Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
Iclosed my bedroom door softly, almost not wanting to turn around because I’d have to face exactly what I intended to do. Ranth and I would have this night if he agreed. One night that would live forever.
I turned with the thought: Is one night of knowing someone from the inside out better than not knowing them at all?
I knew the answer.
Moonlight from the window sculpted Ranth’s face into shadowed planes.
He stilled as I came close, the air alive with my breath and his presence.
Hunger that had nothing to do with food burned in my stomach.
I reached out, my fingers hovering over the silver scar which trailed down his neck like liquid silver over satin.
“How did you get this?” I asked, tracing the puckered flesh.
He inhaled under my caress, then covered my hand with his. My heart raced as his fingers tucked under my palm.
“It was long ago. A child’s foolishness.
Now it feels like a story in my head, except for this proof.
” His fingers slid down, capturing my wrist and lifting it.
The contact sizzled over my skin, my pulse ramping.
“I was playing with my brother in the flax fields. We were too young to be smart and too young to know the difference between anger and play. He lashed out with a sickle, and it tore my skin. I don’t remember the pain, but I remember my mother’s wail as she hovered over me.
How desperate she sounded, as if I was on fire and she couldn’t put it out.
My father gathered me into his arms. He carried me to an Ahknim healer.
The healer saved me—and claimed my fate. ”
“So that was the day you were left with the Ahknim?”
Ranth nodded.
“So, it wasn’t planned?”
“No. My family led a simple life. To rise to the Ahknim was a rare privilege for a few. I learned later it was the blood spill which had alerted the healer to something in me that she felt could be trained. It was fate that had brought me to them, they said. Fate that could not be denied.”
He turned my wrist and grazed his lips over my pulse, which fluttered against his touch. His exhale danced across my skin. Tomato leaf and woodsmoke. The wind rattled the window.
“You know what I would like from you. I think you want that too, but it is a mistake to begin what we cannot continue. What must end.” His voice matched the desire in his eyes, raw and visceral.
“It can’t be a mistake. Nothing that feels like this can be a mistake,” I replied, but it came out as a whisper.
His eyes were molten pools of brown framed by lush lashes.
Neither of us moved as my blood thrummed under his delicate hold on my wrist. “Besides, everything has an end. Tonight, here with you, there is no other world. Let me be your world.”
I tugged his head down to mine, my fingers sinking in his hair, and his lips parted as mine crashed against them.
Arms crushed around me, my curves fitting like puzzle pieces against the hards and softs of his body.
The strain of his cock tenting the track pants against my thigh amped the urgency.
My need to get skin-to-skin drove me. I pushed back, peeling off his shirt and then taking off mine.
He’d been shirtless in the bathroom that first time, but the sculpted abs and broad shoulders that tapered to a trim waist were silk.
Satin skin dusted with black hair on his chest. I followed the wiry bits from belly button to waistband, and he shifted, hands on my waist, waiting for me to explore.
“Awfully patient, aren’t you?” I trailed fingers over his cock and grinned.
“You mistake my self-control for patience.” His arms banded me and lifted me up, turning us toward the bed and setting me down. He brushed his nose against mine. “I want to see you, all of you, but we have time, and I like taking my time.” His eyes searched my face.
I traced the line of his jaw, then trailed fingers down his arm to the banded tattoo. He dipped his head and teased a kiss.
He lifted my braid and pulled out the elastic. “What do you desire, beloved of my heart?” he asked, unraveling the weave and clouding us with the lilac oil as he fanned my hair.
My breath caught. “I want all of you, and I hate waiting.” I tugged at my skirt, and he lifted up to pull it off me. His pants were next.
I’d had a preview, but his length was perfect for his size, as if he were built in the likeness of a Greek God. Chiseled. Hard. Ready.
“Wait, we need protection.” I moved to my belt, but he grasped my wrist and pulled me up to him.
The movement was fluid, effortless, as if I weighed nothing.
“Do you trust me to take care of us?” His eyes met mine.
The question caught in my throat. I nodded, my belly flooding with warmth.
His hands skimmed my sides and centered over my navel.
“I will make us a charm that will prevent a child.”
That word burrowed in. This man was going to leave me forever. We might only have tonight. My skin flared with heat as he drew an invisible ward across my belly, his fingers trailing down my thighs with the delicacy of a feather.
“Now for me,” he said, gripping the base of his cock. He tipped his chin up to the ceiling, and his cock flexed in his grip.
I imagined the same wave of warmth flowing under his skin. I covered his hands, then stroked the silky length. He moaned and quivered.
“We’ll be safe now,” he said, wrapping his arms around me and drawing me to his chest. The gentle touches were strong and lithe, like him. He dipped his head, capturing my lips. The kiss sweet as mulberries.
“You’ve done this before.” I laughed against his lips, and he pulled back. I grabbed his arms to hold him. “Wait, no. I didn’t mean it that way. I didn’t know what your life was like and whether—”
“I’d lain with a woman? Yes. We do not go chaste to the Garden.
” He chuckled, low and throaty. “Don’t worry.
I know what to do with you.” His expression shifted from predatory lip-licking delight to narrow-eyed concern.
“But do you? I should have asked first. I don’t know your world that well.
” He pulled back again, and I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“Come here, you annoying wizard. I know what I’m doing,” I said, roughly tugging him on top of me. We rolled on the bed, and he pinned me beneath him. Skin on skin, each brush of our lips a whirlwind whipping up the fire that scorched the air between us.
His hands leisurely roamed from my breasts to thighs.
“Such beauty,” he said, kissing down my belly as his fingers slipped over the hair between my legs and circled my clit.
I squirmed as his fingers stroked, arching under him.
Leaving a trail of wetness, he dragged his tongue down my thigh and buried his face between my legs.
Whimpering, I threaded my fingers through his silky hair as his mouth weaved magic. The orgasm twisted in peaks to its final apex, and I melted into the bed.
He settled beside me, stroking my erect nipples.
“I like the sound you make when you see the stars,” he purred.
“Then it’s my turn to make you see them.” I rolled on top of him, straddling his legs, and dragged my palms down his sculpted chest. The man was marble come to life. Caging his balls, I licked a bead of cum off his cock.
Salty, sweet, like him.
His hips arched up. He moaned, “Gods, don’t stop.”
“Is this you begging?”
“It could be.”
I languidly licked the crown, locking eyes with him.
“My gods, you will kill me faster than any demon with that tongue of yours.”
“Are you suggesting I’m more skilled than you are?
” I grasped the base of his cock and licked the length of him, then captured the whole head in my mouth.
He groaned as I took all of him deep. He thrust in rhythm with my sucking, and his groans morphed from deep throaty intensity to missing a beat as his cum gushed into my mouth. Salty sweetness like him.
He tugged me up, hugging me as I swallowed. His kiss was hungry, merging our tastes inside and out. Skin was our enemy. I needed him to be inside of me because I wanted to crawl under his skin. Desperate to know every inch of him. I pushed him onto the bed and climbed on top.
“It’s my turn, I believe.” His lips widened, showing teeth that were excellent at nibbling.
“I’m not good with taking turns. I smirked, playfully chewing on his nipple.
He growled his reply, flipping me onto my back with so little effort my breath caught. His face in shadow washed up the memory of the lich look, and I sucked in a breath.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his eyes searching mine, the whites glowing in the moonlight, giving me another flash of memory. I cringed a little before I caught myself, and he rubbed my arm, his brows pulling with concern.
“Nothing. I mean, it is something, but nothing you’ve done. It’s your other face. I remembered it for a second.”
“Ah.” He nodded, sitting up from me. “I can’t do anything about that.” He ran a hand over his jaw.
“I know that. It’s unusual and new.” I cupped his cheek and tugged him forward for a kiss.
He was tentative, as if waiting for my response, and I poured it into him.
All the passion I had for this complex man, who understood me better than anyone I knew or might ever know.
I tore away to pull him down on the bed, this time catching his body between my thighs.
I was aching for him. The heat of his skin on mine amping the need.
His fingers danced over my breast, circling a nipple. I arched under him as ripples of pleasure hardened them even more.
He dipped his head and captured one nipple, then began a wet trail splitting me from breast to navel. Sitting back, he lifted my hips, running his hands down my outer thighs and crossing to the sensitive skin.
Eyes locked with mine, he delicately stroked the hair on my aching pussy. “I am ensorcelled by your beauty,” he said, fingering my clit. I moaned, writhing under his rubbing until I couldn’t take it anymore.
I sat up and reached for his stiff cock, guiding the wet tip to my inner lips.
“This. In me. Now,” I rasped.
“Is that a favor you ask of me?” He smirked, flashing teeth.
“No, it’s not a favor, you vexing wizard. It’s an order.” I thrust my hips at him.
“Then, I will obey your command, heart of my heart,” he said as he slid into me.
My brain melted as he pulled out and passed back in while rubbing my clit. The silk of him sliding in and out sent me higher than any of Bud’s best blends.
He groaned and settled over me, maintaining the rhythm. Raising my hips, I joined the dance of motion, like we were working together. A human machine. One heart. One soul pumping to one spectacular goal.
I wrapped my legs around him as the crippling orgasm shattered me into silence.
With three more thrusts, he stiffened while crying out something that wasn’t English.
The gush of fluid throbbed inside of me, and I tightened my legs around him to prevent him from pulling out until I was ready.
We rolled sideways, still joined at the hip, his kiss sweet and salty with my tears of joy and the knowing that I’d never experience being here with him again for the first time.