Chapter 46
EVER
Isuck in a breath at his cold hands on my skin.
The earth shakes. I don’t doubt it’s me this time.
And I don’t care either. His touch is a reprieve.
With the residual effects of linking, I’m constantly aroused.
And this beautiful man holding me in his lap only makes it worse.
He’s soft and rough at once, gripping my breasts tight and gently flicking his thumbs over my nipples.
My treasures fall between us, bringing a smirk to his face.
I let my head roll back and push my chest out, my hips closer to his.
I expect him to throw me to the ground and tell me precisely how hard he’ll take me, where he’ll come.
Instead, he kisses my neck again, nipping at the skin between each kiss.
Over the cut and bite. Up and up my jaw.
I bring my head forward, my lips in search of his.
It’s soft at first, the way he slides his tongue against mine, as if forcing himself to hold back, then urgent. Passionate.
I squeeze my legs around him. His hands stray from my chest, roaming under my shirt.
To ribs and shoulders. To my back and neck.
He raises the fabric, and not even flinching at the sight of my impression, kisses a circle around the stone on my chest. Ametrine.
I remove it with a quick tug of the chain over my head and find his lips again.
But his touch changes, his grip painful, his tongue forceful. Until he breaks our kiss, gasping. “Get up.”
I search his eyes. They’re as molten as my rings were, brown and gold and green, marbled and swirling around the deep black of his dilated pupils.
He’s not even trying to hide the chaos inside him.
I climb off his lap, mesmerized. And much too obedient for my liking.
But I can’t help it, not when he looks at me like that, like I’m his next long-awaited breath.
He shifts onto his knees, arranging them far enough apart for me to stand between.
Then fire catches his gaze. He puts his hands on my ass and walks me closer, until I’m an inch from his face.
I grab a handful of his soft ringlets. “What’s going on inside that head of yours?”
He rests his nose against me and turns his head side to side, then, ignoring my question, drops my pants to the ground. Then my underwear. They gather at my ankles, warming my cold, bare feet. The frigid air raises goosebumps as if on command.
I pull his hair. “Tell me.”
“This, between us”—he runs his hands from the back of my calves up my thighs and onto my ass cheeks—“it’s a matter of life or death for you.”
I loosen my hold on his hair, chills scrabbling over my skin.
“Is that good enough?” he asks. “Can I lick your pussy now?”
I nod, speechless. I don’t even ask what he means by life or death.
He kisses my thigh. “Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Tell me you want me to eat your pussy. I told you what I was thinking.”
“No.”
He slaps my ass so hard it burns. “Now you have to beg.”
This man is going to unravel my final thread of sanity. For the hundredth time. “I’m not going to beg you. You either want to or you don’t.”
He slaps the other cheek. “Then I’m not going to lick you. Only in my head will you be fucking my face until your knees give out.”
“Fine!” I’m not fine. I roll my head back and look to the sky, endless deep purple and tiny stars beyond the crisscrossed branches and dangling leaves. I’ll stare at it until the desire passes.
But how? How can I do that when he works his hands up between my thighs? When he pushes my legs farther apart with the press of his fingers? When he runs them up and down that rarely-touched skin? And the tree branches reach toward us as if they wanted in on the action?
I need him. I release his hair and grip his shoulders, then focus all my desire on zapping him with a little pain. But it’s much stronger than I was going for.
“Ah, dammit!” His shoulders jump, then my hands are pulled away from his skin.
My arms are forced behind my back without him touching them.
Then my wrists slam together as if cuffed.
I fight to pull them apart, but I’m locked in place.
I’d zap him again to see what he’d do, but so far, I can only choose to cause pain when I use my hands.
He raises his brows and uses his control to press harder, to tighten the invisible hold and yank my arms downward. I gasp and wiggle my fingers over my bottom. He doesn’t even need chains to restrain me. His mind is stronger than any metal that could bind me.
He drags his lips over my mound. And stops. Right above where I want them. “Go ahead. Beg me.” The concentrated heat from his breath on that one spot chills the rest of me. Frost veils the ground in white, cold on the souls of my feet. “Beg for my mouth on you.”
I shiver and look back at the sky, refusing to view the man kneeling before me. “I said no.” Because I’m stubborn? Because voicing what I want is harder than not having it? Or maybe, because I don’t know how not to put up a fight.
“You’d better hurry up. I wasn’t joking about life or death.” He rises, kissing my hips. Then my naval. And back down again. And down.
I want to shove his shoulders downward, but my arms are still wrenched behind my back and under his control. “You hurry!”
He lets loose a breathy chuckle and swipes a single finger up the slippery line between my lower lips. His other hand moves to the back of my thigh and holds tight. I can’t stop myself—I roll my hips forward in search of his mouth and finally look down at him.
What a fucking mistake. He’s smiling. Watching me suffer. And suffer I do. I ache for him.
Then he sucks his finger clean, his cheeks caving in.
The frost melts with a sudden gush. He dips his head closer and kisses the trail of arousal sliding down my inner thigh.
All his fault. I try to free my arms again to pull him into me, but I can only capture his head between my legs. He bites me.
I squeal at the pain in my thigh, and the moons flash indigo light. What is going on? I don’t care. I need him. I need his touch. His tongue. His escape. “You addictive asshole. Please.”
“Good girl. Now tell me where you want my tongue.”
Dammit dammit dammit. “Make me.”
He groans. “Just what I wanted to hear.”
My lips move on their own, my voice passing through them without me saying a thing. This man forces me to beg him. “Please, Eli, make me come on your tongue.”
A smile spreads clear across his face as my jaw drops.
“You—” I start, but he cuts me off and puts his own words in my mouth. “I’m so wet for you. I want to watch you eat my—”
He releases his control on my voice and softly pinches all around my clit. “You say it.”
The pleasure is instant. Intense. It encompasses my entire core. I squeeze my eyes shut, resisting. The ground vibrates. His grip on the back of my thigh grows tighter. The pressure builds inside and out until I don’t know if I need to inhale or exhale next.
He blows a cool gust of air over my wet center.
I lose it. “Pussy! Okay? I want your beautiful mouth on me. Please. Or I swear I’ll end up sitting on your face and taking it for myself. Are you happy now?”
Wind swirls around us. A low growl of approval is all I get before he locks his mouth over my slit, then licks upward, long and slow. Then speaks. “I love how your pussy needs me.”
I whimper and roll my hips into him. The thoroughness of the way his tongue finds every nerve has my legs tingling.
It’s not a ravishing assault, nothing frantic or rushed about it.
It’s tortuously slow and delicious. And sopping wet.
He peeks up at me, his chin rubbing my clit with the tilt of his head, then returns to his drawn-out devouring.
I stare down at him, his nose against me, his tongue between my legs, slipping all around as if he wanted to taste every bit of me, moaning deep in his throat.
His eyes are still pure mayhem, a mess of colors crashing about his irises.
It’s a beautiful sight. I can’t take it.
The intensity. The pleasure. I want to push him away, but my arms are useless, my wrists sore from how tightly they’re bound by his command.
I pull my hips away, but he grabs my ass and slams me back against his mouth, continuing his wet exploration with renewed force and a long moan.
He opens my legs wider and flicks his tongue against my entrance, then presses it inside.
And pulls out, then in again, fucking me with his tongue and humming into me. The soft vibration damn near kills me.
“I can’t. I need—don’t ever stop.” I swivel my body around, trying to free my arms. But he has all the control.
I’m at the mercy of his strength, his invisible hold, his tongue.
Everything tightens. But I don’t want to come yet.
I don’t want it to be over. To go back to problems. To a link that might as well be broken.
To a realm that wants me dead. To a god I’m supposed to kill.
Why can’t I stay in this moment? With his mouth on me?
The temperature drops with my influx of worry.
But even with all those thoughts stalking my mind, I can’t hold back forever.
Especially not when he shoves two fingers inside me.
When he twists them like that. Not when his mouth is everywhere.
His tongue and lips find every last patch of sensitive skin.
I don’t know how to be quiet, how to control my breaths, how not to rock into him and light the night with indigo stars.
I thrust my hips forward, and he finally releases my arms. I crash both hands onto his head and hold him tight against me.
He wiggles his fingers, another leisurely attack of pleasure, his tongue still lapping at my swollen lips.
The wet smack of his mouth releasing and capturing me over and over and his soft groans do me in.