Chapter Twelve #4
He does not rush. His gaze moves over me with a reverence that makes my chest tighten, as though he is memorizing each line, each shadow. When his fingertips finally brush my skin, it is feather-light, careful, yet enough to send a shiver down my spine.
"You were shaped with a hand more patient than any sculptor’s," he continues softly. "No star above us burns half so fair. No mortal cloth could hope to contain such grace."
My breath catches at the praise. I have been told again and again to be modest, to keep beauty hidden so pride would not find root. Yet nothing in his eyes suggests wicked things.
My shoulders loosen, the instinct to cover myself melting away.
His mouth follows, pressing against my skin with slow intent, lingering as though each touch is an offering rather than a taking. My fingers find his hair without thought, threading into it, holding him there.
The forest breathes around us. I feel the ground beneath my feet, the night against my back, and him before me—mouth at my breast, tasting, learning.
Each press of his lips pulls something deeper from my body, something that coils and tightens low in my belly.
My head falls back, eyes closing as sensation gathers and swells.
A thought rises unbidden, dangerous. What would it be to feel his teeth there, where I ache the deepest?
To let him mark me where my pulse beats hardest?
The idea of it steals my breath, a dizzy rush of heat and want coiling through me.
My fingers tighten in his hair. My heart stumbles hard against my ribs, directly beneath his mouth.
He stills.
His eyes lift to mine, dark and aware. He has felt it. The wanting. It trembles through me, impossible to hide.
One hand slides upward, fingers brushing the soft place above my heart, grazing the spot with careful pressure.
"Here?" he asks softly.
The word barely reaches me. I nod before I can think, mouth parted, lungs struggling to draw air.
His head dips, his lips return to that spot, kissing once, twice, as if sealing a vow. I feel the careful, testing press of his teeth against my skin before they sink fully.
The bite is not sudden. It unfolds. A bright sting blooms first, followed by a heat that spreads outward in waves, stealing the strength from my legs. My breath leaves me in a broken cry, but his arms tighten around me, holding me upright.
"Shhh," he soothes against my skin. "I know. I know it hurts." A kiss between each word "Breathe for me. Let me in."
Each word lands like an anchor while the sensation climbs higher, cresting and breaking again, leaving my body shuddering in his arms. I feel him there, feel the rhythm of his mouth, the pull and release, the strange mingling of ache and pleasure that builds instead of fading.
My fingers twist into his hair, clutching without thought.
My vision blurs, the forest dissolving into shadow and silver.
When he releases me, the last tremor still moving through me, warmth slips along my chest where he has taken from me. He rises in a single, fluid motion. I barely have time to catch my breath before his arms gather me again—lifting, holding me close.
My head falls against his shoulder. Beneath my cheek, his strength is steady, unyielding, as he carries me a few steps into the shelter of an old willow.
The floor meets my back in a cradle of grass and moss, his strength guiding the descent until I lie beneath him, his body settling over mine. For a moment I simply breathe against his throat, dazed by the nearness, by the steady hold of his hands at my waist.
His fingers find the fastenings of my dress again.
The fabric yields beneath them, loosened with the same patient care, drawn aside until the night air finds every place he has ever claimed.
His gaze follows the silver that spills across me, lingering wherever it rests.
Heat floods through me at the attention alone, a quiet ache building, drawing me toward him.
His palms slide along my thighs, trailing upward with a deliberateness that leaves a path of heat in their wake. My legs part without thought, opening to him as though they already know what will be asked. His mouth returns to my throat, pressing there, tasting the pulse he has already found.
"Do you still fear me?" he murmurs against my skin.
The question moves through me like a ripple across water. I search for the answer and find only truth.
"No," I whisper, breath breaking against his lips. My fingers tighten against him. "I fear what I'll become if I cannot have you."
He stills for the smallest moment, as though something in him answers that truth.
There, his hand cradles the small of my back, steadying me as he shifts closer, guiding me into him until our bodies join fully.
I tense, then yield, the feeling unfolding into a deep, consuming fullness paired with the piercing sting at my neck as his fangs find me again.
The two sensations collide until I cannot separate them— pain opening into warmth, warmth dissolving into something luminous that spreads through every nerve.
My back arches. My fingers press into his shoulders, into the line of his back, anchoring myself to him as the rhythm builds, slow and consuming.
"Witch," he breathes.
His lips find my throat again.
"Enchantress."
My fingers tangle in his hair, my legs wrapping around him to draw him closer, deeper, urging him to stay where I need him most.
"Inim? mea[27]."
The world narrows to sensation—his hands steady at my hips, the rhythm building between us, the pull of his mouth at my neck drawing another trembling cry from my throat.
The sensation builds and builds until it spills through me in a trembling rush that leaves me weak and trembling in his arms. He gathers me close, pressing his mouth to my temple, my cheek, whispering against my skin as though the words themselves are a vow.
At some point, my need turns restless, too large to be contained in stillness.
My hands slide to his shoulders and I press, urging him back against the earth.
He yields without resistance, watching me with a dark, startled awe as I rise above him, knees braced at his sides.
His hands rise instinctively to my hips as if to steady both of us.
The rhythm finds me on its own, guided by the answering tension beneath my palms. It rises from somewhere low and aching, each motion drawing another wave until everything narrows to the press of him, the pull, the way his mouth opens against my throat as though he cannot remain apart from my pulse.
The press of his teeth breaks through the haze again, and the sensation spreads outward in a bright, shuddering wave that makes my spine arch.
My head falls back, hair spilling down my spine as the sky opens above us, vast and indifferent, the night pouring through my veins with every motion.
The pulse in my veins pounds against his lips, and I feel him answer it, feel the connection deepen until the boundary between giving and taking dissolves entirely.
The release comes like a breaking storm.
My vision flares white. My muscles seize and tremble, the sensation flooding through me so fiercely I cannot contain it, cannot soften it, cannot pretend it is anything other than what I chose.
I cling to him, his arms closing around me as it overtakes me, holding me upright until the final tremors pass through me in waves.
I feel his whisper against my skin, the words threading through what remains of the shudder.
"Now you are truly mine."
I do not resist the words this time. I cling to him, breath ragged, heart racing, the world still spinning in silver fragments around us.
Time dissolves after that. The night stretches, folds, begins again. We move together beneath the branches until the moon drifts lower and the air shifts with the faint promise of dawn.
By the time the horizon begins to pale behind the trees, I am still wrapped around him, my breath breaking against his mouth again and again, unwilling to let the closeness break. Panic stirs beneath my ribs when I see the faint gray of approaching day.
"Take me with you," I gasp, the plea spilling out before I can shape it into anything gentler. "Do not leave me here."
His hands still on my face.
For a moment he says nothing. His gaze searches mine, something tender and sorrowful moving through it. Then he shakes his head slightly, thumb brushing my lower lip.
"You cannot come where I dwell," he says quietly. "The sun has no mercy for me. I am bound to shadow."
"I do not care," the sound breaks apart as it leaves me. "I will go wherever you go."
His fingers slide into my hair, cradling the back of my skull. "You do not belong buried in darkness, hidden from the sky."
The meaning settles over me, heavy and tender in the same breath. Tears threaten, sudden and unwelcome; he leans forward before they can fall, his mouth capturing mine in a slow, lingering kiss, as though he means to leave the taste of himself behind.
"I will return," he murmurs against my lips. "Each night, I shall wait for you where the trees open to the moon. You need only come, inim? mea."