Chapter 71 Love Is a Phoenix #3
His fingers tighten slightly, possessively, as though he is suddenly worried I’m going to push him away.
Then I feel his thumbs rub against my skin as he presses them into the waistband.
He takes one step back, and then another, guiding me gently with him.
His eyes are on mine, as though watching for any hesitation.
Once we’re in the center of the room again, he presses my leggings off my hips.
He kneels in front of me as he carefully removes them from each ankle.
I rest a hand on his shoulder to help keep my balance.
My skin pebbles further as I stand, fully exposed, in front of him. I watch as his eyes scan over my entire body, ending as he meets my gaze.
“Dark gods, you're gorgeous,” he says. His voice is tight and full of heat. His expression makes the ragged edges of my breath catch in my throat.
Still watching me, looking through his eyelashes, he kisses one hip bone and then the other.
This might be new to me, but some part of me, some instinct, understands pleasure and knows what I desire. Where that knowledge comes from doesn’t matter now, so I give it no more than a brief moment of awareness. Then I tangle my hands in his hair and guide him where I want.
All thought leaves me as his tongue touches my clit.
My knees go weak, and he chuckles as I wobble yet again, and then they fully give out, and he guides me gently down to the floor.
Kneeling between my drawn-up legs, he leans over me, a hand resting on the floor on either side of me.
The image of being trapped in the cage of his arms at the concert flashes across my memory yet again.
He leans down and kisses my temple, then he leans down further, his face along the side of mine, and whispers, “Tell me you’re mine,” in my ear.
“Just yours,” I manage to gasp as he pulls back to stare at me.
His pupils are blown. He lets out a similarly ragged breath and then kisses his way down my body. Then his tongue is on my clit again, and my hips buck against his face. I feel pressure on my abdomen as his hand presses firmly against my stomach, pinning my hips against the floor.
He pulls his head back, and I whimper as his voice rumbles, “You’re going to come so beautifully for me, but I need you not to move so much.”
Then he presses his tongue against me again, and this time I feel him sucking slightly.
I see stars, and my hips grind against the firm pressure of his hand.
He continues, licking and sucking and the pressure builds in my body until I feel like there has to be some sort of release.
Then I cry out as I feel exactly that crest over me.
I’m blinking the stars from my eyes, my body a limp, compliant pool as he kneels between my legs, one hand on each to keep me from closing them. When my eyes finally focus, I see him licking my release from his lips.
He reaches up as I watch and wipes his chin with the back of his hand. Then he’s propped over me again, his eyes running over my face and down my body. “Gods, you're gorgeous when you do that,” he says. “As though I needed any more encouragement.”
He leans onto his elbows and runs his thumb over my bottom lip. I feel a sting and realize I must have broken the skin earlier when I bit them. He’s staring at my lips. “Fuck. You’re going to kill me,” he grumbles. Then he leans down and kisses me.
By the time he pulls his lips from mine, his tongue lingering against my cupid's bow, I’m seeing stars. Need is just beginning to build in me again from the kiss. The way my body is craving him, craving everything about him, feels dangerous.
The breath crashes out of me as I stare at him. “Please?” I somehow manage.
“Oh no, we’re not being greedy tonight, remember?” Dio says huskily. “We have plenty of time for all the things I want to do to you.”
Then he rises and lifts me, holding me against his chest.
He carries me to the bathroom and begins to fill the tub.
Once it is sufficiently filled, he lowers me gently into the warm water.
I hiss as it wraps around me, finding every aching muscle.
It begins to soak in, and my body goes languid with the heat.
I rest my head back against the tub, feeling utterly at peace.
Then he washes me, his hands gentle. As he does so, I can’t help the moan that escapes with my breath.
“Fuck I love it when you make that sound,” he groans.
I’m beginning to fall asleep by the time he lifts me out of the water. He dries me and wraps me gently in a large towel. Then he carries me out to one of the soft armchairs. “Stay right here while I clean up,” he says.
I close my eyes, cuddling back against the chair, my feet drawn up, tucked into a ball. He’s back soon with a towel wrapped low around his waist, his hair hanging in damp tendrils on his forehead. I stare at him, feeling as though I might lose my mind at the feeling in my heart.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he rumbles at me with a smirk. “I just got you cleaned up.”
He holds out a hand. I take it, and as he guides me back to the thick rug, he says, “This will have to do for tonight.”
As I sit, he goes to the couch, my normal bed, and takes a blanket and sheet from the pile beside it before joining me. As he wraps himself around me and pulls the covers over us, sleep is already claiming me.
Iwake, not immediately remembering where I am. The couch feels particularly firm beneath me, and then I hear his breathing and remember.
Dio’s sleeping form is tangled with mine, and we’re partially covered in one of Lily’s clean white sheets. His face is turned toward me, and it is relaxed with sleep. I don’t think I have ever seen him look this peaceful.
I have never experienced love before, but I know now, as I look at him, that’s what this feeling is.
It is so much more than what the books made it sound like, so much more than what I feel in Malam’s memories.
I feel as though a wildfire blazed through my chest, consumed my heart, and in its place left a phoenix, risen from the ashes.
As I continue to look at Dio, it feels as though the phoenix spreads its wings in my chest. I’m filled with beautiful, burning agony as I take a breath, the utter intensity of the love I feel for this man.
I notice a shock of hair that rests over one of his eyes. I reach out to brush it aside. Before I can do so, suddenly my whole body tenses as my instincts scream so loudly at me it is as though I can’t breathe, can’t see.
Somehow, I untangle myself without waking him, dress, strap my sword to my back, and rush as quickly as I can from the building.
There happens to be a carriage outside the building, and I press too many pounds, which I don’t remember grabbing, into the carriage driver’s palm.
I give him an address that I don’t know or recognize, even as I say it out loud.
Climbing quickly into the carriage, it takes off, the driver taking my request for speed seriously.
The trip passes in a blur, and I leap from the carriage even as it stops.
I rush into the building that I find myself in front of.
I run through the door and up several flights of stairs.
My feet follow a path I have no conscious awareness of.
I move from the stairs down a hallway to a door that stands partially open.
I hear a screaming in my head.
I push through the door. Even in this focused state, I freeze for a moment as I see the scene in front of me.
Two angels crowd a table with Lily behind it, a kitchen knife in her hand. I register belatedly that the screaming wasn’t in my head.
I don’t remember drawing my sword, but suddenly I am between Lily and the angels, pushing her back through a doorway. I have no care for the knife she holds. Somehow, I manage to avoid being stabbed.
I face down the angels, the sword held casually in my hand as I study them. For some reason, my vision chooses this moment to partially blur, and when it clears, one of the angels is too close. I barely block him in time, and it is clumsy. His sword leaves a mark on my arm that feels like acid.
I press forward into his space, and he parries my blows, his eyes on mine, reading my face and my next move. My wings, where they meet my shoulders, pulse slightly with pain. Instincts scream at me. This is different, be careful.
The awful dance continues, and I mark him, but this time, so does he mark me. There is a hazy feeling in my head, and my body feels sluggish. I am so focused on the angel in front of me that I don’t recognize I have made an error until there is a sudden ache in my chest, but not that of a blade.
Even as I try to understand the reason for the ache, I see a knife leave the hand of the other angel, the one who has been watching us fight. I brace myself for the impact, but it goes past me.
I wasn’t the intended target.
I turn around to see the knife bury itself in the middle of Lily’s forehead. She dies so quickly that she doesn’t even cry out, but I do. Even as I hear the scream leave my lips, I feel an impact against my back, and looking down, I see a sword protruding from my abdomen.
I suddenly have no breath.
My body jerks as the sword is pulled free, and I slump to the ground. I feel or hear footsteps leaving and the door closing behind them.
The room spins. I think my instincts are screaming at me, but all I can see is the knife hitting Lily playing on repeat in my mind.
My instincts finally manage to take over, and I drag myself into another room, some sort of living space. Everything is going dark; the speed with which the room is spinning is increasing. Pain continues to explode through me.
A trail of black blood trails out behind me, marking my path.
My body, as though it is listening to some other master, takes a clay sculpture from a short table beside me and throws it through a nearby window with nearly all the remaining strength I possess. Unsure why I even made the effort, I roll over onto my back and close my eyes.
However, as I close my eyes, black wings seem to cross my vision, and I scrape my eyelids back open and tilt my head to see that there is a single, familiar crow perched on a railing outside the window.
“Get Malam,” I choke out, feeling blood on my lips, only just able to make out the crow as it takes flight.
With my strength then fully gone, I close my eyes and let the darkness pull me away.