Chapter Nine #4
“Be patient,” he said, a little breathlessly. He teased himself, almost absentmindedly, fingertips caressing the swollen head of his cock as he pored over the curves and valleys of my naked body. “Just want to look at you for a minute.”
My Flame did not understand the concept of patience. It flared wherever his eyes roamed, swirling the skin of my breasts, my pebbled nipples, racing down my thighs like it could entice his touch, until my back bowed with the echoes of that heat bolting up my spine.
“Spread your legs for me, Rosie. Just like that. Oh, fuck, wider.” His voice was rasping, barely intelligible, and yet it spun my feral magic into wildfire until I swore I was nothing but Flame and aching, all-consuming need. “Spread yourself open. I want to see all of you.”
“Please,” I moaned, even as I eagerly did what he said – then circled a finger around my swollen clitoris for good measure, both of us spilling hungry, desperate noises when I arched at the delicious friction.
“I am fucking ruined,” he growled, stroking himself faster now as his eyes locked on the movement of my hand between my legs, the erratic glow of my Flame throwing light over the pained furrow of his brow.
“The sight of you burning for me, Rosie. I’m never going to come back from this. I am never going to recover.”
I couldn’t speak, could barely breathe, because he was right; I was burning, like I never had before.
He’d made a fiery beacon of my body and I knew it would only burn hotter and brighter when I finally had him – a thought that was as terrifying as it was captivating.
How would I recover from this? How could anyone?
“Caelan,” I breathed, his name a plea as my hips bucked under my own taunting fingers.
He was fisting his cock insistently now, my hand keeping pace between my thighs, and when our eyes locked, we shared a breathless laugh at the absurdity of it.
Wanting each other so badly we were each halfway to ruin before we’d even begun.
He paused, catching his breath, and I twisted my hands in the sheets while I did the same.
When he finally leaned over me, it was slow.
Slow was his kiss, and the hand that caressed my face, my throat, my breast, coming to rest flat against my heart where magic and fire pooled around his fingers.
Slow was his first press into my body, and each shaking breath that sawed through him as he sank further inside me.
His arms trembled when he paused halfway to watch me writhe beneath him, giving me the space to adjust as the unbearable girth of him split me open.
I was already so full of him I could barely breathe, but I locked my ankles around his thighs and urged him with the rise of my hips, and he gave in at once, grunting when his hips finally came flush with mine.
His next few thrusts were slow too; achingly so.
Smooth, and wet, and so fucking slow I thought I might cry.
And yet somehow, it was just what I needed.
Release was building in me already, snaking down my spine like a fire racing the gunpowder tracks to a powderkeg.
And when he dropped to one elbow and slid a hand between my legs, his full weight pressing me down, that racing fire was spurred on, my climax looming so fast it frightened me – because I knew that this was different than the last time.
It was different because I couldn’t tell, with his hips rolling fluidly against me and his moans echoing my own, where my body ended and his began.
I knew, with sudden, suffocating clarity that the moment release exploded through me, my magic would combust outward and swallow us both like a dying star.
I reached for my Flame in fear, frantically gathering as much as I could, though it writhed and roared and slipped free with every slow thrust of the Captain’s hips, every messy circle he teased between my legs.
“Don’t you dare,” he said softly. His lips ghosted up my throat, teeth catching gently at my earlobe before he spoke in my ear. “Don’t you dare hold back, Rosie. You’re going to come for me, d’you understand?”
“My Flame–”
“It could scorch the skin from my bones and I wouldn’t give a fuck right now. You’re going to come for me.”
I bit my lip – and slowly unfurled my hold on my Flame, freeing a shard of attention to nod in silent surrender; surrender to Caelan, to my magic, to the earth-shifting climax rising within me.
He slowed both his fingers and his hips until I was writhing pitifully, and when he pulled back to look me in the eye, he groaned like a broken man.
“Say it.” His eyes were hazed and unfocused, a deep flush spreading over his cheeks as he stared expectantly at my lips, waiting for the words he wanted to hear.
“Going to come for you,” I whimpered.
“Fuck.”
The circles he drew around my clitoris suddenly narrowed, tightened until his touch was focused on that unbearably perfect spot.
He was right where I needed him as he drove faster into me, deeper, lighting up the last remaining nerves of my body untouched by flame, until the raging fire within overwhelmed me at last, exploding through my every pore as I tightened and shuddered and came, crying his name as fire rushed past my skin and engulfed him, both of us blazing.
His hand was aflame between my legs as he wrung every last moan from me, whispering encouragement even as his heated breath and searing thrusts grew more erratic and his words finally broke off into a brittle, broken groan as he came hard, spilling my own fire back into me.
There was only the mingling of our harsh breaths for a long moment before I pressed my hand between his still-burning shoulders, drawing him down to collapse against me. He went without complaint, pressing long, breathless kisses into my collarbone, branding me with his searing lips.
I felt otherwordly. Awake.
It was as though my awareness of my magic had set me on a new plane of consciousness.
It wasn’t the same feeling as lighting a hearth or a candle, the flicker of my magic outside my body still hovering in my peripheral until I called it back.
I was acutely aware of my molten magic moving through Caelan’s body, as aware as I was of its flaming root beneath my own heart.
I could feel it racing through his veins, exploring him from the inside.
I could feel every hot pulse of his heart as though it beat in my own chest. And as my magic slowly seeped from his skin, and coiled itself around my heart, it felt changed somehow.
Bigger, and endlessly formidable. The unfamiliar sensation set my pulse skipping with a soul-deep longing for something I’d only ever heard about.
Not possible, I reminded myself. Not with a human.
I forced the fleeting thought aside, and tried to find my voice, saying the first thing that came to mind.
“I set you on fire.”
His deep chuckle rumbled through my skin.
“You certainly fucking did.”
I laughed despite myself, and his smile melted into another kiss, and another, until he had propped himself up, worked his way back to my lips.
My breath caught when he stared down at me and I saw how he glowed from the inside, his skin lit up gold with the embers of magic that still clung so lovingly to him.
Mine, said that unfamiliar voice; it had grown louder.
Clearer. I tried to reel it back, but it didn’t seem to work by the same principles as my Flame – it was there, whether I liked it or not, covetous and unyielding.
Caelan gazed down at me with eyes warmed by something that went beyond the heat of my magic. They glowed warmer still when he curved a hand beneath my jaw and stroked his thumb over my lips.
“I told you, Rosie. I’d burn for you and be grateful for the warmth.”
And when I reached for that last flicker of my Flame, found it dancing in his chest to the contented rhythm of his heart, I knew he truly meant it.