Chapter 42
Iawake to my weakened body in the copper bathtub of our penthouse room. Soap slides across my skin in a soothing, rhythmic motion. Almost lulling me back into the embrace of darkness.
Smoky shadows dance upon my arm. S?las’ fingers move in gentle circles, arching tingles through my nerves.
“You left me,” I murmur softly, my voice raspy with exhaustion.
I hear his weight shift, leaning in closer, kneeling behind me. His head lowers beside mine, gathering the damp strands from my face as his lips brush against my ear. The intensity of his closeness spins my heart into a slurry.
“What’s that saying again? Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” he purrs deeply. His devilish, full lips twist against my ear.
Part of me shudders at even the thought of his absence again. I hadn’t been thinking when I kissed him. Only feeling. I didn’t give myself the chance to dwell on the consequences of my actions.
Oh, but that kiss.
It was far more than a kiss.
Our very souls touched.
Endings and beginnings.
It was a claiming.
A branding.
A rapture.
A tremble caresses my body at the thought of just how deeply he kissed me. Smoky swirls spread across my skin, binding me in soft velvet.
His breath caresses my neck, stealing mine away. His lips barely grazing my flesh as he speaks, “Judging by the kiss of chaos you gave me… perhaps I should leave you more often.” His voice is nothing short of feral.
My body craves the full weight of his perfect lips on my skin, but my heart aches at the thought of him leaving again.
I gather my reedy breath to speak.
“If you want all of me, don’t you ever block me out again.” My voice is nothing more than a rasp, lacking any bite, but it hits its mark as the smirk falls from his lips.
I hear his weight shift behind me, positioning himself to the side of me. His wet hands framing my face. Notes of jasmine mixed with spruce fill my lungs.
I’m so drained from pushing myself to the limits.
And yet. Under his touch, my power crackles, as though there’s an endless well between us.
Perhaps it isn’t my power that’s drained at all, just my physical form.
I nudge my magic, beckoning it inside my muscles to give me strength. To my surprise, it listens.
My eyes flutter open, revealing two glowing white, piercing moons. Melancholy crumples around the edges, and I’m not sure why this time.
“I’m sorry, my Luxsula. I will explain it all to you tomorrow.” His thumbs stroke the gold flecks dusting my cheekbones. I’ve never felt so safe, so at peace in someone’s touch.
“Tonight, let me take care of you,” he pleads in a soft whisper.
“I don’t need you to take care of me.”
“I know, but let me anyway.” His words are so gentle, coaxing me to give in.
My lashes tumble shut, and I give him a short nod. Perhaps letting chaos reign left all my walls in ruin. I’m not sure of anything anymore, but I know at this moment, I want to be close to him. And I intend to selfishly let myself enjoy every second of it.
There’s a part of my mind that’s frightened by everything tonight. The part that always wants to run—it knows once I dive into him completely, there’s no turning back.
I let my heart greedily quiet that part of me.
Tonight, I want to pretend tomorrow doesn’t exist.
Answers and rational decisions are for tomorrow.
Wafting tendrils of steam bead sweat on my temple as the water heats around me.
S?las’ hands shift with his body. He’s once more kneeling behind me. My head now resting on his shoulder, his bare, muscular chest against the skin of my shoulders. My magic rumbles beneath, drawing him closer.
Then, sensation arching my body in an instinctive response.
Puzzle pieces sink into one another. I will my weary arm out of the water, sliding my wet fingers over the corded muscles of his arm.
I tug his hand, wrapping him around me under the water.
Before I can even move to find the other, his arm sinks, already knowing what I want.
Obeying my desires as if they are his own.
The fingers of his left hand splay wide against my stomach, dragging me closer to him. His right fingertips skim my collarbone, dipping down the center of my chest. Stalking the golden lines of my markings like a map made for him.
I keep my eyes closed, devouring his every touch, drunk on the liquid bliss pouring through my nerves. It’s as if it’s the first time I’ve ever been truly caressed.
And maybe it is.
His thumb sweeps over the tip of my breast, stringing a reedy gasp from my lungs at the electric pulse.
His chest breathes unsteadily behind me.
Teasing me yet again as he traces my markings along the muscles of my stomach, then out to the flare of my hip.
His grip wraps around my thigh, tightening as he grapples for the reins of his control.
My fingers weave along his, beckoning his chaos while I relinquish the control I’ve clung to like the very thread stitching my every seam. Holding me together.
“Unravel me,” I breathe.
His shadows obey, flooding out all around me, the dam broken as they consume me. Smoke swirls across my breasts, thumbing my sensitive nipples. I suck in a heady breath. A pinch nips at the peaks; pleasure and pain mix, ripping a whimper from my lips.
A deep feral rumble responds, vibrating my flesh. His aura indenting into me, imprinting his essence as I float lost in my addiction, writhing in my craving, my only thought… more.
The sound of a pleading whimper falls from my lips as his large hand makes lazy sweeps along my inner thigh, agonizingly slow.
Burning me alive beneath the heat spreading from his every touch.
My clit throbs, plump and begging for him.
His tattooed knuckles brush over the core of me, my hips jerking into his touch.
Lightning rips through my every nerve, bowing my body.
With the movement, his lips are against my neck, teeth sinking in, binding me to reality, ecstasy seeping into my blood, leaving nothing free from its blaze.
Full lips drag along the newly sensitive area.
A kiss. A claiming.
“I am yours, and you are mine.” His smoky snarl cleaves into my soul.
A breathless moan pours from my throat. His deep growl rumbling along my neck, teeth nipping along the flesh as if he can capture the sounds he strings from me.
Bliss tightens at my core, his shadows teasing my entrance. I can let myself be his, for tonight.
His fingers brush up the slit of my center, swirling over my clit. My lips pop open, a wild sound escaping, my back arching, slamming into his touch. More. I need more.
He obeys. Prying another feral gasp from my chest as his thumb works the sensitive bundle of nerves.
My hand grasps the corded muscles of his forearm resting along my abdomen, grounding me as heady sensation threatens my understanding of pleasure.
He slips an idle finger into me, a shallow intrusion, keeping me on the edge, but I’m already falling, too lost to hold on, my core tightening around him.
“Look at you. Already unraveling, and I haven’t even made you scream yet.” His rumbling purr wrings a loud cry of pleasure from my lips. His finger tries to retreat, but I snap my hand up, nails pinning into his shoulder before he can leave me.
My arm trembles under the endless teasing of his shadows, still at work along my nipples and breasts, the soft rhythm of his thumb on my clit. My hips buck wildly, trying to deepen the position of his thick, long finger inside of me, but his arm moves with my body, denying me what I crave.
Fucking bastard.
He knows what I want, but I don’t know why he won’t give it to me. I brush my trembling hand along the back of his neck, drawing him closer. He kisses the side of my mouth lazily, as if my body isn’t begging beneath him.
“I. Want. All. Of. You.” Each word is punctuated with a feral kiss along my neck, bringing me almost over the edge of bliss again.
“Please,” I moan across his mind. I’m too breathless to speak.
“Promise me,” he growls. Canines nipping across my neck, the swirl of pleasure and pain have me coming undone as he tightens his arm around my stomach, bringing me back.
“You are mine,” I breathe, praying it will be enough.
“Mine,” he roars as his finger is joined by another, diving deep inside me.
His shadows sear into my skin beneath my breasts, as if they’re imprinting his touch.
Pleasure consumes me as I cry out, my core tightening around him in waves of bliss as my eyes roll back in my head, body shaking on the tide of dopamine.
His breath panting, heart racing, utterly in sync with mine. Our magic swirls, latching on to one another, sinking in, pooling together. His velvety shadows plunge through the water, wrapping every inch of my skin in silk.
The moans that leave my lips I’ve never heard before: wicked, wild, and drunk on chaos.
With each thrust, his fingers go a little deeper, a little faster, beckoning waves of pleasure from me I don’t even know I have left to give. But I come again and again.
He growls. Low. Guttural. Feral. Possessive. His shadows sink into my core, moving with his fingers.
Stretching me, filling me, consecrating me.
Their velvety touch replaces his thumb, as if he knows it’s too rough along the oversensitive center of nerves. Their whispering caress against my clit sends me drowning in pleasure once more.
I greedily devour every wave of ecstasy, certain I will die from the wildfire that burns through my soul.
“You’re mine. All your rage. All your fear. All your darkness. Every single piece of you.”
He licks the salt from beaded sweat that drips down the sensitive part of my neck, sending another wave of shivers through my body. Then his left arm comes up, grasping my face as he kisses my lips gently. Nothing like the fury my mouth had shown him before.
My lips part for his tongue, which deepens in synchrony with his fingers. He swallows my moan as I gasp in his words.
“You’re taking my shadows so well,” he growls, shadows deepening inside my cunt as I moan his name.
“S?las.”
“That’s my good fucking girl,” he rasps. “Come for me. One more time, Luxsula.” His free hand wraps around my jaw, snapping my mouth to his. Our lips collide.
His kiss is a pleasure all on its own. My rapture, branding me in fire, burning my soul, becoming a flame of euphoria. My whole body tightens around him, the world unraveling, ecstasy singing through my veins as I come undone around him.
My body collapses, sinking with exhaustion, head falling back to his shoulder as he grasps my waist to prevent me from sliding under the water.
He whispers in my ear, “You feel like heaven along my fingertips.” He stills inside of me, unwavering, until the last swell of my orgasm tightens around him. Ever so slowly, he drags his fingers out of me. I whimper softly with each movement.
He redefines the word pleasure.
My body shudders as his presence leaves. His absence causing my heightened nerves physical pain.
As if he can feel it, he’s immediately all around me. He lifts my limp body into his arms. Holding my head to his chest as his shadows wrap all around me, wringing each bead of water from my skin, dripping into the tub below.
Safety settles into my marrow, cloaked in his shadows, a home I’ve always been able to retreat to.
He lays me down in the bed on my side, coiling his entire body around me. I find myself disappointed in the presence of soft fabric briefs around his waist.
Sensing my disappointment, he pulls me tighter into him and purrs along my neck, “Don’t think I didn’t catch those wicked lips avoiding my promise. I will have all of you, even if it’s the death of me.”
I hum in response, my nerves still vibrating with pleasure… and something deeper I’m far too heady to explore.
He dusts my skin with soft kisses, each a drop of ecstasy. For once, chaos seems more divine than rigid control.
Perhaps I need a little more chaos in my life.
Perhaps tonight, I can pretend I was born into a different life, with a heart made to love rather than just survive. How much harm can come from living in a fantasy for just one night?
Just for tonight, he is mine, and I am his.
Just for tonight, I can dare to dream what it is to love.
Just for tonight.
Tomorrow is for answers and rational decisions.
My heart sings to the beat of his, to our unfathomable closeness, to the peace my soul has never known. A sleep as deep as death claims me with a serenity I am happy to die in.