Chapter 31 Where the Sea Meets the Sky
The hand that offers solace may yet bear a blade. Trust sparingly, for even shadows have their own designs.
If I believed I had any measure of control in this, I was fooling myself.
His lips meet mine and I am lost to him.
Lost to a feeling so sharp and consuming it devours me from the inside out.
To his sharp teeth and the tongue that sweeps out, rough and hungry.
Cool spearmint with a sweet nip of honeyed rum floods my senses.
I want to touch him, to rake my palms across his broad shoulders, to feel every dip and rise, to thread my fingers through his dark hair, jerk his head back and kiss along the strong jaw.
Savor the taste of salty sweat on his skin and surrender myself to every primal sensation.
My legs fall apart only to drag up his sides, lock around his waist so we're pressed together in the most intimate sense.
A focused pain, his quick bite at my lower lip, brings me back from the delirium. His fingers tighten around my pinned wrists and his groan vibrates through my chest.
“Nymph,” he murmurs around my mouth.
“Don't,” I warn him, tightening my legs so that my thighs are firm at his hips. “Don't you dare tell me we have to stop.”
“You are aware we're on a ship with a crew of near fifty, any of whom could find us like this, yes?”
Something animalistic escapes me. I tug against his hold on my wrists. “Let them.”
His grip’s gone loose enough that I yank my arms down, only to throw them around his neck, bringing my mouth back to his.
There's the briefest resistance from him, some dangling thread of hesitation trying to win out, but then he curses and I feel the muscles in his arms relax, sinking low, melding to my touch.
A flare of victory lights within me.
Mine.
I don't care if I'll regret it in an hour, a day, a week. When the haunting light of dawn touches my skin and I remember. Remember that he doesn't care, that I don't mean anything at all. That his obsession with the crown will beat out whatever we share tonight.
I don't care. I won't let the pain of tomorrow interfere with the pleasure of now.
His fingers slip between us, forcing their way to wrap around my throat, pressing my chin back so he can deepen the kiss only to pull away a moment later.
I almost howl into the night until his lips are on me again.
They trail down my neck, follow the dips of my collarbone.
He paws at the buttons holding my blouse together.
A snarl of frustration sees them ripped away beneath his strong hands.
The air is tepid but my nipples still harden under the silky fabric of my shift.
His tongue finds them through the top, a short but blissful detour on the journey to a lower destination.
Heat erupts across my cheeks to feel him reach my waistline. My trousers are a fleeting obstacle he makes quick work of removing. I expect him to travel back to my mouth when I'm free of them, but he doesn't.
A glaze of his cool breath skates over the delicate skin between my thighs. He kisses my inner legs, stroking his tongue along the pulse points, his gentle stubble a tickle in its wake.
“Gods, Pirate!” My back arches off the deck and little pants of breath escape me.
“Should I stop?” he murmurs.
My hands move to work their way through his soft, dark hair. A thrill of panic flutters in my chest.
“I'd prefer you continue.”
The words slip between gritted teeth and he chuckles, a torture of its own. Perhaps I'm the greedy, desperate, pathetic creature so many have painted me as, but it doesn't matter. Not here, not now, when I want all of him.
“Oh, I'm certain I can elicit something far less proper.”
My knees begin to tremble and he rises some so that he can drag his rough palms up my thighs, hook his fingers around the waistline of my underthings and pull. They slip away, skin and silk. I shiver at the feeling, the idea of being laid bare before him.
His eyes glow through the din, devouring me like a man starved, ravaged by a desire carved into his soul. He strokes a lock of hair from my face, his hard lines softening when our gazes meet.
“Your beauty is a sword, Avalon, lethal and cutting.
It could lay waste to an entire realm." His voice rumbles low, a promise and a plea woven together.
He leans down, his lips tracing the curve of my hip, leaving a trail of fire behind.
"And I am willing to bleed for you, Nymph. Over and over again."
His kisses become more insistent, a delicious torment that sends harsh shivers down my spine. His hands explore my body with a reverence that borders on worship, each touch a prayer, each caress a confession of his desire.
Pirate. God. Monster.
"Tell me what you want," he whispers, his breath now scorching against my skin.
My fingers tangle in his hair, pulling him closer. "I want you," I breathe, the words escaping me, all wispy sighs and longing. "All of you."
A quiet growl brews in his chest. He takes me into his arms, plants fierce, heavy kisses along my jaw and throat.
My head tips back as he slips my ruined shirt off my shoulders and carefully lowers me.
The bite of the wood is a welcomed sensation and he slinks back down, spreading me as he goes.
I shiver at the sensation of his gentle breaths and consider a willful little comment about his position, knelt before me as though in worship—god of war, bent at my feet.
A smirk ghosts his lips as his strong arms slide me down closer so I’m less than an inch from his warm mouth.
The air is stolen from my lungs, any words I’d planned gone with it when his hands position my legs onto either side of his shoulders and he brings his mouth to meet the space between.
My fingers curl into his dark strands of hair, like I have to hold on or I might fall from the edge of the world.
His tongue, oh gods his tongue…it parts me, moves in languid circles over the sensitive area above my entrance, grazing it with his teeth before closing his lips around it and sucking in the same rhythmic way he did my nipple.
The pleasure is a beast of its own making.
Intense. Consuming. My knees start to shake as though they have a mind of their own, and tighten to press into the sides of his head.
“I can’t!” I gasp out. “Rhyland, I can’t.
” Something is happening to me, like all of the blood in my body pulsing to a single, focused spot.
I don’t remember feeling this with Harlow, the stolen nights we convalesced on the beach of Aurorae, before he showed his true nature.
It’s like magick—stardust—trying to explode in my brain.
The heat that’s gathered through me hisses, sparking against the rough wood of the deck.
He stops and stares up at me; his voice is low, breath cloying as it breaks over my sensitive skin. “Tell me to stop, Nymph. Tell me to stop and I will.”
I shake my head, legs tightening around him. “No, don’t stop. Please, please don’t. I think I’m dying–it feels like I could explode,” I gasp out.
He grins, something wicked and willful.
Needing no further prompting, he buries his face against me again, continuing the rhythmic sucking that’s driving me mad, but something slower, more languid, like he’s walking me to the crest of a high mountain.
Guiding me. Urging me. Each stroke is deliciously torturous.
His fingers squeeze the outside of my thighs like he has to hold on, too.
A race of pleasure courses through me so intensely my hips buck and he has to move one hand to press down over my stomach, drawing me flush against his mouth.
No way to escape the heat, the pleasure.
His languid sucking intensifies, and the low pressure grows to a precipice. I don’t know what’s happening but I think it’s going to be magnificent.
He moans against me and the sound of it pushes me over whatever limit my body has set in place.
If I thought there was pleasure before, I was fooling myself.
This—this is like nothing, and everything, all at once.
The ship, the sky, it all goes fuzzy and blank until there’s only my nerves and his tongue.
Until I come apart, my legs melting in his arms, and I think I might be screaming something but I’m not sure what.
Slowly, he eases the pressure off of that sensitive spot only to trail his tongue down to my entrance where he buries it inside, moaning again as if he finds the taste of my pleasure more delicious than a dreamberry.
The sensation of it within me is extraordinary.
It’s not until I stop trembling and my pants slow to something that resembles proper breathing, that he withdraws his mouth, easing my legs from his shoulders.
He moves up beside me so that our heads are level. He’s turned on his side as I stare up at the stars, chest still rising and falling a bit too hard.
He props his elbow up, palm tucked under his jaw as he appraises me. “Satisfied?”
“Me? Never.”
His laugh cleaves the night like beating waves and I revel in the sound. With a big sigh, I push up so I’m propped onto my side, too, mirroring him. Our noses almost graze together and my hand lifts to fiddle with the thin strap of my undershirt. “I would very much like to do that again.”
“As you wish,” he murmurs, making to move down my body once more but I stop him.
“No, I want you up here while it happens.” The words come out much bolder than I feel, and I know my cheeks are dusted in a fine rose blush.
His eyes flash and I feel like a little lamb now, caught in the wolf's gaze. “You’re treading dangerous waters, Nymph.”
It’s pointless to try to hide my grin. “Treading? You know I can’t swim.”