Chapter 33
EVER
You left again,” Eli says.
I pull my head away and look up at him. Always bruised.
Always a puzzle. It’s unfair to blame him when it’s myself I want to knock some sense into, but I’m running on only remnants of sanity.
Terror still drones in my bones. So I roll with my panicked accusation as if it held a shred of validity.
“You slept through me walking right out the door. I thought you had good hearing. I thought—”
“I wasn’t sleeping.” He exhales a rapid breath of disbelief through his nose. “I haven’t since my father died.”
I don’t know which part to respond to first. Or how. Shock? Anger? Sympathy? Hurt wins, pushing through with a soft whisper. “You really did let me go.”
“I went after you.”
I can’t process his words with the painful spiral my heart is stuck in. “You said you’d never let me go.”
His grip on me grows painful, the control of his strength slipping. “And I won’t!”
I startle at his outburst and hold him tighter, my body reacting to the forcefulness of his touch in ways that make me want more. Every drop of my blood battles with the rest beneath my skin, the effects of linking so strong I can hardly think. The rest of the cave is blurry and far away.
“I can’t,” he whispers. Tattered breaths rip through his lungs. In and out. He leans down, forehead pressed to mine. “My heart would give up without you . But I couldn’t keep you from your link. Even though it’s fucking Kelter. It would have killed you to be far apart from him while linking.”
I take his face in my hands, days of stubble beneath my fingers, and tilt my head back to look him in the eyes, even at the risk of never being able to look away. “Show me you’re real.”
“What?”
That familiar sting of tears scratches at my eyes. “I don’t know who or what is real anymore. Show me there’s no possible way I’ve made you up.”
“You didn’t.”
“I don’t even know if I’m real anymore!” I smash my palms into his cheeks, squishing his lips together.
My own face crumples despite my attempt to control it.
“I need to be with you before you disappear too. And I want it to hurt. Because pain is real. That I know. I want to feel you so completely that there’s not a doubt how real you are.
I want you to make me believe in this moment.
” I release his cheeks and run my fingers over his lips, down his chin, his neck. “In this touch.”
He’s statue-still.
I lower my hands. Maybe I broke him.
Not yet. A shallow breath escapes his parted lips. And another. Desire blazes in his gaze. He grabs my hair in his fist and pulls back so fast and hard that I cry out. Pleasure crashes through me. That’s exactly what I want—savage passion. He pants, his eyes wild.
I raise my chin, which only gives him the slack to pull harder. I whimper softly and reach between us. “Show me this is real. Show me you’re not another cruel invention of my mind to get me through this.” My hand finds his cock.
He rolls his head back with a groan and looks down at me again. “You’re still in pain.”
“Eli, I—”
“But that won’t stop me from fucking you.” He pushes me through the water until my back hits the wall. “You need release before the imbalance kills you.”
Every breath comes hard now, the need in my body so consuming, so destructive that I’m dizzy, limbs numb except for the shooting pain traveling along every nerve.
He leans down to whisper in my ear. “I’ll save you.”
“Now?” Please.
He hums in response, a low vibration from his chest, then lifts my legs up so my body floats on the surface, leaving one hand on my lower back.
I throw my arms over my head and grip the ledge to keep from sinking, but he has me perfectly balanced, my body stretched across the spring.
Water clogs my ears, the waterfalls on the walls now a muffled roar.
He parts my legs and slides forward, situating his waist between my knees.
“I’m being ripped apart inside. I need you.” I tremble.
He puts his thumb between my legs and pushes one lip to the side, then the other, staring intently.
I squeeze his hips with my legs and lift my ass from the water, trying to get more contact, but he forces me back down and continues his exploration, running his thumb along my lower lips and pulling them open.
“What are you doing down there?” I ask, no lack of judgment.
“Studying.” He circles my entrance slowly, pulsing against the walls with the tip of his thumb. “I didn’t take the time before.”
“You may have all the fucking time in the world with your lives, but every second for me is a countdown to my death.”
He takes another long look between my legs, his tongue sliding between his lips as if he could already taste me. “How would you rather spend it?”
“With you inside me.”
He jabs his thumb all the way into me with exquisite force, an easy glide in with the water as slick as oil. “Like this?”
“That’s”—I pant, the sudden fullness igniting me all over—“that’s one way.”
“I’m not done looking.” He pulls out and goes back to examining me.
“Why? It’s just a—” I pause.
“A what?” He continues probing, teasing me with his measured touch, each soft stroke driving me to madness.
“Nothing,” I say.
“A pussy?”
I roll my head to the side. “I don’t call it that.”
“Then what?”
“You like to make me miserable, don’t you?”
He smiles. “Maybe. Say pussy.”
“No. Stop studying and fuck me.”
He slips his finger into my ass this time.
No warning. Only an unexpected slippery slide inside, an intense rush of pleasure.
I stare right at him, and he looks up from his focused effort with a grin, eyes glittering gold and black.
I tense around his finger, suddenly much too aware of its location.
He strokes my back with the hand holding me up and wiggles his finger gently, not taking that infectious gaze off me. “Let me in.”
I relax at his soft words, and he wastes no time pushing deeper as he twists and curls his finger.
“Holy ass fucker!” My whole body jerks upward, squeezing him tight, then splashes back down. I grip the ledge behind me. Heat shoots through my core, my chest… all over. The pressure is perfect in the most devastating way.
His chuckle reaches my bones. “You can say that, but you won’t say pussy?”
I scoff.
He pulls out a bit and pushes back in, letting more of the slippery water smooth the deep slide inside. “Kelter says you could call it a cooch.”
I exhale, my brain protesting the mention. “That’s even worse. And tell him to butt out. This can’t be two against one.”
“He can’t help being around when my finger is in your ass.” He wiggles it as if to prove his point on exactly how mentally consuming it is. For anyone involved. “I’m too turned on to block him. Just like I walked around hard while he kept you warm at night.”
Is he defending him?
“I don’t want to think about that. Or him.” I squirm, only managing to take in more of his finger. “I thought you’d be inside me by now. Why do you insist on making me wait for everything?”
“He’s your link. He’s physically uncomfortable being away from you. Which I feel too, even though I’m here.”
Okay, so we’re doing this. We’re going to talk about Kelter while he fingerfucks my ass.
Lovely. I stare at the dark ceiling before returning my attention to the sight of him pinned by my knees, his hand between my legs.
“He’s my Kelt, my friend. I need to be near him too, but I’m not going to fall apart every time I miss him.
I will fall apart if you stop what you’re doing, though. ”
He looks over my naked body before him, wet and needy, but his eyes settle on my face, such a threat of flight in them that I want to hold him and never let go. “Maybe you’re only okay with being separated from him because he’s a part of me, and you’re with me.”
The words he couldn’t say chain up my heart: Maybe you only want me because of him.
My fingers press so hard into the ledge behind my head that they tingle. I hug him with my legs. “Maybe I’m okay because I’m with you, and it has nothing to do with him.”
He releases a stilted sigh and twists his finger inside me. His thumb finds my clit at the same time. “Am I real yet?”
My back arches at the pleasure he so easily rouses in me, but it could all be in my head. “I still have my doubts.”
“Want to know what I feel?” he asks.
“Ew, no.”
“Not with my finger. What I feel from you. Your pain. And your desire, so godsdamn strong I don’t know how you’re still conscious. And how livid you are with me for taking my time.”
“Get out of my head and focus.”
“I’m not in your head. Part of you is in me. In me, Never. Forever. I told you I wouldn’t ever let you go. I meant it in more ways than one. You’re mine.”
And with that declaration, he slides his finger out, grabs me by the waist and flips me around. A second later I’m out of the water and freezing. My hands slap the stone.
Standing behind me in the hot spring, likely pleased with his view of me on my hands and knees, he smacks my ass. I flinch in surprise but can’t find words when his breath passes over the tingling skin. Even less so when he bites me and pushes my knees farther apart.
“Just like that,” he whispers, then runs his tongue up the inside of my thigh, stopping to nibble, teeth pinching.
Then the other side. He nuzzles his nose close and kisses the creases of my thighs, his chin rough, his warm breath making me leak.
Arousal pounds through me in violent waves.
I form fists over the smooth floor, curling my toes and pushing my hips closer to his face.
Maybe if I weren’t about to shatter without his touch, I’d feel overly exposed, timid with my ass in his face. But not now. He could position me any way he wants, do anything that involves me, and I’d take it.
He trails a finger along my slit, gathering up the wetness, and slips it back into my ass, perfectly timed with his mouth landing over my lips, my clit…
then everywhere. I’m not prepared for the trancelike state of euphoria he tips me into.
I moan and twist my head around, trying to get a good view of the man with his face burrowed between my cheeks, his finger now pumping in and out of me with ease.
His other hand is firm on my ass, holding me in place.
Every minute of the long days leading up to this have been torturous. Painful. And all I need now is to let go.
He pulls away then returns, licking me in one long swipe and wetting me thoroughly. “I could devour you all day.”
“Eli,” I whimper. Tension builds in my core, tying me up tight. “I’m—”
“You’re not coming yet.” He pops his finger out, and kisses my center, diving his tongue deep inside me one last time before abandoning my swollen lips and dripping entrance.
My knees shake, my arms weak and collapsing beneath me, my ass still high in the air. I was so close. “Bastard.”
But after what must be the longest moments of my life, of only his teasing breath on me, he goes back for more, renewed passion in every lick and the slip of his fingers inside each opening.
The sound of his mouth on me, his soft groans, the way he holds me so tight—that’s what pushes me over the edge.
And I fall. So hard and so fast that he has to hold my hips up to keep his lips on me as I come. It lasts forever.
Relief arrives in a flood as the magic inside me rearranges itself, finds center, finds balance. I’m suspended in rapture, not a care in the world except the pleasure that pulses through me so violently. But forever is not long enough at all. I teeter on weak hands and knees.
“Mmm,” he says, capturing me between his teeth and tugging gently as he pulls away. Then he lifts himself out of the water and sits next to me on the ledge, patting the stone next to him. “On your belly before I make you.”
His feet kick lightly in the water as he waits.
He leans back on one arm then grabs his length with his free hand, gliding up and down.
I’m not sure why his naked body affects me like it does, why I’m taken over by the need to touch every inch of this man.
It must be a flaw in creation. Because nothing should have such a sway on the mind and body.
Shaking and spent, I’m tempted to let him control me, let him force me into position on my stomach, my face over his nakedness.
But I want him to know how much I want this.
I find the strength to turn and kneel by his side.
Water streams from my hair down my belly and in between my already wet lips.
I stare at his lap, maybe, possibly, completely intimidated.
“You’re nervous.” He runs a finger under my chin.
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
I had been ready for this before, but now, when something lurks in his heart, when I want to open mine and let him in—it’s different.
I want to get it right, make him come so hard he’ll never look anywhere else for relief, not even his hand.
I consider eight different lies and dismiss them all, though I find the truth hardest to coerce past my lips. “I don’t know how to do it.”
“Do what?” That damn smile returns.
I fold my arms over my chest, suddenly self-conscious. He’s only asking to hear me say it. “To suck you, okay? I’ve never done that.”
His grin collapses, replaced with a smoldering stare.
He wraps his hand around the back of my neck and pulls me toward him.
Our faces meet. He kisses my lips then presses his nose into mine.
“Good. Knowing my cock will be the first to slide down your throat and bring those pretty little tears to your eyes makes it so much better.”