Chapter 61 #2
He nodded. His fingers found the ties on the back of her dress.
He loosened them off, one by one, his eyes reading hers, leaving the decision of what happened next up to her, as always.
She kissed him, and as the last tie was loosened, he curled his hands over her shoulders and slid the material down her arms. Jenyfer kept her eyes on his as the dress fell away.
‘You are, and always have been, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,’ Ordes whispered. ‘I can’t believe you’re mine. Heartfire or not, Jenyfer, I’ve been yours since the moment I met you.’
Her fingers trembled on the hem of his shirt. She slowly eased it over his head, then kissed her way across his chest, hands moving over the broad sweep of his shoulders, down his arms and back up, the heat of his skin like a fire beneath her fingertips.
‘Consume me,’ she whispered. ‘Leave no part of me untouched. Leave me shaking, ripped apart, nothing but a burning heart and boneless limbs. Every part of me is yours, Ordes.’ She paused, brushed his lips with the pad of her thumb.
‘I always wanted to escape the place I grew up, the place that caged me. I didn’t know where I would go.
Would it be home? Could I make it home?’ She traced the line of his jaw, the shell of his ear.
‘But then I met you and realised it didn’t matter because home, I now know, is with you. ’
‘We haven’t had enough time,’ Ordes whispered, his voice breaking.
‘But there would never be enough time to be with you.’ His hands slid into her hair and tilted her face up to his.
‘So,’ he murmured, dropping his head so his lips could brush the underside of her jaw.
‘By the time the sun rises, there isn’t going to be one part of you that I haven’t kissed, because if I do die tomorrow, I’m going to die with the taste of you on my tongue and the heat of your skin on my fingertips. ’
Jenyfer choked back a sob as he kissed her cheeks, one at a time, before his lips ghosted over hers.
She wound her arms around his neck and lifted herself onto her tip toes so she could press her mouth to his, hard.
He cradled her head between his hands and kissed her deeply, until she was panting and crying and falling to pieces in his arms.
‘If this night is all I can leave you with, I’m determined to make it count, Jen,’ Ordes whispered.
He walked her backwards, lifting her into his arms. She folded her legs around his middle and he crawled onto the bed, guiding her back until she was pressed into the mattress and his weight was covering her.
She held him close, memorising every part of him, letting the feeling of him pressed against her carve itself even deeper into her heart.
Gently, Ordes took hold of one wrist, then the other, lifting both arms above her head and holding them there. His smile was cheeky.
‘Keep your hands there,’ he said, kissing her. ‘Every part of you,’ he murmured against her mouth. ‘Is about to be kissed. No interruptions.’
She nodded, trembling. Ordes took his time, like he had that night in The Vale, where he showed her what it could be like between them – what it could be like for her.
That night was branded on Jenyfer’s brain.
Every move he’d made, every sound, every moment of it, so vivid and so visceral she soon realised he was retracing his steps, running his hands over her gently, fingers soaking up every detail of her flesh like he had that night.
His mouth closed over her nipple, tongue rolling against her sensitive flesh. Her back arched, a gasp escaping her, so he switched to the other breast. Jenyfer squirmed beneath him, panting, smiling when she felt him smile against her skin.
‘No need to be so smug,’ she mumbled.
‘Oh, there is every need,’ he said. ‘I wish you could see your face, Jen. That look you’re wearing right now is the one I see in my dreams.’ He pressed a kiss against the apex of her ribs; her breath caught, held, then fled her lungs as he kissed his way down her body.
She knew what was coming and the anticipation of it was torture.
Jenyfer’s eyes dropped closed.
‘Eyes on me, Jen,’ Ordes whispered. ‘I want to see your eyes.’
She swallowed and opened her eyes, caught the way his lips curled, then she was swept away as his mouth closed over the pulsing core of her.
By the time Ordes finally kissed his way back up her body, Jenyfer was nothing but liquid inside a cage of flesh and bone.
Every part of her had melted beneath his tongue, his mouth and fingers.
Her chest was burning, the heartfire raging beneath her pliant skin as Ordes claimed her mouth, one hand cradling her face, the other curled around her hip.
She folded her leg around him and he slowly edged forward; they both groaned as he slid inside her.
When he was buried completely, Jenyfer wanted to weep.
She slid her hands over the silk of his back, his arms, feeling his muscles flex and shift beneath her fingers.
How was she supposed to let him go? Her heart was already fractured – he was the only thing stopping it from crumbling into a million pieces no one would ever be able to repair.
Just this once, she wished he wasn’t so noble, so willing to give everything for others.
She wished, for a moment, that the Bow of Mists had worked its magic on him so they would have more time, because without that Treasure and his mother’s ingrained will, Ordes didn’t have a selfish bone in his body.
She wanted him to fight harder for his life, but she knew that wasn’t who he was.
Ordes would fight for her, for the world, but not for himself.
So she would fight for him. No matter what happened, what the magic of the Grail did to the world, Jenyfer would hold onto him and not let go. The world itself would have to pry him from her fingers, because she was not letting go.