Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
T he kiss was a seamless continuation of what we’d ended weeks ago, in his room. This was not the quiet, confusing safety of the nights we spent curled up in each other’s arms. This was not the stoic respect we’d built for each other over these last months.
This was a drawn blade, a battle, a fire. This was deadly.
I loved it.
My mouth opened against his immediately, accepting his breath, his tongue, his lips, and offering him my own. My hand slid from his chest to loop around his neck—his down my side, gripping tight where my waist met my hip.
My body arched against his, helpless with the desire to feel as much of him against me as I could. The threads caught fire the closer we were, the deeper I could fold myself into his presence. The sensations of him intoxicated me—his mouth, tongue sliding against mine in a way that felt like both an offering and a promise, his fingers clutching at me like he wanted to absorb me into himself.
We were warned of this, as young Arachessen. That sensations, physical connection, would be unusually powerful for us given the way we navigated the world. Like most things based in emotion, this was treated as a danger, a weakness to be culled.
My only clear thought in this moment now was, Horseshit .
Yes, it was a danger. But how did I not realize then that was the appeal? I wanted to hurl myself off this cliff.
I was ravenous.
We staggered backwards in a tangle of limbs and wet clothing and frantic kisses and sickening lust. Atrius was leading me—I didn’t know where until my back pressed to a wall of stone. The ocean was cold around our ankles, swelling with the tide. He’d dragged us behind a cluster of large rocks jutting from the sand.
Privacy. Because we were just out here, on the beach. And I didn’t even care.
He broke our kiss, pushing me forcefully back against the rock. But I seized the moment to tear at his shirt, the buttons pulling apart with blissful ease.
And immediately, like a thirst-starved creature to water, my hands were all over his skin.
I hadn’t wanted to admit it then, but I knew the first time I touched him, something had changed forever—a door cracked open in forbidden parts of myself. I could ignore it. For a time.
But never forget it.
Because touching Atrius was like immersing myself in every forbidden pleasure at once. His aura was so unbearably strong, unrestrained lust and hunger and anger and grief and—and—all the things I tried to control in myself.
My fingers trailed down his torso, starting at his chest, then tracing the swell of his pectorals. Down, over the lean, defined muscle of his abdomen, marked with scars that each strummed a different vibration in the threads.
He let out a wordless, low sound against my lips and pushed me hard against the rock. His fingers played at the strap of my nightdress, perilously thin.
“Yes,” I breathed, and he let out a low groan as he ripped the straps at once, letting the cotton fall into the salty water around my ankles.
It wasn’t as if the nightgown was doing much to protect me from the elements, but in its absence, my body reacted immediately to its exposure. Goosebumps rose over my skin. My breasts, already aching with desire, hardened and peaked against the misty air.
I wanted him against me immediately, skin against skin. But he hesitated. His awareness was such a physical force. I could feel his eyes lingering on my body, not just my breasts and the apex of my thighs, but the rest of me, too—every muscle, every curve.
And then his lust crested in a sudden wave, washing us both away, and he was everywhere.
His kiss was vicious, like a predator chasing down prey, and I met it with equal force. The sensation of his bare flesh against mine was overwhelming.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Only feel.
His hands ran over my body, down my hips, lingering at my backside. I tangled my hands in his hair. I barely realized I was moaning against him, pathetic whimpers against his kisses.
I freed one hand to slide it down his body. I was bolder than I had been that night in his room. This time, I slid right into his trousers, running my grip down the length of his cock.
Oh, Weaver. Gods.
He hissed into my mouth and closed his teeth around my lower lip, making me gasp at the spark of pain.
I barely noticed it.
How could I pay attention to anything but this? But him, and the way his whole presence rearranged around that single touch?
His kiss stopped, movements slowing. He was breathing heavily, his heart thrumming hard—so hard I felt the beat of it in my own skin.
He pulled back, just enough to look at me, a stare that rippled through my entire body.
And then he dropped to his knees.
“Open your thighs for me,” he commanded, and didn’t even let me obey before he positioned one of my legs over his shoulder, his mouth finding my center.
Holy fucking gods ? —
He wasn’t patient. Neither of us had that in us tonight. The first lick, demanding and starving, sent me a wave of pleasure that swept away everything else. I had to bite my tongue hard, so hard, right over that scar ridge, against my scream of pleasure, and still released a mangled moan.
He buried himself deeper between my legs, tongue unleashing a surge of impossible sensation. At my whimper, he let out a pleased growl that made me shiver.
I’d felt pleasure before. But this—I couldn’t?—
“Wider,” he growled, urging my thighs apart. There was no playfulness in this, no flirtation. Only command.
I obeyed, challenging as it was when my legs were trembling. One of his hands slid up my body, flattening just shy of my breasts—holding me firmly against the stone, as if to make sure I remained upright.
“Mm,” he murmured. “Better.”
This time, with the better access he had, I couldn’t choke back my scream. My back arched against the rock in a violent spasm as his tongue worked at me—licking the length of my slit, pausing to tease at my bud, returning to my entrance.
With each movement of his mouth, I unraveled more.
My heart was pounding, like a trapped rabbit. My skin burned. Weaver, what was he doing to me? I wanted more of it. All of it.
Pain, faintly, as his sharp fingernails dug into the tender skin of my thigh, as he pushed it open further—so he could plunge his tongue into me.
Fractured curses imbued my garbled moans, as he returned to my clit.
Then he smiled against me, and I could feel something hard—something sharp—against that sensitive flesh, that flesh that begged for everything from him?—
And I felt his hunger. His lust.
All of it matched by mine.
“Yes,” I choked out. “Do it.”
I didn’t question my own irrational willingness. I wanted it.
The reaction of his presence was swift and immediate, like the twitch of his cock in my hands.
The hand on my stomach, now the only thing keeping me upright, trailed fingers back and forth along my skin.
I understood what that movement was saying: I will not hurt you.
His mouth moved to my inner thigh. His teeth bit quick, a strike that made me gasp—more pleasure than pain, and whatever little pain there was disappeared when he drank.
Weaver help me. Weaver kill me.
I had heard that vampire venom could have a... pleasurable effect on human prey. But this was beyond my wildest expectations. Every nerve was aflame, pulsing from that wound. My hips bucked against him, chasing more, chasing friction, chasing penetration—fruitlessly, because he held me firmly still against the wall, at his mercy.
“Gods. Atrius —Weaver—I?—”
The words were unintentional, jumbled, slurred.
His satisfaction rolled through me, the threads drawn so taut between us that we were like one being. With a satisfied moan, his lips left my wound. When they returned to my slit, his mouth was warm and wet—with my blood and my desire.
And when he feasted upon me this time, licking the blood clean with thorough care, he slid two fingers inside of me.
This time, I had to bite down on my hand to dampen my scream. My knuckles tightened around his hair. My body writhed in his grasp.
I fell into utter oblivion.
And when I became aware of my body again, Atrius’s presence was all around me once more, his body pressed to me, his mouth against mine, leaving the taste of blood and sweat and my own desire on my lips, sweet and salty. My thighs had parted around his hips, his hands and the pressure against the rocks keeping me up.
Already, my hips were moving against the hardness of his cock, my hands sliding down his trousers until the hot flesh sprang free.
My body knew what it wanted. Knew what it needed .
He needed it too. Our hunger, our lust, pulsed between us. Now I understood why the Arachessen banned sex. It was too much. Too powerful.
Though then again, it had never felt like this with any of my other dalliances.
I couldn’t think about that now.
I couldn’t think of anything.
My heat aligned with his cock. When the tip pressed against me, we both let out mangled exhales into each other’s mouths.
But he broke away, breath heaving.
“You’ve never done this before.”
Always a statement, never a question. He knew. How did he know?
“I’ve done enough,” I said. Though even as I said it, it seemed foolish to relate whatever those were—tasks of seduction or curious experimentation—to whatever this would be.
Our bodies shifted against each other in minute, involuntarily movements. His length twitched against my folds, slick, and though we both bit back our moans, I felt the shiver of our barely-constrained lust through the threads.
Animals against bars.
Bars that were breaking.
“I’ll start slow,” he ground out. “But it may be difficult for me to—If I start to lose control?—”
His words were clumsy and awkward. But I didn’t need words to understand him. Ravenous , he had said.
Atrius was a man terrified of losing control. And I was asking him to balance on the knife’s edge.
I kissed him, deeply, our tongues mingling as his cock strained at my entrance once again. He was shaking. Weaver, I was shaking.
“I don’t need you to be gentle with me,” I whispered.
No. I wanted all of it.
His teeth closed around my lip, his nostrils flaring.
His mouth trailed to my ear, suckling at my lobe for a moment, before whispering, firmly, “Tell me to stop, and I stop.”
And then he pushed .
Weaver fucking save me.
My thighs spread wider. I clutched him, my fingers clawing at his shoulders, as he impaled me, inch by inch. My body was begging for this, begging for him to be inside me—and yet the pain was there, too, undeniable, acute and burning as I stretched around him. When I thought there couldn’t possibly be more of him, my awareness moved down to find several inches of thick, glistening flesh between us.
And Weaver, yes. He was taking his time. Being gentle. One hand braced under my backside to hold me up against the rocks. The other stroked my hair. His muscles were tense, trembling.
He’d work himself into me slowly, if that’s what I needed. What I wanted.
It wasn’t what I wanted.
I stilled, drawing in a breath. He stilled too, face turning against my hair. Listening. Waiting.
But instead of giving him the words he was looking for, I tightened my legs around his waist in one abrupt movement, pulling him into me in a single thrust.
He hadn’t been expecting that. He let out a groan, fingers tightening around my body, while I sank my teeth into his shoulder—hard enough that I tasted blood. A whimper escaped my throat. The sudden burst of pleasure-pain consumed me, so intense my body tightened against it.
For several long seconds, we stayed like that, locked together in every way. Even our threads had been tied, intertwined, like strands in a braid. I felt his desire as clearly as my own—and with it, too, his concern, as he cradled my head against his shoulder.
Strange, how our breathing synced up of its own accord, our chests rising and falling at the same rapid rate.
I had never felt so close to another soul before.
It terrified me.
It intoxicated me.
Heartbeats passed. The pain, initially sharp, faded to a distant throb. I felt as if I had been split open, full in a way I never had been before .
“Good?” Atrius murmured into my hair, at last.
In response, I shifted my hips, testing the way it felt to move with him inside me and?—
Weaver.
I threw my head back and let out a low, long moan. My entire body shuddered with the movement, rolling against him.
The pleasure was worth the pain. Gods, it was better for the pain.
He stiffened, nails tightening around me, fighting the primal desire to move with me against the desire to be gentle with me.
But I had already told him I didn’t want gentle.
I used my thighs to urge him to withdraw, and a slow, predatory smirk spread over his lips as he understood what I was doing. What I was giving him permission to do.
Another stroke, harder this time. I urged him back into me fiercely. The balance of sensations now skewed pleasure, hunger, desire for more.
I was louder this time, my moan a strangled gasp, which earned a wordless, approving sound from him.
Weaver, I wanted to bottle that sound and keep it. That pleasure imbued his entire body, his threads, vibrating in mine.
This time he ground against me, hips circling as if to make sure his cock branded every part of me, as deep as he could go.
Oh gods— gods ?—
He hit something there, something deep, making me claw at him and let out a fully involuntary cry.
I yanked him closer, a rough movement with my legs, harsh and demanding.
A challenge.
The bars of the cage snapped.
He kissed me hard, his tongue invading my mouth with the force of his next thrust, which left me whimpering against him. Suddenly, his hands were at my wrists, roughly pinning them above my head, forcing my body to stretch against the stone—exposing it all to him.
His next thrust wasn’t gentle.
It was exactly what he had warned me of. His presence, a force of pure lust and impulse and raw, uncontainable power surrounded me, and I let it take me over, let my own soul meld with it, our threads now so tangled that neither of us would be able to tell where one stopped and the other began.
I relished it. Relished the control and the relinquishment in every stroke, every thrust, every time his cock bottomed out within me, grinding against me. Pleasure built there, where we were connected, the entire universe disappearing except for him and me and our bodies and everything that I still wanted from him. Weaver, needed from him.
Gods, what a fool I was for thinking his tongue was the pinnacle of what pleasure could be. That was nothing. Nothing compared to feeling him surge into me, again and again, before I could catch my breath.
With one particularly powerful thrust, my entire body arched against the rock, the sound escaping my lips wild and wordless and too-loud. My body rocked against it, matching the force, chasing the pinnacle of pleasure that rapidly rushed toward me—rushed toward both of us, I knew, because I could feel it in his aura, maddening and close, fraying our final threads of control.
I needed him to sever it with me.
My head nearly slammed back into the stone with the force of our passion, but one of his hands slid between my hair and the rock, the other still holding my wrists firmly above my head.
He held himself there, deep, both of us trembling around it. The sudden lack of friction was torturous, even if the depth hit me exactly where I needed him.
I tilted my head to kiss him, but he inched back, so our lips were only barely brushing.
“You don’t come yet,” he growled.
Weaver damn him.
I moved defiantly against him, making both of us let out hitched moans.
“I feel how much you want it, too.”
As if in agreement, I felt his length twitch inside me, like he had to physically hold himself back from fucking me with those final few strokes .
There was nothing sweet in his smile, sharp with hunger.
“I dreamed about this,” he murmured. “What you might look like, unraveled and desperate, in the seconds before I let you go. I want to savor it.”
Our words were harsh, playing into the game we’d started—that this was about hunger and desire and lust and nothing more. But I felt something else stir deep in his presence then, right around the word savor . Something I felt echoed in mine.
It was almost enough to break through the feral desire with just a hint of fear.
Almost.
“Ravenous,” I ground out. “That’s what you said. Ravenous people don’t savor. We take.” I jerked my hips against him, and his entire body went taut in response. “So take me, Atrius. Take me.”
I meant for it to be a command, just as harsh as his. At first it was. But those last words, that last “ take me ,” turned into a plea.
I felt it in Atrius’s whole self the moment his self-control snapped.
There was no snarky retort, no flirtatious response. Just a sudden, dark wave of his determination?—
—And then movement.
He withdrew slowly, agonizingly, and then thrust back into me.
Again, faster. Again. Again.
If he was vicious before, this was downright brutal, fierce and unrelenting. Moans and sobs and curses and prayers tore, mangled, from my lips—not that I could hear them. Not that I could hear anything.
Nothing except Atrius’s voice, rough in my ear:
“Now you come for me, Vivi.”
A commander’s order.
I had no choice but to follow it.
My climax hit me with the force of a tidal wave, an explosion, something that ripped me apart and left me in pieces. Desperately, I clung to Atrius, my muscles contracting around him—my magic, too, reached for him in those final moments, letting his pleasure meld with mine, reaching deep into his threads and immersing myself within him.
He came as I did, his lips grunting my name as he buried his face against my throat. He clutched me tight, muscles trembling, and that embrace was the only piece of the physical world that remained constant as everything else fell away.
Aftershocks of pleasure surged through us in clenched muscles and shaky breaths.
And then, peace.
Atrius’s head sagged against my shoulder. His arms now encircled my body to hold me up rather than restraining my wrists.
The nature of the embrace shifted, from something primal to something... else.
Slowly, my awareness came back to the world. It was silent, save for the sound of our heavy breaths and the sea, lapping around our ankles. The mist was warming with sunrise?—
Sunrise.
“Atrius,” I said, panicked. “The sun?—”
But Atrius simply lifted his head and kissed me.
It wasn’t frantic or lustful. Not angry. Not hurt.
It was sweet, tender, his lips soft against mine and tongue gently caressing my mouth.
Then he stepped back, finally withdrawing from me, leaving me feeling oddly empty. The water was a shock of cold against my feet.
Without a word, he pulled his trousers back up, retrieved his discarded shirt from the rocks, and slid it over my shoulders.
And then he scooped me up, cradled my head against his chest, and carried me back to his tent—leaving my nightgown crumpled in the water, discarded there with my broken vows.