20. Chapter Twenty #2
He works his way down slowly, so slowly it’s almost cruel. Every kiss is deliberate, mapped as he traces my curves. His lips trail over each collarbone, down the slope of my chest, and when his mouth closes over the peak of my breast, I arch off the bed with a gasp that echoes.
“That’s it,” he breathes against my skin as he groans. “Let me hear you, Maven.”
I claw at the shoulders of his coat because he’s still fully dressed and the contrast between his rough wool and my bare skin is obscene. “Off,” I manage. “This—take it off.”
He chuckles, rising just enough to throw off his coat. The shirt beneath follows, and even in the dim light, the lean cut of him calls to me—each shift of muscle a promise of the purest pleasure. My palms flatten against his chest, and his heart thunders beneath my hands, skipping every few beats.
“You’re nervous.”
“I am terrified,” he corrects, catching my wrist to drag his teeth across my pulse point.
“That I will wake and find this was only another dream. That I will blink and you will be gone, running into another life where you tell me no once more.” A deep breath.
“I do not think I could survive it again. Not after this.”
The vulnerability in his confession hurts. He’s still scared I’ll disappear. Like I’m the powerful one here.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell him, my hand gliding through his thick hair, yanking him down until our mouths crash together.
The tenderness disappears after that. Both of us groan when my pelvis grinds against his cock—something I repeat several times before his hand slides between my thighs.
His fingers find me already slick and aching; the sound he releases is animal, tortured. “Fuck, Maven.” He drops his forehead to my sternum. “You’re ruining me.”
I gasp as he circles my nub with a precision that makes my hips buck off the mattress. “Good.”
He laughs—actually laughs, a dark rumble against my ribs—and then he slips one long finger inside me, and I lose the ability to be clever.
My back arches when a second joins and he curls them just so.
I moan, my nails dragging down his spine, as he works me open with maddening patience.
Curses fly from my lips when his thumb flutters where I need it most until I’m writhing beneath him, chasing a pleasure that keeps building and building.
“Ash—” His name breaks apart in my mouth, and he catches it with his.
His lips hover over mine. I have the sense he’s watching me closely. “I know. I have you now. Let go for me, my flower. I need to feel you.”
And I do. The tension snaps, pleasure flooding through me in intense waves that leave me trembling and gasping, my thighs clamping around his hand as I ride it out.
Stars burst behind my eyes—actual light, blooming in the dark.
I’ve never come like this with anyone. Never let myself be this undone. I think I’m screaming.
Before I’ve even finished shuddering, he’s shifting, hips settling between my thighs. The head of his cock slides through my arousal, pausing at my entrance. I was too far gone to notice him fully undressing. But I don’t care, I need him inside me now.
“Look at me,” he says.
My eyes snap open as I pant. “I’m looking.”
“When I take you,” he murmurs, pushing forward just enough that the tip stretches me, “there is no version of you in any world I will not follow. I have chosen you across every death. Now you have chosen me.” His hand slides beneath the small of my back, tilting my hips, forcing his length in another millimeter.
“There is no going back from this, Maven. Tell me you understand.”
I hook my legs higher around his waist, drawing him closer. “I understand, Ash—stop making me wait.”
He surges forward, filling me in one slow, relentless push, and the apartment fills with our identical moans—a shared cry of relief; like something that was always meant to be joined finally clicking into place.
He’s buried so deep, pausing when I wince.
The burn from his thickness disappears quickly, but he remains still, shaking, his breath ragged against my throat.
“I know,” he chokes. “Oh, I know you now.”
I’m so stretched and full, the seams of my sex splitting in a delicious manner. At the same time, a cord snaps into place under my heart. As if my body recognizes him and is acknowledging this connection. My eyes flood again, and this time I don’t fight it. The tears soak into my hair.
“Why am I crying,” I laugh, the words wet, and he lifts his head, thumb catching the liquid on my temple.
“Because your soul remembers. It is only you recognizing home.”
Home. I cannot think about the meaning of that right now, or I’ll cry for real and never stop.
Finally, he draws back and drives in again, and thinking altogether becomes impossible.
He sets a rhythm that’s deep and unhurried, each thrust deliberate and heavenly.
His hands never stop moving—cradling my face, gripping my hip, dragging up to lace his fingers through mine and pin them to the mattress above my head.
He murmurs against my skin the whole time, a stream of broken reverence in that gravel-dark voice.
“You feel—there are no words. In any tongue or any world.” His hips snap forward hard, and I cry out. “Mine. Every inch of you. Every breath. Every sound.” His teeth sink into my shoulder, just enough to hurt without breaking skin. “Say it.”
“Yours.” I mean it more than I’ve ever meant anything. “Yours, yours—god, don’t stop—”
“Never.” His pace quickens, control fraying at the edges. “I will never stop. Not for eternity.”
The pressure builds again, faster this time, wound tight by his words as much as his body.
I meet every thrust, chasing him, my heels digging into the small of his back.
The bed frame knocks against the wall—I don’t care.
Let the whole building hear. Let the whole city know that someone, finally, wanted me enough to fall apart.
“I’m so close,” I gasp. “Ash, I’m—”
“I have you.” He shifts the angle until his length strokes that sensitive spot, reaching between us to pinch my clit. “Come with me, my flower. Take me with you.”
I shatter. The second orgasm crashes harder than the first, blinding and total, my whole body seizing around him.
And he follows me over the edge with a hoarse cry muffled against my throat, his hips stuttering, his hand crushing mine as he empties himself into me with a shudder that racks his entire frame.
For a long moment there’s only our breathing, and the distant murmur of traffic. As my hands grip his shoulders, I tug his full weight onto me, needing it.
He doesn’t pull away. He just holds me, and when I feel wetness against my collarbone that isn’t sweat, I realize the God of Longing is crying too.