Chapter Sixteen Kian #2
She’s beautiful, and my body remembers vividly how good she felt on top of me, taking me, riding me. That’s all.
I scoot out of my pants. Awkwardly, but still, I manage it. I am totally bare. The hungry way she looks at me makes me twitch.
“May I?” she asks, her hand hovering over me.
I nod, and she wraps her fingers around me.
Gone are the gentle caresses. She grips me with a firmness that makes me moan.
She leans her face close to mine, very carefully, not getting the sharp edge of the phoenix’s beak anywhere near my skin. “Now tell me.”
“Tell you what, beauty?” I ask. My mind is not working. I literally cannot think of a single thing beyond this moment.
She smiles as if she can read my mind. “Tell me what you want to do to me.”
I do. I tell her how I want her body around me, on top of me.
I tell her about the filthy things I want to do to her.
The way I want to make her scream with my hands and mouth and cock.
As I do, she moves her hand up and down on me and makes encouraging sounds.
She is still fully clothed, wearing a skull of a creature, a symbol of power that I abhor. And she’s about to make me climax.
I should stop. I should reciprocate. The things I am telling her are true. I know I suggested no sex, but I regret that choice in this moment. I want my mouth on her, my cock in her.
I need her.
“I will tell you what I want,” she says when I lose my words. I am so, so close to losing all control. I have not even touched her. “I want you to come.”
“No,” I say, holding back with every ounce of my will. “Not yet.”
She pauses, instantly. Her voice is earnest, serious, when she says, “Do you want me to stop?”
I thrust up into her hand, loving the feel of her on me. I don’t want her to stop, I just don’t want to come. Yet. A good lover brings their partner pleasure first. And here I am, naked and about to lose myself all over her hand without even having touched her.
I’m incapable of words, but Adela sees to the heart of me.
“I want to watch you.” Her voice is low, thick with desire. “I want to watch you take your pleasure. But only if you want that, too.”
Again I move my hips, grinding against her. “Yes.” I moan. She licks her lips and instantly begins to move her hand on me again.
“Come for me,” she demands. “Now.”
I do, an explosion of want that makes a mess of us both. After a few moments so the world can right itself again and I can breathe, I move to kiss her, but she pulls away again. I hold her jaw and tilt her head. I know she worries about scratching me. “That was amazing. You are amazing.”
She smiles and scoots to the edge of the bed as if she is going to get up and leave. “That was very fun.”
“Oh, we are not done, beauty.” I go down on my knees before her. She still has her clothes on, which is suboptimal—I really am desperate to see her—but I can’t wait another moment to taste her want.
I push up the hems of her robe and bury my face in her without preamble. She is as delicious as I expect, already wet and swollen with want. I lap her up, loving the way she moves and moans against my face and fingers.
I grip one perfect thigh and press it away so I can get deeper into her. I press hard against her, licking. She clenches and throbs around my fingers, and I gently hook them in a “come hither” motion.
And she does. Suddenly climaxing hard, spasming beautifully. I tease her with little licks that make her twitch and when she whimpers for mercy, I give her a kiss on each thigh.
Afterward, I lie down in bed and hold my arms open to her.
She crawls up next to me, tucking the beak of the phoenix down and into my chest. I put my chin on top of her head.
I both love and hate how well we fit. Some part of me I don’t understand wants more of her.
Not sexually—I’m satiated there, at least for the moment—but to know her more.
I think about her life in the valley, what might matter to her. There’s been one thing that I’ve been curious about since I realized her family is just her and her dad.
“Tell me about your family,” I say. “When did your mother die?”
“Die?”
“Surely she’s dead,” I reply. “I haven’t met her, and it’s not as if keepers leave the valley.”
She tenses in my arms, and I wish I could see her face.
“She did leave, actually. When I was twelve. She left a note saying she’d be back by the time the spring trees had bloomed. I haven’t seen her since. I honestly don’t know if she is dead or alive. But she did leave.”
I get the sense she doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, and something deep inside of me that I don’t understand compels me to share something as well. “I lost my parents almost twenty years ago as well. But they are most assuredly dead.”
I think of that morning. It was crisp, and the sky was a brilliant, beautiful blue, thick with fluffy clouds.
Against Aunt Ujvala’s direct instructions, I went to the courtyard of the Temple of the Huntress and stood on the steps so I could see.
Mom spotted me first, and then Dad. They were too far away to hear, but I watched them each say, “I love you.”
I was so full of anger and despair. I was still so young, but I knew with certainty I would never be okay without them.
So instead of saying the thing I always said in response—“I’ve loved you for more of my life”—through tears and snot, my fingernails digging into my palms, I replied to the air, “I hate you.”
And I did. I hated them for getting caught. For leaving me.
My only comfort was that they never saw. Their executioners completed their tasks before “hate” left my lips.
“I watched them die.”
She doesn’t reply, just nestles in closer until we fall asleep. When I wake from the short nap, she is gone. I tell myself not to miss her. She is not mine.
Even if my body and my heart want her to be.