Chapter 41 Evera
EVERA
My lips lingered on Neirin’s lightly as my words hung over us. His breath left him in a shudder. Brushing my nose along his, I encouraged him, and when he accepted my kiss, it was sweet and slow.
He pulled back enough to meet my eyes. His lashes were dark, curled, and so damn pretty, and a tousle of hair fell in front of his brows, disheveled in the best way.
And his eyes—gods. Silver orbs like the moons, searching my soul.
They were the same eyes as his fox’s, symbolizing what they shared.
Both fighting each other, afraid because of abuse, loneliness, and self-loathing.
Because of a memory too dark to even speak of.
But one day, he would open up, and would share.
And when he did, I would be there. I would love him, not in spite of his brokenness, but because of it.
Broken together, just as we were meant to be.
“I love you,” I said again, needing him to understand the depth of my words, to know I accepted every part of him.
“I love you too,” he echoed, but his brows drew together as if he didn’t believe me. I would have to show him, then. Today and every day. With casual touches, lingering looks, and stolen kisses.
I ran my fingers through the waves at the back of his neck and drew him to me. Balanced awkwardly from his shift, he nearly fell on top of me, and I wrapped my arms around him reflexively.
He braced himself with one hand to keep from crushing me and, with his other arm at my waist, lowered me the short distance to the wooden floor. Giggling into his hair, I released my grip and relaxed back, drawing my knees up on either side of his hips. The way we fit together was perfect.
Neirin studied me, his faint smile tugging at his dimple. He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear with a contented sigh. There was so much intimacy to it, so much caring. “You are incredible, Evera.”
I offered a bashful smile and rose to my elbows, closing the distance between us so I could press my lips to his. Like before, it was languid. We took our time to learn one another , memorizing every touch and reaction.
When he broke the kiss and cringed, my heart fumbled.
Noting my concern, he smiled and took one of my hands, drawing it to the rough skin of what felt already to be a scar from his duel with the guard.
“It still hurts sometimes,” he said.
Of course it did. It was so easy to forget, with the miraculous way Neirin healed, but it had been only days. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Keeping my hand, he stood, pulling me up with him.
Though I kept my eyes on his, I was aware of his obvious desire, and I wet my lips at the thought of being with him again. “You should rest,” I said, voice hesitant. “Let it heal.”
The bond drew me to him in a way I’d never experienced with another man.
It was a yearning that sparked at the slightest implication.
It was the need to be claimed, to become one in the most intimate of ways.
It wasn’t on my mind when I stepped forward.
Yet now, standing so near to him, the call tugged on me.
Neirin huffed with his amusement. Drawing me from the depths of my thoughts, he brought my hand to his cock with a glint of wickedness in his eyes. My fingers wrapped, and his length pulsed beneath my grasp.
“Does it seem like I want to rest?” he challenged.
Flushing, I lowered my gaze, nervous and eager all at once. But this was different than what we shared before, different from our exchange in the kitchen as well.
“I’m nervous,” I admitted.
“Then we don’t have to do this.” Neirin withdrew my hold on him, intertwined his fingers with mine, and lifted our shared grasp to his chest. His gentle words coaxed me to raise my eyes to him.
I shook my head and leaned into him, resting my forehead on the bold black markings across his heart. I took a deep breath. “I want to.”
Nuzzling my hair, Neirin wrapped his arms around me. His thumb traced lazy circles at my shoulder. “What are you nervous about?”
Heat flushed my cheeks. “This isn’t just sex.”
Quiet befell us, and Neirin’s thumb stilled. With a heavy exhale, he drew back enough to bring a hand between our bodies and coax my chin up. “No, love.”
“That is what scares me.”
Lines creased between his brows, and despair seeped through the bond, like grasping for something out of reach. Slick—an inability to gain footing, choking as if water filled my lungs, like a depthless sea pulling me under.
A muscle at Neirin’s jaw flexed, and he looked away, eyes darkening.
“Neir, look at me.”
He did, and I drew a breath.
“At the gatehouse, I kept my name from you because I feared attachment. Because it was easier that way. Because I yearned for an escape from the expectations placed on me. And now—” I worried my bottom lip, memories of the night of my mother’s death coming back to me.
“With what I know now, maybe I should fear intimacy.”
“With what you know now?” Concern laced his expression.
Shaking my head, I sucked in my lips. “Later. I’m not scared …
because of that. Not scared of closeness, either.
I suppose.” The words caught in the back of my throat, but I pushed through.
“I’m scared that I am attached and that if we do this, I won’t be able to move past it.
Move past you. And if you leave me, if we fall apart, I will never heal from it. ”
Neirin’s voice thickened. “Evera…” With a breath, he ran a hand through his hair.
Turning from me, he paced to the hearth.
For a moment, he studied the flames, then he turned back to me, though our distance remained.
“I have an obligation to my brother, and I must go to his aid before I can offer you any form of comfort of a life or at home. There is a great risk I may never be able to offer you these things, that I may not return from the castle at all. To be with me puts you in danger, this I know. And yet I cannot let you go. Will not. Unless you ask me to. And if you do, it will destroy me.”
Outside, the wind howled, blowing down the chimney. The flames in the hearth shuddered. And when I stepped toward Neirin, the loose boards beneath my feet creaking, I accepted.
Accepted Neirin in all his forms, the life that lay before us, and its perils.
Accepted myself and the broken parts of me that would always exist. They formed me as Neirin’s hardships formed him.
So, I accepted it all. And when he lowered his lips to mine, I accepted his kiss.
The tribulations of our pasts and the unknowns of our future didn’t matter. Only this mattered, this moment.
Sweeping my hair over my shoulder, Neirin kissed first my neck and then my shoulder as he worked the ties of my bodice. With a single finger, he loosened the ribbons at my breasts, taking his time, and I closed my eyes, reveling in the way he set my heart to racing.
The bodice fell to the ground, and without it, my dress loosely gaped at my chest and slipped over one of my shoulders.
Drinking me in with his eyes, Neirin briefly took my jaw in his hand, then trailed his thumb back to my ear, down the side of my neck, and to the flowing fabric of my dress.
With ease, he unhooked it from my shoulder, and it, too, fell to the floor in a swaying motion.
Bare before him with only my necklaces on, I sucked in a shuddering breath, needing his touch on me again, but he only held me with his gaze.
“I want you to say that I am yours,” I said.
Breaking from his trance, Neirin trailed the fingers of his left hand from the dip beneath my breasts to my navel, the bold marks of our bond at his arm a stark contrast against my pale skin. He made a low rumble deep in his chest.
I pressed my body to his. There would be time to run my hands over his muscles and scars later. It would be time to revel in his strength and discover every part of him. But in this moment, I needed to be one with him. To belong to him, and for him to belong to me.
I rose to my toes and kissed the soft skin beneath his ear. “Claim me,” I whispered.
He kissed my neck eagerly, and between us, his cock throbbed against the dip of my belly. His teeth raked my skin, a caress that shot tingles through my veins.
“Don’t you see, Evera?” He nipped at my jawline. “That it is you who has claimed me? I was yours from the first time you told me you didn’t fear my monster.”
“Say it still.” I ran my fingers through his hair. “If you want me, if I am yours, claim me.”
Without hesitation, Neirin grabbed me by my thighs and lifted me.
I wrapped my legs around his hips, and he hissed his exhale.
The tightness in his expression revealed the pain of his wound, but he didn’t waver.
I made an objection, but he cut me off with a kiss, harder this time, searching, and when I parted my lips, his tongue found mine.
He carried me to the bed and laid me down.
Scooting me back so my head rested among the pillows, he moved over me, his thigh between my legs, encouraging me to open to him.
My body responded, arching, as if I needed him.
The fevered movements rewarded me with a brush of the head of his cock, and Neirin groaned.
He braced me against the bed with his thumb beneath my chin and his fingers curled at my neck. There was no pressure on my throat, but the dominance of the action spoke loudly all the same.
His silver eyes held mine with such an intensity I nearly came undone. With the fire crackling, sending warm yellow light across the room, shadows played on the ridges of his muscled torso and arms. His lips were parted, slightly swollen, and eager.
Tilting my head to the side, Neirin lowered his lips to my neck, and the heat of his breath shot tendrils of excitement through my veins.
Anticipation. He dropped his grasp at my neck and moved his hand to cup one of my breasts, running his thumb over my nipple until it hardened.
Then his touch lowered, following the curves of my body to my hips.
With a rasping breath, he spoke against my neck. “Mine.”
The word resonated through my body, my soul, and when he bit down, the sharp pain throbbed with my heartbeat. I cried out, and in the next moment, he was pressing at my entrance.
He thrust in, and I gasped, taking the length of him.
Breathing heavily, he licked once over my neck, soothing the sore spot, then kissed it. He drew back to gaze down at me, rocking his hips. I shuddered.
With his left hand, he sought mine, and our fingers intertwined between our chests. The marks of our bond overlapped, and the softness in his eyes spoke of such great depth and longing. It was something more profound than lust. It was love. Undoubtedly, unabashedly, raw and unrestrained.
With my arm bent so our shared grasp lay at my breasts, our skin brushed as he moved, our panting heady against each other’s lips. Already the coil within was building, and I moaned, hooking my ankles and arching my back. When Neirin thrust in again, he hit the deepest part of me, and I trembled.
Between the dip of my belly and the defined ridges of his abs flexing with each movement he made, my eyes fell to where we came together. The slick length of him drew out to the tip, glistening, coated with my wetness.
He stilled and lowered my hand, trailing it down my torso, and further still. “Feel our connection,” he rasped.
I whimpered. Pushing his length back in just enough to secure our binding, Neirin encouraged me, drawing my fingers to where we came together.
Exploring with my touch, I let my head fall back, eyes closed. And slowly, so fucking slowly, he pushed in. His cock, slick and smooth, moved across my fingertips and sank in as I encompassed him. And fuck, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced.
“You’re made for me, just as I’m made for you,” he said against my lips, setting a pace. I reveled in the sensation and in his words. “The way you take me to the hilt—” He thrust in deep, and beneath my fingers, no gap remained between us. “You’re shaped just for me. Mine.”
My core tightened, and I rocked, but he held me still beneath his solid weight. Panting, I drew my hand from between us and buried my fingers in his hair, needing to touch more of him, encourage his kisses, and succumb to the desperate need for release.
“Look at me when you come,” Neirin commanded.
When I opened my eyes, my breath caught. He held my gaze, jaw tight. His ash-dusted hair fell about his face. Then he quickened his pace, fucking me hard enough to rattle the headboard against the wall.
The lock of our gazes held us, grounded me as the sensations became too much. As white light fluttered at my vision, I cried out. The orgasm shattered me, building and coiling until my body trembled with release.
With my legs at Neirin’s hips, I held him tight, and he moaned as his last shuddering thrusts came shaky and uneven.
Gasping, he lowered his head, and his hair tickled my breasts.
He gently kissed the upper swell of one, then collapsed beside me, pulling me with him by my hip so our connection didn’t break with the movement.
“My everything,” he breathed, his words thick and relaxed.
Coming down from the rush, I curled against him. The thrum of his heart slowed, and mine matched its pace. My everything.