Chapter 42 #2
It feels real in a way nothing else has, not since I crash-landed in Crimson.
Not since I was pulled into a world that doesn’t want me.
A world that keeps trying to make me forget who I am.
Maybe not even in the decade and a half before that.
Caziel’s fingers trace the side of my ribs like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he presses too hard.
His mouth is on my neck again, not biting, just breathing; like he’s relearning what it means to want gently.
I arch into him, my hands buried in his dark hair, and I can feel the tremor in his shoulders when I say his name.
“Caz.”
A low sound rumbles in his throat. He pulls back enough to look at me.
And I mean really look at me. His eyes, those deep onyx pools that see far too much, search my face like he’s bracing for me to change my mind.
Like he’s still expecting me to break. I don’t.
I won’t. I’m here. I’m choosing this. Choosing him.
I lift my hand and brush my fingers over the curve of one horn.
It’s smoother than I expected; cooler than his skin but still heated.
Polished smooth like stone. His breath stutters at the contact.
“Sensitive?”
“A little,” he admits, voice hoarse.
I smile. “Good.” His tail wraps tighter around my thigh in response. “You really don’t control that thing, do you?”
“Not even a little.”
He leans in again, and this time the kiss starts soft but doesn’t stay there.
It deepens, darkens—turns into something lush and open-mouthed, something hungry.
His hands slide down my back, then up under the curve of my spine, pressing me closer.
I feel everything—the ridges of his mark against my skin, the heat of him, the slow rock of his hips as we shift again on the bed.
His clothes are mostly still on. Mine are mostly not.
I kind of love that. It’s like we’re in no rush, even though I know we are.
There’s desperation in how we cling to each other, but there’s also care.
Like neither of us is willing to be the first to shatter this moment.
He kisses the underside of my jaw, then lower.
His mouth trails heat down the center of my chest. I gasp when his fangs graze the slope of one breast—teasing, playful, reverent.
“Still want the bite?” he murmurs, tongue flicking warm over skin.
I nod, breath catching. “Please.”
He hums, and then he sinks his canines into my skin, sucking hard on my flesh and blood beads at the wound. I gasp, but it’s not painful. Just enough sensation to make my nerves catch fire, just enough to feel claimed. He pulls back to look at me, expression unreadable.
“You are trembling.”
“I’m not scared,” I whisper.
“I know.” He cups my cheek, thumb stroking over my cheekbone. “But if I go further…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t need to.
I pull him back down. “Please.”
He groans, low and rough and ruined. His mouth finds mine again, and then we’re moving together, breath in sync, limbs tangling. His tail tightens again, around my thigh, across my hip, like it wants to help pin me in place.
I can’t stop laughing. “You need to train that thing.”
“I have tried.”
“Try harder.”
“It only misbehaves when you’re involved.”
“This is our first time meeting Caziel.”
He shakes his head. “No, it is your first time meeting him.”
That shuts me up. The way he says it—not like a joke, but a truth. A confession.
“You’re different,” he murmurs, his forehead resting against mine. “You make every part of me feel—worse, better, too much—like I’m going to split open if I keep holding it in.”
“Then don’t.”
He stills at that. “Kay…”
I kiss him before he can ruin it. I want this.
I want him. And even if the world ends tomorrow, tonight I get him.
I’m still trying to catch my breath when I drop back against the mattress.
My skin is flushed, my lips tingling, my pulse pounding in places I’d forgotten could feel this alive.
Caziel braces over me, panting softly. The glamor’s gone, but even if it weren’t, I think I’d still see him clearly now.
He’s flushed too, ruddy and bright and watching me with that raw, reverent hunger. His hair’s come loose, curling wild around the curve of one horn. One of his fangs catches on his lower lip before he releases it, tongue flicking out to soothe the bite. I wet my lips, too. Swallow hard.
“Can I…” My voice trails off, not because I don’t know what I want, but because the words suddenly feel too big, too loud in this room. His gaze darkens, but he doesn’t move.
“What is it, sal?”
“I want to taste you.” The words tumble out before I can second guess them. “I want all of you. But—”
I don’t get to finish. The look on his face changes. Not to amusement or pity, not even surprise. He goes still. His eyes shimmer, his tail flicks once, like a snap of tension behind him.
“Say it again,” he murmurs.
I lift onto my elbows, heart hammering. “I want to taste you.”
Caziel stills above me. His hand, which had been slowly tracing the curve of my hip, freezes mid-motion. He lifts his head, eyes wide and black and stunned. Then something flickers in them—heat, yes, but something gentler beneath it. Like reverence. Like restraint.
“You do not have to do that,” he says, voice rough but steady. “You owe me nothing.”
My lips curve. “It’s not about owing. I want to.”
His throat bobs as he swallows. His fingers brush a lock of hair from my cheek with the kind of tenderness that makes my chest ache.
“Say stop at any point. You only do what you want.”
“I know.”
I sit up, slowly, and he shifts with me, pushing up on his knees. I watch as his hands move to the waistband of his breeches, undoing the clasp. He hesitates for the barest second before peels them down the thick muscles of his thighs.
Gods.
He’s basically human, at least his cock is.
No ridges or scales or hidden alien surprises.
But he’s also alien, foreign, different.
He’s larger than I imagined. Larger than I thought was even possible, even after feeling the heavy swell of him pressed against my aching co.
Thick and flushed a deep dusky red, his cock curves up against his abdomen, dark veins twisting up the shaft like live flame etched beneath his skin.
The head is flared, glistening slightly, pulsing with heat.
It’s like everything else about him; too much, too intense, and still somehow exactly what I want.
“I know I’m—” he starts, but I cut him off.
“Beautiful.”
His mouth parts. And I swear, for a second, he looks almost undone. I slide forward on my knees, letting my hands settle on his thighs, feeling the tension ripple beneath his skin. He’s burning. Every part of him. But I’m not afraid of the heat anymore. Not his. Not mine.
I lean in, lips brushing the base of him, then higher, tasting the sharp salt and spice of him.
He groans, deep and guttural, head tipping back.
And then I do it again slow, sure, and completely on my own terms. I roll over and rise to my knees.
He’s still half-kneeling beside me, chest rising in shallow bursts.
I press my hand to his bare abdomen and slide lower, watching the way he twitches under my palm.
His skin is warm, smooth, all lit with that faint embermark glow.
“Tell me if anything—”
“I will tell you if anything.” His voice is hoarse. “But you are perfect, and I am not human. You do not have to be careful with me.”
That might be the cruelest thing he’s ever said, because all I want is to be reckless.
Wild. Consumed. I nudge his thighs apart and settle between them.
The moment stretches long and hot and dizzy with want.
He hisses, hips twitching, tail tightening in a slow curl around my thigh before sliding up to the warm mess of my core dripping between them. “Kay.”
I smile against his skin. “Still good?”
“Flame, yes. Keep going.”
I do. Slowly learning his every breath. It’s a kind of worship. One I hadn’t expected to like this much. Each sound he makes, each falter in his breath, feels like a gift. His hands stay on the bed, knotted in the blankets like he’s restraining himself. Like he doesn’t dare touch.
That won’t do. I reach up and grab one of his wrists, guiding it into my hair.
“Hold me.”
He groans and finally gives in. The moment his hand tangles at the base of my skull, I take him deeper.
The curse he lets out doesn’t sound like a language I know.
His tail slips higher, teasing my entrance and I moan around his length.
I lose myself in it. In him. In heat, salt, the slight taste of copper and smoke, the way he moves like he’s trying not to buck.
When he tenses a little too much, I pull back, wiping my mouth and pressing a kiss to his thigh.
“You okay?”
He looks like a man trying to remember how to speak. “I’ve imagined that more times than I should admit.”
“Then I’m glad we’re both perverts.”
He lets out a hoarse laugh, but he’s already shifting on the bed, grabbing me under the arms and hauling me up as if I weigh nothing, lowering me onto the mattress with a care that makes my chest ache until I’m flat on my back again, his body covering mine like a shadow.
“My turn.
Caziel is still breathing like he ran through flame.
I feel his heart pounding beneath my palm, feel his body tense and loose all at once, like he’s struggling to come back into himself.
Then he shifts, pushing down my body, past my breasts, my belly, my hips.
I’m almost trembling, not from fear, but from everything else.
Want. Anticipation. The ghost of shame, still clinging to my ribs like smoke.
But his eyes, when they meet mine, scorch it all away.
He kisses my thigh, then the inside of my knee, moving slowly. Reverently. His hands wrap around me, pulling me closer with a confidence that’s almost feral.