Chapter 23 #2
There were plenty of places we needed to be besides here, but neither of us felt like leaving, suddenly.
There were several smaller rooms around the perimeter of the armory, war rooms and meeting spaces with varying levels of furnishings and comforts.
One had an inviting fireplace at its center, though the hearth was cold and dark.
We shut ourselves in this room and went to work building up a fire.
As she knelt beside me, feeding kindling into the growing flames, she asked, “How long until my advisors and such notice I’m missing, I wonder?”
“They’ve already noticed, I’m sure.”
“…You’re probably right.”
“I’m honestly surprised they haven’t sent a search party. Especially since I’m also missing.”
“They should know I’m safe with you.”
I yawned, tossing a larger log onto the fire. “Or they’ll think I’ve abducted you to have my wicked way with you.”
“That sounds far more enjoyable than enduring more meetings with them.”
“I would hope I can bring you more pleasure than politics,” I said, grinning slightly. “A low bar to exceed, isn’t it?”
She smiled back, though her amusement was short-lived.
Shaking her head, she leaned against my shoulder.
“Wicked ways.” She scoffed. “My point is that I don’t care about what’s happening with our magic; wicked or not, I’d still rather be here than dealing with another round of kingdom and council disputes. ”
Her voice was soft, fading a bit toward the end.
The firelight danced across her features, drawing my attention again to the exhaustion written in them.
She hid it so well most of the time. But now a memory dropped into my head—that moment in the Hollow Grove, when she’d nearly given in to the vines and visions that had tried to trap her in place.
I’m so tired, Aleks. I’m so tired of moving forward.
It shattered something in me to remember those words. To think about the unfairness of it all, and how I’d been keeping my distance all day when she’d clearly needed me at her side.
I hooked a hand under her chin and pulled her toward me, angling her lips to mine for a slow, deliberate kiss. She was tense at first—the side effect of an entire day spent keeping her guard up—but she soon relaxed into the warmth building between us.
Before long, she was crawling on top of me, straddling my lap, balancing on her knees as she deepened the kiss.
I wrapped one arm around her waist. The other gripped the back of her head, fingers raking through her hair, taking her in a commanding grip and crushing her mouth so completely to mine that I could barely breathe.
But I didn’t need to breathe.
I only needed her.
She squeezed her legs against me and rolled her hips, moaning softly at the delicious friction the movement created. Wisps of shadow curled around us both. It wasn’t an unusual side effect of her arousal, and it wasn’t particularly powerful, threatening magic…
But it still made me pause.
Because what if my magic reacted?
What if I knocked hers off balance again—or worse?
She paused as well, sensing my hesitation. “I meant what I said earlier,” she said quietly. “I don’t care about whatever is happening with your magic. I’m not afraid of it. Or you. I never have been, and that isn’t going to change.”
And yet I’ve seen the fear in your eyes.
I didn’t say it out loud, though. I only brushed a strand of hair from her face and said, “There’s a fine line between fearless and foolish.”
“Yes, and some might say we’ve been walking it together since the beginning of all this.”
“You’re not wrong about that.” My fingers stilled in her hair, my hand framing her face. She leaned into my touch. We stayed like that for a long moment, suspended in uncertainty.
“We are not a tragedy,” she whispered. “Isn’t that what you told me?”
I frowned at the words, even though she was right: I was the one who had said them. And then we’d faced tragedy after tragedy, uncertainty after uncertainty.
But somehow, we were still here.
She crawled from my lap and stood, pacing the room a few times before coming to stand before the blazing fire.
She glanced back at me, her gaze unflinching, her eyes reflecting the fire in a way that seemed natural—like she was something ethereal and inhuman, an extension of both shadow and flame. “It’s still true, isn’t it?”
I didn’t hesitate this time. “Yes.”
It was still true, and I still couldn’t resist her pull, even knowing the risks. Which was why I rose to my feet as well. Why I stood right beside her and stared into the flames.
She tilted her head. “If you don’t want to—”
I pulled her to me, pressing my lips to hers once more, cutting her off. She looked dazed when I finally drew back, a slight smile playing across her lips.
“It’s more than a fucking want. You should know that by now.” The words left me in a rasp. “I need you, Nova.”
She glanced up from where her hands rested against my chest, her eyes heavy with desire. The look made my abs tighten and my cock twitch with a sharp ache.
I gripped her hips, pulling her body more flush against mine. “You have no idea how badly I need you right now.”
She stretched taller, her nose brushing mine, and whispered her reply directly against my lips: “Have me, then.”
My mouth claimed hers in answer.
I may not have deserved her concern or anything else she offered, but I kissed her anyway, hard and demanding, taking my fill of her taste, her softness, her warmth. Because maybe this was the answer. In the past, I’d never felt more balanced than when we were connected like this.
She kissed me back even harder than I’d kissed her, her fingers tangling in my hair. As if she’d had the same thought.
This is how we make our way through the dark.
This is how we find our way back to each other.
I guided her away from the fireplace, shoving her against the wall. My mouth never left hers for long, and my hands soon joined in the claiming. Every inch of her. I needed every fucking inch of her soft, perfect skin; her breathless sighs; her arching body.
She let out a gasp as my tongue flicked against the throbbing pulse of her neck. My lips closed over that pounding spot, sucking until she was squirming beneath me.
“Gods, Aleks.”
“You are far closer to a divine being than me,” I replied, face still buried in the warm curve of her neck. “But you’re welcome to pray to me if you’d like.”
“And you’ll answer those prayers?”
I drew back, returning the playful smirk she gave me with one of my own. “I suppose it depends on how devout this mouth manages to be,” I told her, cupping her chin and tracing my thumb over her lips.
Those lips parted, her tongue swiping over them. Her hands moved from where they’d been braced against the wall to my chest, undoing the buttons of my shirt. She trailed her fingers very deliberately over my stomach, following the lines of my muscles lower and lower.
“Keep that up, and there’s only one way this ends—” I inhaled sharply as one of her hands slipped beneath the waistband of my pants.
Her bright eyes flicked to mine.
“With you on your knees in front of me,” I finished, “practicing a very specific kind of devotion.”
She gave a sinful little smile. “Tempting me, again.”
I grabbed her face and planted a punishing kiss against those wickedly curved lips. She moaned into my mouth, her tongue dancing with mine for a teasing moment…then she pushed me away.
Only to switch places, twisting me around and shoving my back to the wall.
The desire that surged through me nearly knocked me off my feet.
It only grew as she dropped to her knees before me, her fingers hooking around my belt as she went.
She unbuckled it with deft fingers before pulling my cock free with equally nimble hands.
Her lips were there to meet it, their softness a maddeningly perfect contrast against its stiffness.
I pressed one hand to the wall beside me. The other formed a fist in her hair, pulling it out of her face as she took me into her mouth.
Divine, I’d called her.
An understatement.
The gods were nothing compared to the chaotic, beautiful creature kneeling before me, devouring me as if she’d been starving for this moment—as if she’d thought of doing nothing else all day.
My head tipped back as she took me deeper, deeper, deeper. Her hand joined in, circling the length she couldn’t take in her throat, moving with her head to a rhythm that was torture and ecstasy rolled into one.
I lost track of time, of reason, of the world around us.
There was nothing outside of her and the need consuming us both.
I breathed out a curse when she eventually, slowly dragged her lips from around me, her gaze lifting and staying fixed on mine the entire time.
“Is this the devotion you had in mind?” she asked with an innocent flutter of her lashes.
I stared down at her in a daze. At her wet, glistening mouth. At the way her breasts pressed together to form such a tempting valley in between, and the way her head tilted, as if truly questioning if this was what I’d needed.
As if she didn’t fucking know.
The temptation to drive deep into her throat once more was nearly overwhelming.
Instead, I pulled her back to her feet, guiding her hand to my length, closing it over the slickness she’d created.
While she stroked, I reached around to the clasp holding her dress in place, undoing it.
I removed that dress—and everything underneath—slowly, savoring the sight being unveiled; I imagined this was how sculptors felt when they freed the figure of their dreams from a canvas of precious stone. She was a godsdamned work of art, and it was tempting to just stand and stare at her.
But I needed more than that.
“Back on your knees,” I ordered as I finished undressing myself.