. I’m meant to bring you pleasure, and instead, I burn you.
” He stands and paces away from the bed in all of his nude glory.
“This was a mistake. We are clearly not physically compatible. I will keep my distance from now on. I will sleep in my room. I will not touch you again.”
I stare at him with my mouth hanging open. “What? No. Look, I know you’re new to this whole sex thing, but I’m not, and if you tell me that I have to spend the rest of my life married to you without having sex with you, I might die. Especially because–” I cut myself off. Nope. Not going there.
He takes a step back toward the bed, toward me.
“Why especially?” He looks so pitiful, his shoulders slumped and his mouth turned down at the corners.
Isn’t this the scary fire monster that threatened to put me to death when I came through the portal?
He’s known as a fierce warrior and a stern leader, but right now, he looks like a little boy who’s in trouble.
So, I throw him a bone. Literally. “Especially because now I know how good it feels to have you inside me.”
His eyes burn higher, the tips of the flames poking out enough to touch the top curve of his eye holes. “Does my cock please you?”
I snort. Does his cock please me? His massive, ridged cock?
That’s certainly putting it mildly. I stand and watch with pride as he takes in my naked body.
I’m shocked by how much I want to please him, but I do.
I want him to want me. I want him to be miserable without me.
I want the idea of not having sex with me to make him feel like he’ll die.
I want him to feel about me the way I feel about him.
God, when did that even happen?
“Yes, your cock pleases me, my king, and I don’t want to go without it. Without you.”
When I’m close enough, he puts his hands out and settles them on my shoulders, like he can’t keep himself from touching me.
“Perhaps all we need is to learn each other a little better. Maybe we just need to conduct an experiment.”
His flames die down to a small blaze. “An experiment?”
I reach down between us and wrap my hand around him. The flames immediately burst back into twin infernos. I slide my hand up and down, feeling each ridge as I go, wet from me.
“An experiment. Maybe we just need to see where your limits are. We’ll try a few things, and I need you to focus on controlling your flames.”
“My solis.”
I stop stroking for a second. “What?”
“That is what we call them. Our solis.”
To reward him for giving me that bit of information, I squeeze him tight around the head of his cock. His breath comes out on a grunt, and his solis burn higher. “When you get to something that’s so good that you can’t control them anymore, we’ll know where your limits are. How does that sound?”
His fingers caress my neck, slowly trailing down to my breasts. He leans forward, pressing his lips to the sore spot on my neck. “I’m at your mercy, my love.”
My brain stutters to a stop. My love. He called me that before, too, but my mind didn’t process it. My love. It’s just something they say. He doesn’t mean it literally.
His tongue peeks out and licks at my skin. I pull my attention back to his dick in my hand. I continue to stroke him, pulling away a little so that I can see his solis. And then I reach down and cup his balls. Like I thought they would, his solis flame high.
“Control it,” I whisper to him, and he makes a sound in the back of his throat, like a growl. But the flames burn lower. So I drop to my knees in front of him.
Annaleigh told me that Kale didn’t really understand the concept of oral when they first had sex, so it doesn’t surprise me when Cage just watches me patiently. He doesn’t know what it means for me to be on my knees, and I can’t wait to show him.
He runs his fingers through my hair, his claws scratching lightly at my scalp in a way that makes me shiver. “I feel you’re at an advantage,” he says. “Were you to have solis, I would know what pleases you beyond distraction as well.”
I smile up at him. “I could just tell you.” I cover his hand with mine, and then I curl my fingers around his, until his own fingers curl in my hair. His face is curious, but I just grin at him. And then I wrap my lips around the tip of his cock.
His solis burst high, like a firecracker, and he shouts up at the ceiling of the cave. The sound booms around us like thunder, and I have to pull my mouth off of him so that I can laugh.
“I take it we’ve reached the limit of your control.”
With the top of his head on fire, he wraps his other hand in my hair. “Please do not stop,” he says between his teeth.
As if I would be that cruel.
I take him in my mouth again, and this time, when I see the flames of his eyes burn higher, I just suck harder, take him deeper.
I don’t usually have a terribly sensitive gag reflex, but the ridges of his cock brushing against the roof of my mouth makes it harder for me to take him.
I give him my best though, sucking hard and reveling in the sounds he makes.
I feel the vein against my tongue become engorged, and then Cage uses his hold on my hair to pull me off of him.
He turns quickly and, giving his cock a few more strokes, comes on the ground.
His cum burns bright yellow and orange on the stone floor, and I watch it in fascination as it slowly starts to cool, turning a dull red and then eventually black.
Standing above me, Cage sucks in heavy breaths, halfway bent at the waist.
I wipe my mouth, feeling particularly proud of myself. But then Cage is bending, grabbing onto my hips and lifting me against his body. He takes three large steps and then drops me onto the bed. I bounce, laughing and feeling very content, like slipping into a warm bath.
“You must allow me to give you intense pleasure,” he says, covering my body with his again. Between us, his cock is hot, like something that just came out of an oven. He reaches between us and slips it into me without effort. I’m so slippery that he hits deep with one quick thrust.
I cry out against his mouth. “Do Isiriel males not go soft?” I gasp.
“Oh, they do. But I want you so much that I doubt I will be soft for a very long time.”
This makes desire curl deep in my stomach, even more desire than was already there. My hand snakes down, finding his ass and pulling him in tight to me.
He grunts. “Tell me what you like,” he says. “I want to make you lose control.”
“I want it hard,” I say. I loved how gentle he was being with me earlier, but now that I’m so turned on I feel like I might melt, I just want to be fucked. “Be rough with me.”
I feel gratified when his solis flame high again.
Apparently, he likes the idea of that just as much as I do.
He stands, tugging me closer to the edge of the bed and then lifting my legs with a hand under each of my knees.
Holding my legs wide open, he thrusts into me hard, and my eyes roll back into my head.
With each thrust, he hits deep enough to make me scream, until I’m just lying there with my mouth open, gasping up at the ceiling.
I snake my hand down, pressing it over my clit.
I feel lost to the pleasure, and when Cage’s fingers collide with mine, eventually sliding my hand away so that he can replicate my movements against my clit, I’m gone.
I come so hard that I fear I might black out.
My ears ring, and my whole body vibrates, and before it’s over, Cage leans forward and devours my mouth with his.
And long after the aftershocks of my orgasm have started to fade, we stay like that, kissing and kissing and kissing. Until eventually, I start to get sleepy, my limbs getting heavy.
This time, Cage doesn’t mention a bath, and I’m thankful because, even if I had someone to help bathe me, I would probably still fall asleep in the tub. Cage helps me crawl up to the pillows and then covers me with my blanket before pulling away.
“No,” I say, the word bursting out of me. I shoot up in bed, grabbing onto his arm before he can move. “No, please stay.”
I can feel his hesitation in the long moment that he looks at me. And then he peels back the covers and climbs in beside me. For a moment, we lay there on our sides, looking at each other, and then he reaches out and strokes a single finger down my cheek.
“Goodnight, my love,” he says.
I want to discuss that, address it, beg him to tell me what he means by it, but instead, I get swept into sleep.