Chapter 52 #2
“Why?” he repeated. It didn’t feel like prodding, though.
It was the innocent curiosity that drove his reckless reputation.
It was the need to figure out all the pieces of the world—of her.
Heat flushed through her at the realization that her pieces may just be the most important ones to this beautiful, infuriating, devoted man before her.
Because that was what he was. To his family, to his commitments, and perhaps to her—Roremar Silventa bled devotion.
Why? his steady stare implored.
Because I want you so badly, I fear it will rip my heart from my chest.
Because it’s so intimate—and I already feel too much—it will give you the power to shatter me.
Because I’ve pieced myself back together so many times, I don’t know if I can manage another.
“Because I can’t,” was all she offered, unable to give him everything.
Roremar’s lips set in a firm line as he took her in, and she wasn’t certain what part of her he was seeing.
She’d become so good at shielding, she didn’t even know where the walls ended anymore.
But lately, they’d all been blurring where this warrior was concerned, becoming a bit more opaque as he allowed her to slowly wipe the fog from the glass between them.
Whatever Roremar picked apart had him nodding. “Whatever you need. No kissing.” Then, with one more gentle squeeze of her thighs, he stepped back.
“What are you doing?” Emmeline asked, something within her yearning for his touch again.
“No kissing. No touching.”
The challenge lifted her chin. “What? Why?”
“If I touch you, I’m going to want to kiss you. There’s no way I’m going to resist tasting you. If that’s your boundary, I can’t risk it, Emmeline.”
Fates, her name on his tongue once again. Every time he said it tonight, it undid her a little more. Made her feel a little more seen. Gave her a little more of something personal to remember.
She swallowed. “So what are we doing, then?”
He took a few more steps back and leaned against the wall beside the bathing tub. “You’re going to touch yourself.” He crossed his arms. “And I’m going to watch.”
Her thighs slipped a bit closer, her voice breathless. “What?”
“If that’s okay with you?”
Her flesh was hot, every inch burning with his stare on her. A throbbing started between her thighs, and she squeezed them tighter to alleviate it.
Roremar didn’t miss it, a smirk tilting up one corner of his lips. “I need you to tell me if it’s okay, Em.”
Em. He said it with such ownership, possession. Like that name was his and his alone for her. Something in her sang at the sound.
“Yes,” she breathed. She did want this—to have him see her. It was more exposed and vulnerable than she’d ever been with anyone. This wasn’t mystlights dimmed, feeling each other’s bodies beneath the sheets as both parties found a quick release.
This was intimate. And with him, that didn’t scare her.
No, when he said, “Good. Take off your panties and spread your legs,” the needy part of her glowed at the command.
Anticipation pounding in her chest, she did as he instructed, propping herself on the edge of the counter to shimmy the lace down her legs. His eyes started at hers, taking his time memorizing every piece of her as they dropped down. When his gaze landed between her thighs, the silvers heated.
“Fates, Emmeline,” he exhaled, hands fisting.
She bit her lip. “Regretting your rules?”
He cleared his throat, adjusting the evident length pressing against his leathers. “No. Now I get to watch.” His heated stare on her center turned her molten. “You’re so beautiful.”
Her teeth dug into her bottom lip harder.
She wanted him saying those words from his knees before her again, him fulfilling every fantasy she’d imagined with that tongue of his.
She’d tried not to, but ever since she told him the truth of her past, a reluctant crack had been cleaved in her walls.
And through it, those curiosities flooded.
As she pictured it now, she squirmed on the countertop, wetness gathering before she’d even touched herself.
Roremar met her gaze. “Show me what you do when you’re alone. Show me what you like others to do to you.” His voice tightened over that last sentence, and he pressed the heel of his hand to his chest. “Show me what you’d want me to do to you.”
As soon as Emmeline lowered her fingers between her legs and swiped through her center, as soon as she started rubbing tight circles at the apex of her thighs and her breath slipped into a soft moan, he dropped that hand, all distractions forgotten.
Power pulsed through her as she quickened her pace, their eyes locked. With her other hand, Emmeline kneaded her breast, toying with herself to drive her pleasure higher. Roremar’s eyes bounced between her hands as if he didn’t know which to watch.
Emmeline tipped her head back, eyes slipping closed as she pushed two fingers inside herself and worked her clit with her thumb. She arched into her own hand, and Roremar groaned across the room. Her back curved as the pressure mounted, her body already feeling lax and tight in every way.
“Tell me how it feels,” that sinfully rough voice commanded again.
It felt like it wasn’t enough. Like she wanted more. His hands on her body instead of her own. His fingers drawing out this ragged pleasure. That image of him on his knees, looking up from between her thighs, drove her wild, and she pumped her fingers quicker.
“Like I wish it was you,” she panted.
Roremar groaned again, and Emmeline lifted her head, forcing heavy lids open. His hand was stroking his cock over his pants. Her mouth watered at the sight, release dancing ever closer at the knowledge of what she was doing to him.
Emboldened, Emmeline said, “I want to watch you, too.”
He didn’t have a smart comment to that—didn’t seem able to form one. Instead, he hastily undid the laces of his leathers. When he shoved them and his undershorts off, and his cock sprang free, Emmeline had to grip the edge of the counter.
The hand between her thighs dropped as she took in his size.
Larger than she’d seen before and thick enough that she was desperately imagining what he’d feel like inside of her, how delicious the stretch would be as he worked himself in slowly, inch by inch, an agonizing tease, because of course he was.
How well they’d fit together, and how he’d probably know exactly how to ruin her.
The tip gleamed, and seeing that it was because of her sent another rush of heat through her body.
“Keep going, Huntress,” he said, his playful tone back with the name. “Tell me what you want me to do as you put those fingers back inside your pussy and make yourself come with your eyes on me.”
The words nearly sent her careening over the edge. Heat gathered around her hips and at the base of her spine.
“I want you to stroke yourself,” she said. “I want to see what makes you feel good.”
To learn it, memorize it, though she’d never get to see him like this again.
Roremar nodded, his large hand working himself as she resumed what she’d been doing.
She was so sensitive now, the slightest pressure threatened to make her combust. A small moan escaped her lips.
Roremar tugged himself more roughly, hand gliding over the tip and making his hips jerk, and she thought they were both on the brink.
“Fates, you’re fucking beautiful,” he said. “Your legs spread and dripping on the counter. Finding your own pleasure and getting off on mine.”
“I like you watching,” she admitted. It sent a bolt of power through her, his attention and addiction to her right now making something within her soul light up, a tug humming through her chest, fulfilling some need to be wanted.
At that moment, she thought she’d burn brighter than any starfire. Magic purred hungrily through her veins.
“You have no idea how attractive that is,” he groaned out. “Fates, I want to taste you. Get on my knees for you. Keep any other man from looking at you ever again.”
Another desperate moan left her at the thought. She couldn’t do that, though. No kissing was her boundary, and this had been his in response.
“Keep going,” she instructed.
“I’m close, Em,” Roremar panted. His back was against the wall, his free hand gripping the door like it was the only thing restraining him from flying across the room to her.
“Me, too,” she gasped, not breaking his gaze.
“Good girl,” he said with a smirk. “Now, finish. Do what you need to.”
She pressed tighter, harder circles and crooked her fingers, and in seconds she was falling apart.
Roremar followed with a delicious groan that danced down her spine, spilling over his hand.
Emmeline grasped the cool marble tighter, leaning forward and panting.
She was sweaty and flushed, her hair sticking to her skin.
After a moment, a hand slipped beneath her chin, tilting her gaze up. Roremar had already cleaned himself up enough to tend to her.
“Can I?” he asked.
She nodded, completely dazed as he wet a fresh cloth with warm water and dabbed it across her skin.
When he was done, he lifted her off the counter, holding her up with one arm around her waist. His lips pressed to her forehead in a soft, testing kiss, and she didn’t tell him not to, but she didn’t lift her mouth to his either.
Instead, Emmeline let her eyes slip closed and breathed in.
The way he held her.
The way his heart beat in time with hers.
The way he’d made that feel so intimate and safe and still like she was so wanted, though they couldn’t touch. Something in her blood called to him. Something that had been so lonely all these years, as if it was waiting for him.
“Fates, Emmeline, what’s happening here?” He was always so in control. This was the first time she felt like he was openly admitting he wasn’t.
This, though? This kind of honesty? It danced too close to truths she couldn’t acknowledge. To the intimacy she couldn’t allow, under any circumstance, no matter how much she wanted him or how he looked at her like she was the stars themselves.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” Panic flared through her. A sensation of everything slipping away.
He must have read it on her face, because he massaged the back of her neck and asked, “Are you okay?”
No, she almost said.
No, because he was not supposed to be able to see her.
He was not supposed to be able to glance at her and know the thoughts imprinted on her spirit—the blood-drenched ones and the nightmare stricken, the melodies and the fate laced.
He was not supposed to be able to graze the skin of her waist and light up every inch down to her soul.
She had spent eighteen years intentionally remaining unseen, and this man who waltzed in with his reckless winks and heart-shattering arguments had somehow given her a look that said she was made of glass.
He’d shattered her, broken her wide open, and those sharp pieces sank their edges into her chest. Lodged him behind her ribs where she knew no matter how desperately she wanted to claw him out, she would forever be known by him. He would forever be tied to her.
In tragedy and forevermore, something written by the stars and cursed by them, as well.
But she was still unable to give him everything. So she whispered, “Yes,” and pretended not to feel the sting in her eyes as she pressed her forehead to his chest.
Roremar sighed against her hair, the sound so raw and vulnerable she knew his next words would shatter her even more.
“Before I met you, Emmeline, my life was full, but it was cramped. The suffocating kind of filled that could drown you. But something about being with you flipped a latch. It’s like you expanded all this room in my lungs I didn’t know I had.
” He paused, still massaging her neck. “Maybe it’s that contagious magic your father said you’re full of.
But something about the hours we spent working on this investigation breathed vitality into me that I haven’t felt in…
ever. You’re the stars that ignited the darkness, Huntress.
You showed me how to breathe when the air felt too thick and life too heavy. ”
She inhaled sharply, lungs pinching further with each of his words.
“You’re not stuck in darkness, Roremar, you’ve simply been blinded by it.
We all have days where it presses on us.
” Wrapping her arms around his waist, she considered stopping there, but while she couldn’t give him everything, she could give him this comfort.
“Being with you feels like a leash is wrapped around my chest. It’s a constant pull. ”
As if her feet were tugged out from under her and no matter how firmly she dug her heels in, it didn’t matter.
This—them—whatever it was…it was inevitable.
“I’ve tried to run. I keep trying to claw away from that feeling because bad things happen when I let people in—and I’ve never let someone all the way in. But nothing I do seems to be enough to keep you away.”
“Don’t fight it.” It was a plea.
Don’t hide, he’d said from the floor of her dormitory when he’d rescued her.
Don’t run from me, he’d begged in a reading before that.
She thought this third request might make her crumble, each one unknowingly disarming her further these weeks. But she couldn’t stop, no matter how much that admission killed her.
“I know you have a deal with Falliare and you’re going to leave, but for now—while you’re here—don’t fight it.”
Her chest pinched.
She didn’t regret what they’d just done.
Fates, she certainly didn’t, nor did she regret anything she’d shared with him so far.
But that didn’t mean she got to keep him.
If there was one thing she’d learned throughout her life, it was that she didn’t get to keep the things she cherished most. That was simply the path the Fates had written for her.
But perhaps, for now, she didn’t have to be so lonely.
“I’ll try,” she agreed.
“Will you stay here tonight?” he whispered as he dragged a hand down her spine.
She blinked up at him. “Are you sleeping on the chaise?”
He shook his head. “Stay in the bed with me.”
“Okay,” she agreed. And although the way he saw her scared her, for the first time, she didn’t want to run.
She wanted to remember.