49. Chapter 49 #2
“I don’t get along well with Lucius, the Overseer of the district the Diviner inhabits,” Micah explains. “Zeke’s going to go ahead of us to the domain and try to navigate a trouble-free visit.”
“Can’t Jeremy track you?”
“I can shield myself,” he assures me. “Bedrocks are the ones easily tracked, and even then, only if the demon gets a scent of them.”
“Our magics have been refined to protect them over the years,” Micah adds, “but for base operations with a large headcount, we’re safer underground.”
“In other words,” Zeke says, “you do not need to boil anyone on my behalf. Not this time, but now that I know you have that skill, I might not want to train with you.”
“That was a rookie mistake.”
“It might not be a bad skill to master,” Micah suggests, motioning for Zeke to get out of here. “Don’t forget to tell Lucius to fuck off.”
“I will not tell Lucius to fuck off,” Zeke replies, and then with a smile, “until you’ve left his territory.”
Micah laughs, and Zeke disappears.
“What’s the deal with Lucius?” I ask, and when I rotate toward him, Micah is already in front of me, his hand settling on my waist, another on the side of my head, his fingers curling into my hair. “Do you really want to talk about Lucius?”
“I just thought—”
“The wrong things. I meant to be back before you got up. I want to be back in bed with you, Ember. I didn’t want to leave.” His voice is warm and raspy. My body is hot, my breasts heavy.
“You sure about that?” I ask because it’s something to say, because—just because.
“Come on, sweetheart.” His voice is low, a warm quality to it that has me swaying his direction. “After that dream you had last night,” he says, “you know I didn’t.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks, and my lips part, my fingers curling around the cotton of his T-shirt, my gaze rocketing to his. “You—I—oh, God.” But I see it in his eyes. We shared that dream, and I bury my face in his chest.
He cups my head and tilts my gaze to his, his eyes smiling at me, oh so tender. “Why are you blushing? I liked it, but you should be warned that my dreams are filled with all the things I want to do to you in graphic detail.”
I’m drowning in the heat of his body pooling in my belly, but somehow, that red-winged angel, or whatever he is, shoves his way into my mind.
Is he my dream, or does he belong to Micah?
I want to ask, I do, but still, something holds me back.
“How is this possible?” I repeat. “Is this our connection to Elysium?”
“I do believe it is.”
“Do other people have connections like this one?”
“Why do we care about other people?” His thumb strokes my bottom lip. “Do you know how much I think about kissing you and how many times I’ve forced myself not to?”
He’s right. Why do I care about other people right now? “Why not just do it?” I whisper, sounding breathless. Feeling it, too. “I want you to kiss me.”
“You kept pushing me away.”
“I think we both keep pushing each other away. Micah, I want you to kiss me,” I say again, and that’s exactly what he does. His mouth closes over mine, his tongue sliding deep, his kiss passionate and filled with demand, then softening to a tender caress. “I fucking love how you taste.”
“Like salt and ocean.”
He pulls back and stares down at me. “How did you know that?”
“It’s how you taste to me, like this place, like we really are a part of it.”
Long seconds tick by, and he doesn’t move, as if he’s processing the implications that he may well understand, but I do not.
And I don’t ask. I want his mouth on my mouth.
Want him so badly I ache, and then he gives me what I crave.
His lips, his mouth, his addictive taste, tender at first, and then wild for each other in some soul-deep way that still manages to be more physical than anything I’ve ever experienced in this lifetime.
My hands slip under his snug tee, my skin absorbing his taut skin, rippling muscle flexing beneath my touch.
The man is perfection, every single inch of him, and I’ve wanted him for far too long, for a lifetime, it seems. He’s what was missing, the emptiness inside me I’ve tried to fill and always failed.
We’re all over each other, me against the island, him against me, impatience almost blistering, and when he would undress me right here, I halt us, my hand covering his hand as he reaches for my zipper. “I feel weird out here. Like the house is watching us.”
“You do know the house is everywhere, right?”
“I know, but I have this weird sense that it respects our privacy less here than other places, like this is the core of it.”
He rifts us, and a moment later, we’re inside the dimly lit bedroom, the fireplace flickering wildly to my right, and somehow, he’s behind me when that’s not how we started.
He leans forward, his big body cradling mine, his fingers splaying on my belly.
His head dips low, and I think he inhales my scent, the warm trickle of his breath on my sensitive skin.
Goosebumps lift on my skin, and I tremble from the inside out.
The way he affects me is as exciting as it is terrifying.
With great pleasure can come great loss.
And I feel that understanding in us now.
We have each lived through death to find each other, but when death bleeds, there is always more blood.