Chapter 34
chapter
thirty-four
CALDER
“Don’t stop,” Shay repeated, breathless.
Her hair fanned around her head in a honey-gold halo. Her big doe eyes were bright, heavy lidded. This version of Shay was now written on the gray matter of my brain.
Utterly satisfied.
Sex drunk.
“Yeah?” I questioned, tracing my touch down her body. She arched into the touch, squirming as I passed her breasts, down her stomach, across on her pelvis. “You sure?”
She nodded.
I wanted to be inside her. My cock ached with it. I was harder than I’d ever been. Fucking throbbing. But I couldn’t have this end yet, our one night together.
I shifted onto one arm, getting the right angle, and then probed her ass with my finger.
Shay’s eyes popped and she lifted on her forearms, looking at me with wide eyes.
Fuck if that wasn’t the hottest thing. Hair wild and tangled, lips red and plump from kissing.
She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth. “What are you doing?”
I slid my thumb into her pussy again, and she lifted off the bed, still on her forearms. Fuck. Her lower back arched, tits up. I dipped down, taking one into my mouth. She gasped, her hand finding my neck, holding me there.
I swirled her nipple with my tongue. “Do you remember what you told me on our first date?”
Her eyes glittered. “As Void or Calder?”
“Brat.” I moved my thumb inside her, against the spot that made her go cross-eyed—a little shelf inside her that gave me a perfect grip of her cunt and ass.
The bratty look fell from her face.
“Be…more…” She gasped through her words. “Specific.”
With my thumb still inside her, I probed her ass again with my pointer.
“Your ass, little Maniac.”
Her brows caved. “I mean, I guess, if you—”
I took her nipple between my teeth, cutting her off. I wanted her submissive because it meant she trusted me, not because she was fucking afraid of me.
When the wrinkle in her brow ironed out, I released her nipple.
For not the first time, my thoughts drifted to her ex. That guy was fucking lucky I couldn’t find him.
“Shay,” I said. “You can say no. We can stop now, and I’m good.”
She arched a distrustful brow. “Really?”
“Kick me out of the fucking bedroom and I’ll still be happy because you’re in my bed.”
She chewed her lip, biting back a smile. “It’s your bed.”
“I’m not sure.” I moved in her cunt, testing my grip. “With your come all over it? Feels more like it belongs to you.” I thrust my thumb against the shelf, and she arched, a low, intoxicating moan sliding from her parted lips.
“I’m being greedy,” I continued. “I—” I only have one night, and I’m doing my fucking best to absorb all of you. “I can’t get enough of you.”
She worked her mouth to the side. “Okay, we can try.” She quickly added, “But, like I said, I’ve never enjoyed it.”
A smile tugged my lips. Before Shay, I could count the number of times I’d smiled on one hand. With her? They came all the time. Involuntary.
I moved my thumb inside her, curling it at an angle that sent her eyes rolling back.
Goddamn.
I loved the view from between her thighs, but this—watching her lips part, her eyes pop with each thrust—was addictive.
I could finger her all goddamn night, but when her gut tightened, and her breathing came short and staccato, I probed her ass again with my pointer.
She tensed.
“Is this okay?” I asked, pausing.
“I…I don’t know.”
“Do you want me to stop?” I pushed in a little more and pulled out, searching her intoxicating brown eyes.
She shook her head. “No. Don’t stop.”
I pushed deeper inside her ass, to the first knuckle. Her hands flew to my shoulders on a gasp.
“How does it feel?” I asked.
“Good,” she said. “But also weird.”
I resumed fucking her with my thumb, thrusting until her nails dug into my shoulders. Then I pushed a little farther, to the second knuckle. Her nails scythed my flesh, lips parted, breath suspended.
“Breathe,” I said.
She blinked, then sucked in a deep breath, like a computer program restarting.
Another smile split my lips. “Good girl.”
She felt so fucking good. So tight.
I glanced down.
Fuck.
Something about how perfectly she fit in my palm unleashed a deeply primal and unhinged side of me. I jostled her with the grip I had on her ass and cunt. An inhuman sound vibrated up my chest as I watched her body shake.
“Wow.” She breathed. “Oh my god, wow.”
My gaze snapped back to hers and vaguely remembered Shay saying something about her mother being a witch.
Because, yeah. The way the dark chocolate in her eyes melted on me cast an irrevocable, mesmerizing spell.
“How do you do that?” she gasped as my fingers pressed her inner wall. “How do you know exactly what I want?” Did I think she was drunk before? She was fucking drugged now. Her pupils dilated, her eyes wide.
My head fell, and I laughed against the side of her neck.
Fuck. Whoever had her ass wasn’t doing it right.
Shay fucking loved it.
“More,” she gasped.
“More?” I lifted my head, searching her eyes, as I nudged another finger inside her ass.
A ragged moan slipped from her lips, and she scratched at my neck. With two fingers in her ass and a thumb in her pussy, she was coming apart.
“I want your cock, please. I want to come on your cock. Please, please, please.” She shook her head back and forth. Wild.
I was unraveling with her.
All the control I’d carefully cultivated shattered into something feral as she came undone.
I slid my hand out of her and she whined—fucking whined.
I felt the noise in my teeth.
“Someday,” I gritted, reaching for a condom and sliding it over my cock. “Your little ass is going to take my cock.” I slid between her thighs, spearing her with just the tip.
“Of course.” She nodded. “Whatever you want.”
She was fucking dangerous.
I slid just a little more inside Shay, and that was enough for me to see stars. To go blind with it.
“Fuck.” My head dropped on a groan. “You feel so fucking good.”
I had to regain control. Had to make this good for her. I couldn’t come with barely the tip inside her.
From the way Shay had stared at my cock earlier, she wasn’t used to the size. I pushed a little more inside.
“How far in are you?” she gasped.
I released a low breath, head dropping to where we were joined.
I was barely inside.
“Maybe halfway,” I said.
“Halfway?” Her eyes popped.
“We’ll go slow, Maniac.” I captured her mouth in a kiss, crushing her lips against mine, sliding my tongue against hers. Until she was biting my lip, groaning into my mouth.
I pushed in a little, then slid out, repeating the motion, getting her used to the feel of me.
“More,” she panted against my mouth.
I pressed deeper inside, almost to the hilt. “Good?” I asked.
Her lips parted. Fuck. That was the sexiest look, when her slightly crooked top two teeth peeked out from beneath her full upper lip, tongue loose with a sigh.
Then she nodded frantically.
I kissed her shoulder, her collarbone, up the hollow of her neck. “Just a little more, baby.”
I pulled out, then slid back inside her, and repeated that motion as I slid my fingers down to her pussy, capturing her clit.
“Oh god,” she groaned. “Oh fuck.”
“You ready for all of me?” I asked, voice strained with the effort of holding back, and pulled out and then thrust again inside her, pinching her clit in a way that made her cunt spasm against my cock.
She nodded. “Yes. Yes—”
I swallowed her words, kissing her until she melted against me. Until I could feel her clenching around my cock, swallowing the noises dripping from her sexy fucking mouth.
Then, our lips still fused, I bottomed out inside her.
Her mouth parted. I caught her bottom lip, dragging it out as a sound somewhere between a moan and a gasp slipped from her.
She stared at me, eyes wide under heavy lashes.
“Breathe, Maniac.”
Shay sucked in a breath, and I started moving inside her with slow, careful thrusts, letting her adjust to me.
“Good, baby,” I said. “You’re doing so good.”
Fuck. Shay felt amazing. More than that, divine, but the kind written about eons ago. When gods were something to fear, when their divinity demanded blood sacrifice.
“Oh fuck, thank you,” she gasped. “Thank you.”
Thanking me?
As Shay wrapped her legs around my waist, fingers digging into the muscles at my back, I realized even a blood sacrifice wouldn’t be enough. I could leave the bodies of hundreds at her altar and the sacrifice would never reach what she’d given me.
“I’m starting to like you,” she blurted.
I laughed. “I hope so.” I thrust deeper to punctuate my point.
But Shay stilled.
I paused. “Shay?”
“I can’t do this,” she said. “I can’t be attached. I—”
I crushed my lips against hers, cutting off whatever fear was about to steal her away.
Shay’s nails dug into my neck, her whimpers heating my lips as she melted back into me. She was close to an orgasm. Her cunt gripped me. I held my own orgasm back, muscles tight. I wasn’t coming. Not until I felt her flood my cock.
She was afraid of becoming attached?
I was more than attached. This had always been more than sex for me.
I kissed her deeper, thrusting my tongue desperately into her mouth, as the realization flooded my senses.
I love her.
I think I’ve loved her from the beginning, when she was a siren on the other side of my phone. When she shared the darkness she hid. When she matched my loneliness.
But I couldn’t say that. Not when we were allowed only this one night.
Not when I was still lying to her about the very bloody reason we could never have more than one night.
“I’m attached, too, Shay,” I said against her lips.
She came undone, spasming beneath me, groaning into my mouth, crying out in a way that made me very fucking glad to be alone in the mountain.
Those noises were fucking mine.
Then I followed, groaning into her neck with a body-racking, shuddering release.
A few moments of stillness followed. Breathing in the scent of Shay, a soft yet somehow earthy smell, like lilacs at night.
Then I lifted my head, finding her eyes. All the walls she’d built had shattered and crumbled. She matched my gaze. Bright-eyed. Vulnerable.
The shared realization suspended in the air between us, pulsing and shimmering mirrorlike.
This was supposed to be temporary. It couldn’t ever be more.
But inevitably, it had become more.
With the same inevitability, it would end.