Chapter 26 Sadaré #3
His body surges into me in a wave of hard muscle, capturing me instead of knocking me flat, and he silences me with a kiss. His mouth hungrily covers mine, devouring me. Already I can feel the hard press of him against my belly through our clothes.
It’s everything I thought I wanted. But then I break away from him with a wild gasp, my heart suddenly racing for all the wrong reasons.
For a brief moment, he felt like someone else.
His hand finds my cheeks, lifting my face to his. “Sadaré, are you all right? I apologize. I didn’t know if—perhaps I shouldn’t have—”
“Yes, you should have,” I say, struggling to get my breathing under control. “Just give me a moment. Maybe—maybe go over there.” I point to a patch of golden light spilling over a carpet of leaves.
His brow lifts in surprise, but he obeys me immediately. He strides away to stand in the beam of light, tucking his arms behind his back and planting his feet steadily—a pillar of restraint, though the bulge under his tunic betrays him.
I burst out laughing. He glances down and then gives me a sheepish shrug of his broad shoulders.
“Is there anything else I can—” he begins.
“Yes,” I say. “You can undress.”
His brow climbs higher. But again, he obeys.
Slowly unbelting his tunic, he draws the leather away with a long, languorous stretch of his arm to drop it decisively in the leaves.
Just as deliberately, he unlaces the seams on one side of his tunic, holding my gaze all the while, and then he shrugs out of the material to let it slide to his feet. Leaving him bare.
And very obviously aroused. For a moment, my breath stops as my eyes devour his body from the curves of his horns to the hard musculature of his broad shoulders and chest, following the deep, narrowing divots at his waist to below—where I linger for a while—before continuing down along his powerful thighs all the way to his feet.
Then I retrace the path all the way back up to the hollow at his throat, the perfect angles of his face, and the soft waves of his dark hair.
Finally, I meet his deep, scorching gaze.
“Eyes up here,” he says, his voice teasing, but low.
My breath comes faster again, but for a different reason.
I don’t know why it feels better like this, but watching him helps me know it’s him—even if I should already know.
But I don’t waste time berating myself over the past. I’m too excited for now, a new energy building inside.
A sense of power blossoms within me—control, even, which I must need at the moment.
“I’ll look wherever I want,” I say, even though I sound too breathy for pure confidence. I demonstrate with a flick of my eyes.
“What else do you want?” he asks, the deep, measured words humming through me.
“For you to lie down.”
He cocks his head but obeys me the same as before—slowly but surely lowering himself to the ground on corded arms.
“Now what?” he asks, reclining on his elbows in the gilded leaves like the most beautiful sculpture imaginable with the contrast of his pale blue skin. He looks relaxed, but with the languid grace of a predator that could strike at any moment.
“Lie back and close your eyes.”
He presses his lips together, as if to resist speaking or smiling, and then he does exactly as I say.
I take my time strolling over to him, and then around his deceptively restful form, letting my gown trail along his body.
His muscles tense where it passes, leaving a shiver under his skin.
Eventually I drop alongside him, propping my head on one hand as I stretch out, close enough that my body almost touches the length of his—but not quite, only a warm whisper between our skin.
I can practically feel him vibrating as I inhale his clean, musky scent.
And then I let myself explore.
The golden clouds limn his hard muscles in soft light, and I trace the path of him with my fingertips—every line of his body as if I’m discovering it anew. In a way, I am. Like this, I find the way back to him.
He keeps shivering, flexing underneath my gentle touch as if barely containing himself, his jaw clenching with exquisite tension. Now I understand the beauty he sees in me when he tortures me. I understood it through his eyes, at one time, but this is through my own.
Gasping, Daesra asks, “Can I touch you?”
I savor the desperate note in his voice, the heady power of knowing the key to his release is in my hands. “Not yet.” No doubt he can hear the smile in my voice even though he can’t see it.
He groans, and I feel the sound under the palm of my hand. “When did you become the tormentor, and me, the tormented?”
“Since I met you, I’m fairly sure.”
He breathes a laugh. “Well, that’s true. I just didn’t know you would have such a taste for this.”
“Me, either. But I have to say, I’m enjoying myself.”
“I can tell.”
When my fingers trace along the deep valleys of his inner thigh, he grits his teeth—and then hisses when they slowly trail up the hard length of him, circling around the tip.
“Sadaré,” he moans, “I may just die if you don’t free me from these invisible bonds.”
“You’re immortal. And so am I. That means we can torment each other for an eternity.”
“Thank the gods for that—I think.”
“Thanks to us. You can open your eyes now.” They snap open, and I meet his feverish gaze. “And you can touch me.”
Daesra surges off his back, flattening me beneath him. His weight is a reassuring pressure atop me now, and I only want more of it. I inhale him, wanting him everywhere, inside and out.
“Gods, please tell me I can devour you,” he growls into my neck, his lips and tongue and teeth caressing my skin.
I laugh hard enough to shake him atop me. “You can.”
And so he does, with the golden light falling around us. Nothing painful. Nothing wounding. That can come later.
Now we just need to heal. And, like this, we find our way back to each other.
The Blessed Isles are indeed beautiful. Just like I imagined, they’re the perfect place for a story to end.