Chapter 23 #2
“For the record,” I echo, “you were wrong about that translation.”
“I know.” He sounds genuinely delighted about it. “You were furious. It was devastating. I didn’t recover.”
“You’re recovering fine right now.”
“Am I?” He pulls back to look at me, and his face in this light—amber eyes blown wide, hair dark with water, the composure completely gone—is the most unguarded thing I’ve ever seen. All the layers stripped away. Just him. “I’m not entirely sure I am.”
I pull him back in.
His hands slide up my ribs, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts through the wet fabric clinging to my skin. I arch into the touch, and the sound I make echoes off the grotto walls.
“Can I—” His voice cracks, trying to find the right words. “I need to see you. Can I—”
“Yes.” I’m already helping him pull the ruined shirt over my head. “Gods, yes.”
The cold air hits my bare skin for half a second before his hands replace it. Warm. Reverent. Mapping every inch like I’m a text he’s been waiting centuries to read.
“Beautiful.” The word comes out rough, nothing like his lecture voice. “So fucking beautiful.”
His mouth follows his hands. Collarbone. The curve of my breast. When his lips close around my nipple, I cry out, hands fisting in his wet hair.
“I’ve thought about this,” he confesses against my skin. “Every night since the venom hit, you left for the Unseelie Courts and I nearly sob. “The data is even better than my projections.”
“Are you—” I gasp as he switches to the other breast. “Are you grading this?”
“Peer review.” His teeth graze my nipple just hard enough. “Exceptionally rigorous methodology.”
“I hate you so much.”
“Your body says otherwise.” His hand slides down my stomach, fingers tracing the edge of my waistband. “May I?”
“Finnian, if you don’t touch me in the next three seconds, I’m going to—”
His hand slips between my thighs, and the threat dies in my throat.
“Oh.” His voice goes reverent. Wrecked. “Oh, you’re—”
“Don’t say something clinical right now or I swear to the old gods—”
“Wet.” The word comes out like a prayer. “You’re so wet. Is this—all of this—for me?”
“Yes.” I push against his hand, desperate for friction. “Please. Finnian, please.”
His fingers find my clit and my vision whites out.
“There.” He sounds like he’s discovering something sacred. “Right there. The exact pressure that makes your breath catch.” He circles again, adjusting based on my response. “Noted.”
“Stop noting and—”
He slides two fingers inside me.
The moan that rips out of me echoes through the grotto. His palm grinds against my clit while his fingers curl, finding the spot that makes my knees give out entirely.
“I’ve got you.” His other arm wraps around my waist, holding me up. “I’ve got you. Let me feel you fall apart.”
My toes curl as he gently massages that specific bundle of nerves.
“Come for me,” he murmurs against my ear. “I want to feel it. I want to memorize exactly how you sound when you shatter.”
I shatter.
The orgasm crashes through me like a wave, and I hear myself crying out his name while his fingers work me through it, drawing out every aftershock, wringing every last tremor from my body.
When I can see again, he’s watching me with an expression that might destroy me.
“Exquisite,” he breathes. “Absolutely exquisite. The exact shade of green your eyes turn when you come. The way your voice breaks on the second syllable of my name. The precise rhythm of your pulse against my fingers.” He presses a kiss to my temple. “All catalogued.”
“Your turn.” My hands are already fumbling with his belt. “I want—”
“Ash.” His voice cracks. “If you touch me right now, I won’t be able to—I’ve been waiting so long, and I’m barely—”
“Good.” I free him from his pants, wrapping my hand around the hard length of him, and his whole body shudders. “Good. I don’t want your control. I want you.”
“You have me.” The confession tears out of him as I stroke. “You’ve had me since the archives. Since the argument. Since you looked at me like I was worth arguing with. You’ve had me and I can’t—I can’t—”
“Then take me.” I guide him to my entrance, both of us breathing hard. “Stop holding back and take me.”
He enters me slowly, and we both groan.
I feel him everywhere. Not just where we’re joined but in my chest, my throat, behind my eyes where something dangerous is building. The bond at my wrist blazes gold, and I feel his magic tangling with mine, memory and thorns and something ancient recognizing something older.
“By the old gods.” His forehead drops to mine. “I can feel your heartbeat. I can feel—everything.”
“Move,” I demand. “Finnian, move.”
He does.
Long, slow strokes at first—because of course he’d be methodical even now, cataloguing which angle makes me gasp, which depth makes me moan.
But his control is slipping. I can feel it in the way his hands grip my hips harder, the way his breath comes faster, the way his thrusts go from measured to desperate.
“More,” I pant against his ear. “Harder. I want to feel you tomorrow.”
Something snaps.
He lifts me like I weigh nothing, pressing my back against the cool rock of the grotto wall, and drives into me with a force that makes me see stars.
The new angle hits spots I didn’t know I had, and I’m crying out with every thrust, nails raking down his back, legs wrapped around him like I’ll die if I let go.
“I’ve imagined this,” he gasps between thrusts. “Every variation. Every position. Every sound you’d make.” His pace turns punishing. “None of my projections were adequate.”
“Finnian—”
“I’m going to remember this forever.” His hand slides between us, finding my clit. “The exact temperature of your skin. The way you clench around me when I do—” he presses hard and I scream “—that. All of it. Catalogued. Permanent. Mine.”
The second orgasm builds faster than the first. His fingers work me in perfect rhythm with his thrusts, and I’m spiraling, I’m shattering, I’m—
“Come for me again.” His voice breaks. “I need to feel it. I need—”
We fall together.
His roar echoes through the grotto as he pulses inside me, and my own release tears through every nerve ending. The gold bond blazes so bright it lights up the water around us. Magic explodes outward—thorns and memory and light that makes the bioluminescent moss go supernova.
Beside the gold, the silver-blue thread pulses once. Distant. Aching.
And the orange, warm but far, with something underneath that feels like fear.
Both of them in the room with us, the way they always are.
I’m here and I’m not. I’ll carry that later.
Right now, I’m here.
When awareness returns, we’re still tangled together, both breathing hard, aftershocks running through us like shared electricity.
“Hi,” I manage.
A startled sound escapes him. Not quite a laugh.
“Hi,” he says back.
His forehead drops to mine. Neither of us moves. Neither of us speaks. There’s nothing left to say that the bond isn’t already saying.
“I should tell you something.” His voice is rough, wrecked. “I catalogued forty-seven separate data points during that experience.”
“That’s creepy.”
“Almost certainly.”
“Do it again.”
He laughs against my hair—real laughter, surprised and warm—and I let myself have this moment. The cold water and the warm body and the gold bond blazing between us like something holy.
We take our time.
I don’t run.
Somewhere beyond the grotto, beyond the waterfall’s constant song, the forest holds its breath. Waiting for something I can’t name yet.
I ignore it.
I’ll regret that later.