Chapter Fifteen
I t was actually happening.
Heart soaring, Jem clung to Cador’s neck, pressed against spectacular muscles as he was carried off. He’d dreamed of this scenario countless times, but the reality was even better. Because these weren’t just any spectacular muscles. Not a nameless fantasy man.
This was Cador, and Jem was safe.
Cador, who was maddening and crude but also tender. Jem thrummed with nerves and elation, afraid to finally walk through this door—although he didn’t need to walk at all since he was being carried.
He trusted Cador wouldn’t hurt him. He’d have never imagined such trust when standing at that altar in the temple, Cador an intimidating stranger, a barbarian from the unknown North.
As Cador swept him into the cottage, barely hesitating to kick the door shut behind as he marched to the bed, that day at the altar seemed a hundred years ago. Jem’s life on Onan’s mainland was so distant it could have been imaginary—a fever dream he barely recalled.
There was only Cador lowering him to the bed and wrestling with Jem’s clothes, tugging off his boots and almost tearing everything else in his haste to make Jem naked. Jem reached for a fur to cover himself, but stopped. Breathing deeply, he vowed again to be bold.
Cador stood at the foot of the bed, eyes glued to him. Jem’s cock ached, curling up toward his belly. Slowly, breath shallow, he spread his thighs. He loved to watch Cador shudder, knowing it was for him—improbable but somehow true.
Cador tore his cloak over his head, then his tunic. He bent to yank at his boots, then held them up after discarding the dagger he kept sheathed inside. One eyebrow raised, he made a show of returning to the door and placing the dirty boots on the floor beside it.
A jubilant laugh bubbled up in Jem. He could fall in love with this man. Gods, he already was, wasn’t he? Falling, falling, falling.
There was no time to question it because Cador was back and naked now, crawling onto the bed between Jem’s legs, covering him with blissful weight and kisses. Jem rutted up against him, barely able to move.
“Please!” he begged.
The fire flickered, in need of stoking. In the long shadows and orange-red ripples of light, the cottage seemed private and new, a cocoon where nothing else existed but the burn of Cador’s beard against Jem’s face as they kissed.
There was nothing but the rasp of it as Cador moved down Jem’s body, sucking his nipples and teasing his ticklish skin, encouraging the sighs and moans that poured from him helplessly.
There was enough light to see Cador move lower. To see him push Jem’s legs wider and higher, bending his big body to his task. Jem fisted his fingers in the furs cushioning him, expecting Cador to engulf his cock with his mouth. Finally ready to experience it.
Yet Cador dipped lower still. With his spear-rough hands, he spread Jem’s arse cheeks wide. Jem’s breath caught. He squirmed, not knowing for certain what was to come. Would Cador—was he going to—would he actually—
The wet pressure of Cador’s tongue against the entrance to Jem’s body had him crying out. Derwa chirped distantly from the hearth, but Jem couldn’t have stopped if her life depended on it. Gods, if his own life depended on it! He was powerless to a pleasure stronger than he’d known possible.
The intimacy of it was so intense he could barely stand it.
Even in Morvoren’s most scandalous pages, mouths were never used quite like this.
The wet, rough texture of Cador’s tongue set Jem’s most delicate, hidden part alight.
Cador was licking over the entrance to his body, and for some reason it seemed more shocking than sucking a prick.
The shameless stroke of Cador’s tongue and hot gust of his breath, the scrape of his beard on tender flesh—it felt like something an animal might do. It felt wild. Forbidden. Perfect .
Jem’s lips parted on a soul-deep moan, and he reached blindly for Cador’s head, fingers gripping the short hair. “Gods,” he whimpered.
The warmth of Cador’s chuckle rippled over Jem’s skin. “No gods here. Only beasts.” As if to prove his point, he licked right inside Jem, using the power of his tongue to open him fully.
“Oh!” His hips bucked. He was spread wide, knees to his chest, never so exposed for another person save perhaps for earlier that night when he’d pleasured himself with the candle before Cador’s eyes.
Cador very well might devour him like this, his broad shoulders pressing close and face buried in Jem’s arse, hands keeping Jem spread and a willing prisoner to the tyranny of tongue and lips and scraping beard.
Jem’s barbarian would devour him whole. What a glorious way to go.
Dripping, Jem’s cock flushed hard and purple as sparks of pleasure danced over his whole body. He wanted to touch himself, but he couldn’t bear to let go of Cador’s skull for fear he might stop the exquisite torture.
Breathy cries escaped Jem’s lips, and he thrashed his head side to side on the pillow. A finger stretched the rim of his hole. It wasn’t unlike the candlestick he’d played with, and he welcomed it greedily, bearing down.
Cador groaned against him, his mouth still at Jem’s entrance. His voice was clear enough as he muttered, “That’s it. Take it the way you’ll take my cock. That’s my good boy. Every bit of it.”
Jem squeezed around his finger, wanting it to be true, wanting to be able to take the whole of Cador’s prick despite his doubts on the mechanics of it. He wanted to be good. Wanted to be wild in the way he’d only dared dream.
Cador crooked his finger just so, finding that spot with the perfect angle. Shuddering, Jem cried out. “Yes. More!”
His finger was deep inside, pressing and rubbing and making Jem shake. Cador kissed his inner thighs, looking up at him. “You’re certain?”
Jem could only huff, half laughing. “Do I seem anything but certain?”
Cador grinned, but eased out his finger. “Say it.”
“I’m certain.” His voice was hoarse, throat dry with anticipation.
“You want my cock?” Cador sat back on his heels and stroked himself slowly. Gods, he truly was enormous, the head shiny, his veined shaft long and thick, jutting out proudly.
“Yes. I want your cock. No one else’s.”
With a growl and a shockingly swift movement given his size, Cador covered him once more, kissing him deeply, the musky taste on his tongue from Jem’s own body. Jem groaned into the kiss eagerly. He wanted everything.
Cador heaved himself away and crossed to his trunk, dumping clothes and several more sheathed knives onto the stone floor without a glance. He returned with a dark vial of oil and poured it over his hand before slicking himself and opening Jem’s arse with his fingers.
The oil was deep inside Jem, and Cador’s prick gleamed with it. He waited for Cador to shove him onto his hands and knees and mount him. It would hurt, but he could withstand it. He craved the invasion.
He wanted Cador to seek his own pleasure, to take him hard and fast and flood him with seed. Jem ached to be claimed and filled, to wonder no longer. He needed to know. After years of imagining and fantasizing, he was ready, no matter the cost.
He nodded at Cador and said it aloud, needing to hear the words for himself. “I’m ready.” Desperate to touch, he ran his hands over Cador’s chest, hair tickling his palms as he traced the curve of the ink tusks.
Yet Cador didn’t haul him over roughly to enter him. Instead, he cupped Jem’s face in his hands, fingers slick with oil, and kissed him softly. Deeply. His tongue made long, slow sweeps until Jem could only whimper. Knees pressed higher to his chest, he was pinned deliciously.
Then he felt the prod of Cador’s cock at his arse. Was he…would they…like this ? He’d expected to be mounted like an animal, and he gasped, breaking their kiss as the head pushed at his hole. He blinked up at Cador, who smoothed a hand over Jem’s hip.
Face-to-face it was almost too much. Cador’s lust-dark gaze pinned him just as much as his body. Part of Jem wanted to close his eyes and hide, yet he couldn’t. Cador’s blunt fingertips circled his hole, positioning his cock and helping it breach Jem.
For he was definitely being breached now, the stretch so intense he held his breath, his arse burning. Any moment now, Cador would plunge inside. Jem braced, squeezing his eyes shut now. Yet there were only tiny advances, Cador taking an eternity to enter him.
“That’s it. Slowly.” Cador’s breath puffed over Jem’s lips before pressing a kiss there. “Look at me.”
Jem’s lungs expanded painfully as he opened his eyes, the swell of emotion too much to bear. For Cador was treating him like a baby bird cradled in the nest of his palms, safe and warm. Peering down at him with patience and kindness, brushing back his curls with a gentle touch.
Yes, the pain of Cador’s cock stretching him to the breaking point was undeniable, his shaft far bigger than fingers or a candle.
Yet Cador claimed him with such care, bestowing feathery kisses to Jem’s forehead.
He cupped Jem’s cheek with his palm, and Jem could feel the whisper of the healed brand, the dillywig wings spread wide.
As when Cador had licked his very core, the intimacy of this joining was so intense Jem could barely stand it—their breath becoming one as their bodies did, the blue of Cador’s eyes so close Jem feared he might drown in those depths, the weight of him perfect. He pulled at Cador’s broad shoulders.
Cador’s smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “You want more of me?”
“Yes!” Jem didn’t hesitate. Couldn’t.
“Do you like my cock inside you?”
“Oh, yes.” Despite Cador’s weight, Jem was able to roll his hips. He squeezed with his arse. “I want more.”
Cador groaned. “Careful. I won’t be able to control myself.”
Jem squeezed around him again. “Don’t care. I need it. Need to know.” He rocked and clenched, the burn now stoking an inner fire that inflamed his blood and engorged his cock. “I can take you.” He squeezed hard. “Go on. Hurt me.”