Chapter 18 #2
A thin ribbon slithers off the mat, gliding up through the air, coiling through the metal handles.
It freezes. Not slowly—instantly, with a sharp crack that echoes through the empty room.
Frost blooms outward in delicate veins across the doorframe, sealing it shut in a sheet of jagged, glistening ice.
Noa stiffens beneath me. “Celeste,” he whispers. It’s not a question. It’s not even a warning. It’s something closer to awe… or fear.
I don’t answer. I can’t.
Shit.
I wasn’t even trying. I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t be able to do that. Not without training. Not like that.
A sharp pulse hammers behind my eyes, warning me I’ve overdrawn, but I push past it.
We’ll talk—
Later.
Not now.
I turn back to him, slowly. His eyes are still wide, locked on the door, then flick to me like he doesn’t quite know who I am.
I shift my focus back to the task at hand—back to him. Distracting him in the best way possible.
I lean down, letting my lips brush his just once before claiming his mouth with a reckless hunger.
I kiss him as I move slowly above him. Our soaked clothes cling and slide, friction blooming into fire between us until he finally groans against my throat, the sound rough and low—part warning, part promise.
The door is finally forgotten, along with everything else, as he kisses me back.
The heat of our skin contrasts sharply with the cool dampness of the mat beneath us. I sit him up just enough to grab the hem of his shirt, damp and clinging, sliding it over every muscle as I slip it over his head.
I start to trail slow, calculated kisses down his chest, stopping only when I reach the waistband of his pants. I feel him pulsing hard and hot beneath the fabric, like a fire barely contained.
With deliberate hands, I slip his pants down, freeing him, as I look up at him through my lashes.
He groans as I put the tip of him into my mouth, teasing at first, then tasting him like something forbidden. He’s too big to take in fully so I use my tongue to circle his sensitive ridge while using my hand to glide up and down the sides of him.
His hands grip the mat, his knuckles white.
I revel in the pleasure I draw from him, sucking and licking as I move above him. He hits the back of my throat and his hands come up to my face in reflex, fingers tangling in my hair. “Fuck,” he whispers, wrecked. “That feels… so… fucking good.”
His control slips in fragments—one broken sound at a time—until it’s gone completely.
His breath begins to quicken and his groans grow more wild, until he finally reaches the point where he can no longer be leashed.
I taste the salt of him pooling on my tongue as he shudders beneath me, my name on his lips.
His restraint then snaps like a bowstring. His hand grips my shoulder, flipping me beneath him before I can blink. Fire and fury above me. Water and want below.
My back hits the damp mat with a splash, air rushing from my lungs as he settles over me, all heat and command.
“My turn,” he says with gravel in his voice.
He tears off my leggings and underwear and immediately starts with his tongue edging into me. He parts me with his hands—like petals unfolding beneath his touch. His hunger is sharp, as if he’s trying to worship and ruin me in the same breath.
His mouth finds me, tongue tracing slow, molten circles around my center, insatiable and precise. Pleasure coils behind my ribs like a rising tide.
“Noa,” I gasp, the words anchoring me to the moment even as everything else spirals away.
The master is now the student once again as I submit to him completely.
I break with fury—a tidal wave smashed against jagged rocks, the shock stealing my breath, my voice, my name. My world scatters into liquid and firelight.
He holds me there—anchoring, coaxing—until I drift back into bone and skin.
He moves to lie beside me. Steam still rises over us, wrapping us in our own veil of spent power.
“You really are going to be the death of me one day,” he chuckles, hand on his chest as he wills his breathing to slow.
I turn on my side, watching his profile as I smile. “Well, not such a bad way to die,” I tease.
He turns to look at me, his fingers brushing my lips, eyes full of emotion—uncertainty, awe, longing, the quiet fear of the unknown and perhaps of wanting something too much. “No,” he says softly. “It’s not.”
* * *
Later that night, Noa sits on the couch in my room at the Blue Dahlia, elbows on his knees, eyes locked on the fire he coaxed to life in my fireplace.
The flames flicker wildly, licking the stone hearth in a rhythm only he controls.
The silence stretches between us, awkward, filled with things unsaid.
My roommates are still at the mess hall, which buys me time. Not much, but enough.
I watch him for a moment—shoulders tense, jaw tight—and I know what’s on his mind. It’s on mine too.
Big girl panties on, I tell myself. Okay. Here we go.
I clear my throat and speak before I can talk myself out of it. “Noa, what you saw today. What I did… in the Training Room.”
He glances at me, but says nothing. The fire crackles.
“I don’t just mean the match,” I continue. “I mean the door. After.”
His eyes narrow slightly. “You mean when you froze it shut?”
I nod.
The silence that follows is strained—uncomfortably so.
“It was… incredible,” he says finally. “Most third-years can’t pull that off. Hell, not even most fourth-years. I’m impressed.” I exhale, relieved—but then he adds, quietly, “But—”