Chapter 27 Ari #3
The reminder of philosophers’ fates sobers Ari, makes him hurt for Dominique. “She’ll make a bigger difference than I ever will,” he says, “even with fewer years to live.”
“Oh, come on, Ari, think about it. Rudra brought you over from halfway around the world. He wasn’t even scouting for a new apprentice when he saw you in Surat.”
“Well.” Ari gives her a mock scowl. “He could have told me that. I might have spoken up more in class.”
Isla laughs. “That would have ruined it. Maybe you wouldn’t have tried hard enough, had you known. Maybe you wouldn’t have stayed until midnight at the library every day for years on end, studying your little heart out.”
“He thought I was worthless.”
“Did you think so?”
Ari sobers a little. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Isla shakes her head. “Wounded hearts with something to prove are always the ones who change the world.”
“I thought I was the remedial kid.”
“You are the most promising alchemist Lumines has seen in decades. Don’t you understand?
Bioalchemists can influence decisions made at the highest levels.
They can put a hand on someone’s back and suddenly make them feel good about themselves.
They can touch someone’s forehead and flood their body with specific hormones, make them feel sleepy or alert, happy or sad.
They can manipulate emotions, coax someone into changing their mind, can plant an idea in someone’s head. They can move entire nations.”
“Bioalchemy.” Ari looks at her. “Is that my chosen specialty?”
She smiles. “You still don’t grasp why you caught Rudra’s eye.
You’re going to attend hundreds of parties, banquets, galas full of important people.
Business leaders, politicians, people who make the rules.
You’re going to be able to navigate any social setting.
They say bioalchemists are masters of human desire.
And to pair that with your charisma?” She nods.
“You’re going to become the most desirable person in the world. ”
He swallows hard. “Didn’t realize bioalchemists were so good with people.”
Her smile turns sly. “Of course,” she says in a low voice, “you know what else they say bioalchemists are good at.”
“What?”
She leans over to murmur in his ear. “They’re fucking amazing in bed.”
Heat creeps up Ari’s neck. “I don’t know anything about that,” he says.
“Oh, you will.” She sips her beer delicately. “You just need someone to teach you.”
Back at Isla’s apartment, they leave the lights off.
Outside the windows, the city is awash in a haze of twinkling lights.
Isla kisses him the moment she closes her door, slowly at first, then harshly.
He tastes the alcohol on her tongue and kisses her back, presses her against the wall until he can feel himself hardening against her.
Her hands tug his shirt collar loose, undo his buttons.
Where her fingers glide across his bare chest, he feels trails of tingling heat and ice, her faint transmutations raising the hairs on his body.
He unzips her dress so that it collapses in a pool of silk around her feet, then unhooks her bra and slides it off her shoulders.
In the darkness, her pale hair gleams blue.
She guides one of his hands down between her legs, and when he slides a finger inside her, he realizes she is already slick.
His breaths come shallow and hot, and in this blur of night and delirium, he hallucinates.
Long, dark hair brushing against his cheek.
Wide dark eyes, a smattering of freckles.
Sam’s voice, gasping in his ear. Sam’s legs, parting as he strokes her.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but she does, so she tugs on his belt, guiding him to sit on her couch, where she undoes his pants and slides them off. Then she is kneeling before him and taking him into her mouth, and Ari can only part his lips and tilt his head up, his world turning fuzzy.
She sucks him until he can feel a tide building and building in him, his muscles tightening in anticipation.
His breaths are shallow. One of his hands runs through her hair.
She’s looking up at him, her eyes bright in the darkness, and when his gaze locks on hers, the tension in him crests past a breaking point.
Suddenly, he is overwhelmed by the most incredible climax he has ever felt.
He furrows his brows and squeezes his eyes shut—a soft cry emerges from his lips.
In the haze of the aftermath, he senses her straighten from her crouch. When he looks back down at her, she is stroking him with one hand. He is still far too sensitive, and the motion makes him wince.
“Well, you’re going to be a tight fit,” she whispers, her smile crooked, and presses her other hand against the muscles just above his cock. She turns her wrist.
He gasps and stiffens. Almost immediately, the sensation of pleasure returns, and to his disbelief, he stays rock hard in her grasp.
As her hand works up and down his length, he feels the tide rising in him again.
This should be impossible, he thinks, but it’s hard for him to concentrate on anything else right now.
“What are you doing to me?” he whispers.
“I’m transmuting into you all the dopamine your body can handle,” she murmurs with a smile.
Her hand remains pressed against his muscles, and he sucks in his breath as another orgasm engulfs him.
He cries out and shudders against her. “I can keep you hard all night,” she goes on, “and we can play for as long as you can stand it. But I expect you to return the favor.” She straddles him, and this time he feels the heat of her slippery core pressing against him.
“You’re going to learn how to make people beg for you.
” Again, impossibly, the sensation of pleasure returns, and he is ready.
His hands grip her hips as she touches his chin. “So. Shall I teach you how it’s done?”
He nods wordlessly, dizzy with lust, and she smiles before licking his lips so that he can taste himself on them. “Oh, Ari,” she whispers. “You’re beautiful when you come.”
Then she sinks herself down on him, and his mind shatters again, consumed with heat and desire.
She rides him hard, gasping out his name, until she cries out and trembles and wraps her arms around his neck.
He carries her to her bed and they fall onto the sheets together in a wild tumble.
As she wraps her legs around him, she whispers instructions in his ear, telling him how to press his palm flat against her abdomen, how to transmute pleasure inside of her.
Red blood cells into dopamine, water molecules into endorphins and oxytocin.
How to make her feel good. He obeys. Sweat sticks against their skin.
She crests again and again, her short hair spilling around her head in the shape of a teardrop, her eyes clouded with ecstasy.
At times, their rhythm turns languid and unhurried.
She combs her fingers through the thick curls of his dark hair, murmurs instructions to him as he slides his tongue across her wet folds, then moves with him until he comes again.
Other times, he feels like he might break against her, like he can’t bear the feeling a second longer, and he fucks her until she cries out into the pillows.
He loses track of time. Loses track of reality. Dreams of Sam under him, her feet locked behind his back. Catches a glimpse of her dark eyes gazing up at him. Is she here? She can’t be, but everything feels like a fever, and he doesn’t trust himself enough to be sure.
At some deep hour in the night, they collapse against each other at last, their bodies weak and thoroughly spent.
His skin is slick with sweat, cooling in the night air, and his eyes are hooded.
Beside him, Isla smiles sleepily against the pillow.
He admires the curl of her lashes against her cheeks, the short hair flopping across her eyes.
But as exhaustion finally claims him, he imagines Sam again, here, in all her exquisiteness. His heart pulls, aching, and it takes him a moment to realize that the ache is him knowing that he is going to miss her.
Then the darkness closes in, and he falls into the deepest sleep of his life.