Chapter 24
Esme
Ford had looked like he was seconds away from killing someone ever since that first arrow flew past us. I had probably looked similar, my blood still coursing with a panicked energy at the thought of him hurt.
His expression had only darkened as the seconds went on and nearly snapped with Elijah pestering us with questions. For a moment there, I’d genuinely thought he was going to take a swing at him.
It was a good thing that we were getting away from everyone. Especially when someone tried to stop us on the street to inquire about the blood on Ford’s hand and a completely inhuman sound of warning left his throat.
It was a good thing, considering the Bond seemed to wrench the control out of Ford’s hands the second we were alone.
The door had barely closed behind us before he had me in his arms again, breathing hard against the skin of my neck. I was pretty sure he was murmuring my name.
It was several minutes before he came back to himself. By the time he did, I’d let him push me down to the floor and fold himself entirely on top of me. I could have stopped him if I wanted to, but that was just the thing. I didn’t want to.
I was feeling as insane as he was, just a little more present in my body.
“Esme,” he said, a little clearer than all the previous times, mumbled incoherently against my shoulder. Then again, a little more panicked when he realized that he was settled between my legs.
“It’s okay.”
Ford launched himself off me, falling back on his ass several feet away. Several feet too far, if you asked me. “It is not okay. I basically attacked you.”
I lifted an eyebrow. That was all it took for him to clarify.
“Okay, well, I guess you could have knocked my ass out. Still not okay.”
“We had quite the fright just now. We needed to—”
Ford was on top of me a second later, this time fusing our mouths together. He kissed me with his entire body, moving in a slow wave that started with his hips pressing up into me and ended with his tongue sliding against mine so deeply my entire head tilted back.
Our movements quickly descended into desperate gropes, spurred on by our racing hearts. I could feel his beating against the skin of my chest.
An indiscriminate number of minutes later—at least long enough that my stomach had started to wind painfully tight from the pressure of Ford’s zipper on my center—Ford flew back again.
“What is it this time?” I cried, blushing and breathless.
“Esme.” Ford said my name with an intensity that made that blush spread down my chest. He cursed, looking down at the floor. After a particularly heavy breath, he lifted his head. “I’ll find somewhere else to decompress. I’ll just—”
Ford got no further than a crouch before I launched myself at him.
He caught me halfway, rising to stand with me in his arms as I wrapped my legs around his waist.
“Please,” I said against his mouth. “We both need this.”
Ford’s hand tightened in my hair, and I knew I had him.
He kissed me again, and my body jolted with a shock of pleasure so intense I was distantly worried I’d been electrocuted.
The Bond barely knew what to do with itself. I didn’t know how it was reacting on Ford’s end, but my version of the Bond had been told this was never going to happen for three years, then shoved into a coma for another five. It was oscillating between total disbelief and outright joy.
The Bond eventually settled into a buzzing warmth, one that made every place Ford touched me, whether an outright grip of his hands or the slide of his chest against mine, feel all the more sensitive.
I really didn’t know how that was possible, seeing how I already felt him down to my bones. The thought had me gripping his hair tighter, hiking myself up on his hips higher.
The sound that left his throat was like a siren’s call, my mouth immediately changing direction to trail kisses across the bump at the front of his throat and around to the muscles on the side of his neck.
I felt so dizzy, so mindless that I didn’t even notice Ford had started moving until he bent to place me on the foot of the bed.
In another life, I would have been embarrassed by the protest that escaped me when he went to pull away or by the sound of utter relief I let out when he bent back down to place an open-mouthed, suctioning kiss on my lips.
This time, he kept his hands on me as he pulled away, moving much slower. Ford knelt down in front of me, his eyes a blazing green that I’d never seen before.
One that immediately became my new favorite color.
We sat there for a moment, both of us fighting for the same breath to fill our too-tight lungs. Ford’s hands were resting on the tops of my thighs, squeezing in time with his inhales, like the contact with me was as critical as oxygen.
I understood it, seeing as my own chest loosened when I rested my hands on his forearms and felt the warmth of his skin under my palms.
“Esme,” he said. Then a heavy sigh. “Baby, I need to hear you say yes.” He shook his head when I opened my mouth to say just that. “Not just to right now. To this. I need to hear that you want me.”
Something like a sob left my throat. “I want you more than anything, Ford. Please, yes. Please.”
At some point I’d grabbed his face and pulled our foreheads together. That last plea was spoken against his lips.
“Okay,” Ford said, voice ragged. So much so, I moved back just to make sure he wasn’t crying. “Okay.” Then another time.
“Okay.”
“All good there?” I asked, a soft smile pulling to my lips.
Ford’s gaze snapped up. “Oh, you’re going to regret that.”
Moving past the way my stomach tightened at that half-threat, I said, “I know you’re a man of few words, but just needed to check all was functioning properly.”
Ford’s mouth quirked up in a small grin. Sweet God. “I’m figuring out where exactly I’d like to start.”
His eyes moved over my body slowly, as if every little inch was an equal contender, down to my smallest finger. Eventually, his attention started to focus somewhere around my neck and chest. I could have sworn our Mark started to burn in response.
“Yeah,” Ford said, really just to himself. “I’d like to start there.”
I looked down at myself, trying to see what he was seeing. “Where?”
He sideswiped the question, moving one hand to the bottom hem of my shirt and tugging. “Off. Please.”
Surely, I’d had my shirt off in front of him before. Sometimes I trained in just an athletic bra. If there had been a time, I couldn’t grab the memory. It felt new and terrifying and safe.
Ford only moved as far as pushing the shirt up to my middle stomach, flattening his hand against me. I had to take over the rest of the way, slipping my fingers under the fabric and pulling it up and over until it was dangling in my hand.
The connection between us snapped taught as Ford’s eyes settled on my stomach, right where the tail of the snake curled over my upper hip. His hand moved to grip my waist, his thumb brushing over where his attention was focused.
It was nothing more than a light sweep, but it registered with the strength of a lightning bolt, shocking my entire body. It did, notably, end in a pulsing deep in my stomach that made me want to abandon this whole patience thing and tackle Ford down to the floor.
He seemed to be enjoying himself, something lighter in his expression. I could control myself, then. Sit (mostly) still while his hand moved to cup my side, splaying flat over the curve of the snake around my back.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think my skin pushed itself out to meet his touch, chasing that pleasant burning. Eventually, Ford’s hand started to move, exactly along the path of our Mark, up and up until his fingertips met the band of my bra.
There was a fire-red blush on my face before he even spoke.
“This comes off too, Esme,” Ford said, so low there was a chance he was speaking directly into my mind.
“You do it.” I really didn’t think I had the strength to, anyway. I had to conserve energy for what came next.
Ford scoffed. Not a harsh sound, but one of disbelief. He moved slowly, as if he was scared of awakening some latent instinct inside of me to bat his hands away and curse him for even trying.
There was no resistance from me. Hardly any movement, except to raise my arms as he slid two hands inside of the thick athletic straps banding across my upper ribs and pushed upwards until the bra was gone.
My hands came back down to rest in my lap, waiting, as Ford took his sweet time throwing the bra across the room and returning his gaze to me. When he did, the curse that fell out of his mouth made my entire chest feel like a bow string primed to fire.
Ford’s forehead fell to my collarbone, the hot waft of his breath making my already-hard nipples tighten even further. He took several breaths, holding onto my waist with both hands.
Noticing when my fingers started to fidget, needing to do something to distract from the pounding need between my legs, Ford pulled his head away and moved to stand. He pulled me with him on legs I didn’t think could support my weight much longer.
“Turn,” he said with a little twirl of his finger, making me bear my back to him.
The feeling of Ford sweeping my hair over my shoulder almost rent a sob from my throat. As his hands spread over my back again, resuming his exploration of our Mark, I had the thought that I should have been much more nervous than I was.
This was all new to me, not just with him. Hard to have it be any different with the path my life had taken, sheltered girl to finding her Soul Mate at seventeen, then having to shove down all the desires that came with it.
There was a flutter of anticipation in my stomach, sure, but not one of fear. The inherent trust in Ford, in the decision to do this with him, almost knocked me over from the force of it.
Eventually, Ford’s hands made it over to the spot just under my arm, to where the Mark started to curve up and around my shoulders before wrapping down to my hand.