Chapter 8
Caiden
When my lids fluttered open again a few hours later, I noticed two things. One, the sun wasn’t up yet. The moonlight was spilling in through the curtains, casting soft shadows across the room that reminded me of the way all the souls in the Lake had swirled around, formless and waiting.
And two…
I wasn’t cold anymore. In fact, my entire body felt warm.
No.
I felt hot.
It was… oh.
“Caiden?” The deep rumble of Soul’s voice spilling out in the darkness made my entire body shudder… and I realized exactly what I was feeling.
Oh.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, though I had no idea if he even understood what I was apologizing for.
It was too much to explain, the fact that I’d spent most of my life in pain, or knowing I was going to die.
I’d spent so long thinking about the inevitable and how I could make it easier on everyone I was leaving behind that I’d never even considered the possibility of waking up next to someone so…
Big. And attractive. And warm. Someone so solid. If I’d still been alive, if I were healthy, I would have laughed at myself… because of course waking up with someone like Soul wrapped around me and clinging like a fucking octopus would have made my body react.
Even if he was a kind of half monster with claws and glowing eyes.
I guess you could learn things about yourself even after you died.
“Why are you sorry?” Soul’s question came out in that same deep rumble, a tone that seemed to spill past my skin to vibrate against my bones. “And why are you trembling? Are you still… cold?”
The last word came out a little softer, whispered against the curve of my neck. When I tried to squirm away, I realized something else.
Soul’s arms around me were trembling too, and the rapidfire thundering of his heart was so loud it nearly drowned out the beat of my own playing a symphony of confusion in my head.
We were in perfect harmony… which meant…
When I tried to wriggle away again, I could feel exactly how on the same page as me Soul was, pressed against the curve of my hip in a hard, rigid line.
“Fuck,” I whispered, my entire body going still. This wasn’t… I hadn’t planned on anything like this happening. Living or dead, I’d honestly never expected anything like this to ever happen.
It was going to ruin the way I’d told myself I was doing this because helping Soul gave me a purpose. Though, judging by the low moan that ripped from his chest when I squirmed again… well, it would still be helping, wouldn’t it?
“Caiden?” He said my name like he was begging for a chance to breathe, a chance to live. Soul whispered those two syllables in a tone I’d never heard, never dreamed could be mine.
He said it like I was something worth begging for. I’d felt a lot of things in my short life—I’d been loved, but I’d never been wanted.
Not like this.
“Soul… I…” I couldn’t figure out how to articulate what was happening, the way my body was on fire and his arms around me were only fanning the flames.
That didn’t seem to matter. He shifted, sliding me beneath him, his weight pressing me into the sheets—it was like that first time in the forest when he’d pressed his mouth to my neck.
He dipped again, running his tongue in a slow, long line along my pulse.
“What do you need?”
Was there a right or wrong answer in this? Was it too much, asking for something?
When had I ever really asked for anything for myself?
“I…”
His teeth nipped at my neck. Light, not a threat. Just a gentle prompt for me to speak honestly. So I said the only thing I could. The one word that would be the truth without me drowning in a failed attempt to explain emotions and needs I’d never experienced before.
One word, but I knew it was going to change everything.
“You.”
It was such a simple thing, but it completely changed Soul.
It was as if I’d pumped him full of electricity—his eyes widened, and the soft halo of gray that made up his pupils contracted until I was looking at unfathomable depths of black.
A sky I could get lost in, the endlessness I’d longed for when I’d thought about how it would feel to finally let go.
What I’d imagined wasn’t the Lake. It was Soul’s eyes, right now.
Oh, shit.
Now that I’d said it, there was no taking the word back.
I couldn’t just pluck it from the air—not that I’d want to—but my stomach did swoop in nervousness as Soul pressed forward, and I watched in fascination as that tongue, that impossibly long tongue, spilled from between his lips.
I’d felt it against my skin, but I’d never seen it before.
It was longer than anything I’d ever seen, thick and split at the end… and when he leaned forward and trailed the tip of it along my jawline, I let out a little sound, half torn between a whimper and a plea.
“How do you want me?” There was something close to vulnerability in the question, and beneath that I could see how eager he was to please by the warmth in his eyes, by the way he looked so expectant.
Like being good for me was the most important thing he could do.
The weight of that was nearly enough to break me, especially when I wasn’t sure what I wanted.
I just knew my body was burning, and I felt more alive now than I had when I was still living.
If something didn’t happen soon, I might actually combust and end up back in that damn Lake anyway.
“I don’t… I…” My fingers lifted, tangling in his hair, and I pulled him down to my neck again. “I don’t know. I just like how you feel.”
His breath played against my thundering pulse for a beat, a second. Long enough that I felt like I might die all over again.
“You like how this feels?” he murmured, licking the line of my neck before biting at my collarbone through my shirt. It made me squirm, brought the honest answer from my chest before I could think about it.
I’d read books—I’d watched things. I knew what two people were technically supposed to do… and none of that had anything to do with a near foot-long tongue that seemed to have a mind of its own.
And still… “I do.” I whispered, and he didn’t hesitate. He dragged my shirt up, pushing the fabric until I grabbed hold, half covering my face with it like it could somehow shield me from all the emotions, all the desire suddenly pouring through me.
“You taste so good…” He pressed the compliment into my skin with a kiss, and then lapped between my pecs, shifting his body and rolling his hips against the mattress as he did.
The motion made him groan. “I want to eat you alive. I think I could spend from now until the stars in your human sky flickered and faded tasting you, and it wouldn’t be enough. ”
Fuckfuckfuck. If I’d had to live my entire life inexperienced so I could be here in this moment… damn, it might have been worth it.
“So do it.”
The low growl that poured from his chest was the only thing that let me know I might have bitten off more than I could chew. For this, though, I thought I’d be happy to choke.
As his fingers greedily peeled my pants and underwear down and tossed them to the floor with my shoes, I realized that yeah…
Yeah, I’d probably be just fine with choking.
Soul started at the top of my foot and flattened that sinful tongue, dragging it along my ankle, my leg.
He chased the sensation with a low growl that tickled against my skin, and the feel of his clawed fingertips tracing the path his mouth was paving.
I was reminded again that this wasn’t normal—that he wasn’t human—when that wet heat completely encircled my thigh, squeezing the muscle for a second before he pressed a wet kiss to that sensitive place where my leg met my pelvis.
I moaned, my body writhing without my permission.
It felt so fucking good… too good. I was dying.
I was harder than I’d ever been in my entire life, drowning in everything that he was, every touch he gave that felt like he truly was trying to devour me.
“Oh, fuck,” I moaned as his tongue slid up, lapping my pelvis, wrapping around enough that it tickled and teased at the curve of my ass. My body jerked again, and Soul’s strong hands grabbed my hips, those dark claws digging in without quite cutting.
How had I lived my entire life without feeling anything like this?
I didn’t know I could feel so good. I’d touched myself, but I’d never really let myself get attached to someone. It hadn’t seemed fair—no matter how hard they wanted to, no matter how much they might have tried… it’s not like they could have fought death.
But Soul… Soul, who rolled his eyes up to look at me as he slowly spread my legs like he was preparing for a feast… he’d defied Death to stay with me. He was everything I’d never let myself have wrapped up in the body of a fucking god…
And he wanted me.
Maybe there was a heaven after all.
“Does this feel good?” The low rumble of his voice and the feel of that forked tongue, impossibly long, lapping against my hole was nearly enough to kill me again. If he’d wanted to get me back to the Lake without complaint when he’d first met me, he should have just done this.
I had to try twice before I found a voice to respond, and when I did, it was barely intelligible.
“Mmmf… yes. I… mmmfuck. Yes, Soul.” And then, because he licked another slow, teasing line without doing anything else, I realized that it wasn’t enough. If I’d only ever read about this—thought about it—when would he have ever had the chance to even try this? “I need more.”
That rumbling growl of pleasure was the only thing I got in response, but the sensation of his tongue working me harder told me I was on the right track.
He licked me like he was trying to figure out exactly what I tasted like at the center of my soul, like he’d discovered his favorite treat.
Soul ran his tongue along my ass and then slid upward, lapping for a moment at my balls before he dragged that devilish muscle along the length of my cock.