9. Eliza
Chapter nine
Eliza
W hen we dock at our next location, Corey and I decide to opt out of an organized tour this time. The boat doesn’t leave until sometime tomorrow, and while we should probably be back by nightfall to sleep in our rooms, we essentially have the whole day to ourselves to do whatever we want.
He and I eat breakfast burritos out of a food truck that we passed on our way to the personal hike he insisted we take. One without other people. Without a guide.
Hopefully without rocks trying to crack my skull open, but I suppose there’s always room for a minor disaster.
Corvan and my fingers are laced together as we make our way through the little waterfront town we docked in. I have no idea where we are—nothing beyond how beautiful it is, anyway. I find I care a little less about the specifics when I have Corvan at my side.
When I have nothing to do but remember what it felt like to have his hard body against mine, to be backed against a boulder with his fingers inside my underwear and his mouth against my lips and neck. To have his other hand squeezing my breast.
Fuck . I need him. I need him so bad it’s a miracle I was somehow tired enough last night to not invite him into my room with me. I’d regretted that decision almost instantly after closing the door on him, but I’d also fallen asleep just as quickly.
Still, he’d been holding me a lot more since then. As if unwilling to have any space between us when I was near. And while I hadn’t been particularly clingy with Adam, and he hadn’t been with me… I certainly don’t mind having Corvan so close.
We’ve already finished our burritos and tossed the aluminum wrappers they’d come in into the trash when we finally slip into the lush green forest bordering the town.
It’s almost strange how at ease I feel with him. How easy it is to forget about all my problems, about watching my step or making sure falling rocks aren’t heading straight for me.
Because I know he’ll be right there if something happens. That I’ll be tucked safely in his side before the danger even reaches me.
I’ve never felt that way before. Felt so completely, utterly safe.
I look up at Corvan, ready to tell him exactly that, when I notice the frown on his face. “Hey,” I murmur. “What’s wrong?”
He flicks his gaze to me and smiles. “Nothing. Just… a little worried, is all.”
“About?”
“About the woman who’s been following us. I think someone sent her here to follow me. I just don’t know who.” I’m about to press him for more information when he casts his gaze up to the sky and grimaces. “Looks like it might rain. Do you want to head back to the ship?”
I shake my head. “No. Not unless you do, anyway.”
“Definitely not,” Corvan says. “Out here, you and I are safe.”
“Just the two of us,” I say, grinning up at him.
He nods with a smirk and pulls me to his side. “Exactly,” he says. “Just the way it should be.”
It’s clear, when rain is coming down in heavy sheets through the trees, when lightning arcs across the sky and thunder booms so loud it rattles my bones, that we should have gone back to the boat.
Corvan keeps me pressed tight against him, giving me as much of his warmth and as much protection from the weather as he possibly can, while we search through the forest for somewhere at least mildly protected from the weather for us to wait it out. I don’t know how he sees anything at all. Everything over three feet in front of me is nothing but a blur hidden behind the pouring rain.
Eventually, Corvan leads me to the right, weaving us past trees until I can finally make out what it was he somehow saw: a cave.
“Are you sure it’s safe in there?” I call out to him.
“Don’t worry,” he says back, shouting so that I can hear him over the wind and rain and the crack of thunder that sounds. “I’ve got you.”
I know , I think to myself .
God, it’s so fucking scary to have this much faith in a single person. But I do. With my body and my soul, I know that Corvan would never let a single hair on my head be harmed.
So into the cave we go.
It’s much quieter, and certainly far less wet, inside. There’s enough light for me to see him beside me, but not enough to know for certain how deep the cave is. Shadows slowly take over the deeper it goes until it’s nothing but a black void so dark that I would literally rather face a serial killer with nothing but a Q-Tip than go deeper inside it.
Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that.
I shiver as the coolness of the cave seeps into my soaked clothes. Corvan frowns at me, worry creasing his brow. “You’re cold.”
“Aren’t you?”
He shrugs. “I have a… high metabolism. I run a little warmer than most do.” He molds me into his side and rubs a hand over my arm. “I don’t like that you’re cold, Eliza.”
“I’m fine.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know how long this storm is going to last. You won’t be fine if we’re in here for hours on end.”
“Don’t worry about me,” I insist. “I’m sure it won’t last that long.”
Corvan stares at me for a long moment.
I try to suppress it, try to keep the goosebumps from rising, but a cool wind blows in and I shiver.
“Nope,” he says, shaking his head forcefully. “Look, Eliza, I swear I’m not just trying to get you naked, but you should really take off your clothes.”
I gape at him. “ What ?”
“Oh, come on. You have to know that you’ll warm up faster without those freezing ass clothes on. Especially if you use my extra body heat.”
“Your wet clothes will just do the same thing as mine,” I point out.
“Fair,” Corvan says.
Then he tears his shirt off. I realize I’m staring, but I can’t stop myself.
“Your turn,” he urges.
His chest is tanned, muscled, and straight out of a wet dream, but it’s the tattoo that catches me. Spanning across his chest is a set of black feathered wings inked into his skin. “Beautiful,” I whisper.
“Eliza,” Corvan says softly, “You can finish undressing me with your eyes after you undress yourself with your hands, okay? Please?”
I want to turn him down again. Not because I don’t trust him with my half-naked body, but because I don’t trust myself with his . That, and because it feels awkward as fuck to try to converse and pretend like we’re not sitting here without our clothes on.
Slowly, I peel my dress off anyway, tossing it on top of Corvan’s shirt. The instant coolness makes me shiver again, but he lifts me off the cave floor and onto his lap, pressing my abdomen against his, arms wrapped tightly around me. Squeezing as much of his warmth into my body as physically possible.
And it’s working. I breathe out a relieved sigh at the feel of him against me, unable to stop myself from relaxing further into his body. I’m not paying attention to anything but that warmth when my hands aimlessly find their way into his hair and comb through the strands, running my fingers through it, pushing it away from his face. I say, “I can’t see your tattoo like this.”
He chuckles. “Later.”
I shift myself on his lap restlessly, and Corvan groans. “What are you trying to do to me?”
“What?”
“Playing with my hair like that. Teasing my cock.”
I flush deeply and immediately stop what I’m doing. “Sorry,” I whisper.
The laugh he gives me comes from the back of his throat. A dark look of desire hoods his eyes. “Don’t apologize, Eliza. But you should know that every single movement of yours makes my cock harder.”
I breathe in a shaky, lusty breath. “Do you… do you like it?”
“Of course I like it,” he says, grinning. “I like everything you do.”
“Do you want me to keep doing it?”
He shrugs, but I feel him pressing against me now. As if even just my words arouse him. “I want you to do whatever you’d like to do to me.”
My hands start roaming through his hair again. My hips start to slide back and forth, but not to get comfortable this time—to tease him. To see how hard I can get his dick between my legs before he loses control.
God, I so badly want him to lose control.
Corvan’s hands move to my hips, helping keep me balanced, but it also feels like a confirmation. A yes to this, a yes to using him.
My own hands drift down to the button of his pants. He eyes me with a curious look as I undo it. “Cold fabric,” I say simply. “Not good for me.”
“I agree,” he replies. “Best if we did away with that.”
He angles his hips up enough, lifts me with his arms, so that I can get his pants down to his calves. Corvan kicks them the rest of the way off before settling me back over his cock, this time with just the thin fabrics of our underwear separating us. He places me so that my clit teases against his hardness, and I gasp and my hands lurch to his shoulders, hoping for a little more balance as I swivel my hips on top of him. I can’t help but grind down harder with each rotation, watching the way his jaw clenches with pleasure, feeling the restraint he uses as he grips my waist, feeling the vast arousal I get just from this.
One of Corvan’s hands moves to my underwear. Slips inside and slides through my wet folds, heading straight for my entrance, leaving me to use his hand and cock however I’d like on my clit. “I was so fucking close to feeling how tight you are on my fingers, Eliza. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”
“Then tell me,” I get out between my moans. “Find out, Cor.”
He groans at the nickname and sinks a finger deep inside me, not wasting a moment to stretch me out like he’d been trying to do last time. As if he wasn’t willing to risk missing the opportunity again.
The feeling of him inside me is so good—even just that one thick finger. The heel of his palm scrapes against my clit, and my muscles clench around his finger.
“Fucking hell ,” he bites out, hips jerking upward as he instinctively thrusts. “I want to be inside of you so goddamned bad right now, Eliza.”
“Please,” I whimper, eyes locked with his while I writhe on his hand. Desperate for more, for anything .
But he just shakes his head and crooks that finger inside of me. “Not yet,” he says. “Not until you come on my hand.”
Not a fucking problem at all. An orgasm is already building at the base of my spine, growing stronger with every flex of his palm, with every motion of his finger.
Corvan expertly slips another finger inside of me and slowly scissors them, watching my face as my mouth drops open and my head falls back. He places open-mouthed kisses to the spot on my neck he seems to favor so much and sucks, leaving his mark on me.
“Cor,” I whine, my hips rising and sinking back down on his fingers. “Please.”
“Please what?” he asks.
“ Please ,” I say again. “Make me come.”
“As you wish, Eliza.”
An upward scrape of the heel of his palm. A slight nip of his teeth on my neck. An easy thrust upward to sink his fingers deep inside of me just as he curls them against just the right spot.
And I’m a fucking goner. My climax has me losing myself in the feeling of him against my body, in my body, licking my body, hips moving without rhythm on his lap.
His hands slip down to remove his boxers, and I’m desperate to have him inside of me, so ready for it I can barely breathe through my impatience—
A growl at the mouth of the cave has both of our heads snapping toward it.
The wolf watches us with keen interest, and I wonder why, for a moment, I actually feel embarrassed to have been caught like this.
Corvan’s response to the wolf is much more natural, much less self-conscious. He becomes my protector, yet again. Pushes me off his lap and further from the wolf, then stands, letting out a primal warning sound as—
As black wings snap out of his back, almost like magic. One minute they’re not there, then the next they are, covered in feathers and splayed out wide.
I hear the wolf whine, turn, and trot away.
See as, slowly, Corvan turns to me with wide eyes. He says, “Eliza, please.”
But I just hold a hand up in the air, ordering him to not utter another word.
Then I say, “What. The. Fuck?”