Chapter Forty-Four #2
Elara met his ferocity instantly with her own, so angry, yet so relieved, that her passion was alight in her veins as she kissed him back.
Enzo let out a hiss of frustration, pushing his tongue further into her mouth, as though he wasn’t entwined deeply enough with her.
His hand wrapped in her hair and pulled tightly as he devoured her with his lips.
The taste of him, the feel of him. Gods—she was a starved woman being brought back to life.
Elara was shaking from head to toe with adrenaline, anger, desire—she didn’t know.
She shoved him aside for a moment, blinking her feelings away. ‘I’m still angry with you.’
‘So am I,’ Enzo replied. ‘How do you plan to rectify that, princess?’
She hated herself for how easily the nickname softened her. Enzo’s lips quirked slightly before pulling back into a scowl.
Elara pushed herself forwards, so Enzo had no choice but to back up. And then, with a small smile of her own, she shoved his chest again, hard, and watched him fall back into the water.
He came up spluttering moments later, curls plastered to his forehead, and Elara’s grin only widened. Enzo’s eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, Ariete’s favour is going to be nothing compared to what I’ll do to you now.’
And Enzo reached for Elara’s dress and yanked her into the water too.
Elara shrieked as she went under, clawing herself up Enzo as she broke the surface, hanging on to him. He kept them both afloat as she shouted out every curse she knew.
‘Finished?’ he asked.
‘No. You?’
‘No. I’m still angry with you. But I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ she snapped, and, with a moan, Enzo’s lips found hers again.
He moved her, swimming them both through the natural pool until she felt something hard at her back.
It was a flat lower ledge of the rose quartz, the water running off it into the deep pool they were currently in.
The moment her body came into contact with it, she sighed, its magick wrapping around her, easing away her anger, her worry.
She could feel it draining out of her body and into the pool.
When Enzo’s hands found the slick rock, he too lost the anger in his eyes. The waterfalls sang around them.
Standing at the outer edge of the pool, he gently hoisted her up on to the shelf, so she sat with the water below her knees, Enzo peering up at her beneath his curls.
‘Elara, I’m furious with you for putting yourself at risk for me. But I don’t want the first time we make love since I awoke to be tarnished by this.’
‘Then maybe we shouldn’t,’ Elara said, folding her arms. Though, the crystal beneath her was making her lose her conviction, the most pleasant thrum vibrating through her body.
Enzo scoffed. ‘Oh, trust me, princess. We’re making love.’
Elara softened. ‘I don’t want this to be tarnished either.’ She looked to the skies. ‘I’m sorry. For not telling you sooner. But not for bargaining with Ariete. I’d do it again if it meant having you here. Alive.’
‘Heavenly Stars and all that is holy,’ Enzo muttered. ‘Fine. You can’t expect me to be okay with it, though I’m grateful that you risked everything to save me.’
‘Fine,’ she replied.
Tension rose then fizzled as they stared at one another, Enzo’s arms coming to rest on the ledge, his thumb scraping her outer thigh.
Elara gulped, zoning in on his touch as it trailed along the wet fabric of her dress.
She gathered up the hem, but Enzo’s hand reached out to stop her.
‘Wait,’ he murmured. ‘I just want to’—he let out a shaky breath—‘savour this.’
Elara’s brow softened as she nodded.
Enzo reached beneath the water, and she saw him shift as he pulled off his sodden trousers, then shirt, throwing them on to the ledge beside her. She looked down into the water but could see nothing and sighed in desperation.
‘Still haven’t learned any patience after all this time,’ he teased.
‘Can you blame me?’ she breathed. ‘Look at you. You’re so beautiful, Enzo.’
Enzo smirked, his arm working as he gripped himself beneath the surface, and Elara let out a growl of frustration. Enzo chuckled, reaching to cup her face with one hand, the other threading through her hair.
‘I miss you,’ he said, pushing his torso between her legs as he kissed her neck. ‘I miss you even when you’re right beside me. How is that possible?’
Elara pressed her hand gently to his heart as he kissed her brow next. Her entire being shuddered at the soft brush of his lips. ‘Because our hearts have been bound since the moment we both took our first breath.’
Enzo dipped his head and caught her lips, tasting the words she’d given him. It was a soft, languorous kiss, as though he had all the time in the world to relearn every inch of her mouth.
Elara kissed him back, the taste of him a heady drug, the warm water lapping at them both.
Finally, she pulled away, if only to admire him yet again.
His eyes were heavy-lidded, the gold of them smoky.
‘You’re shining, El,’ he whispered.
She looked down at herself and saw silver rippling off her skin. It danced towards the water around her legs, where it swirled and mixed with the iridescent surface.
When she looked back, Enzo was still staring at her, his gaze so intense that she could viscerally feel it.
‘How did I become so fortunate, hm?’
‘I’m the lucky one,’ she whispered back. ‘I thought love like yours existed only in the books I read. Yet here you are.’
He brought his lips to her face again and kissed each eyelid so reverently that she could have wept. ‘Here I am,’ he whispered. ‘Finally, back where I belong.’
He brushed the sleeve of her dress softly, tugging it down so a shoulder was exposed. Elara shivered, the tantalizingly slow pace that he had set making her positively vibrate with want.
‘Every inch, Elara. I’m going to worship every inch of you,’ he reminded her before pressing his lips to her collarbone.
She let out a soft moan.
‘Don’t,’ he said on to her skin. ‘Or I will lose the barely reined control I have. And I want to fulfil my promise.’
She bit her lip as Enzo did the same thing with her other sleeve, peppering kisses over her shoulder and collarbone.
Then, with a twitch of his lips, he pushed her dress further down.
Her breasts were now exposed, the force of Enzo’s stare and the air playing over them pebbling her nipples.
A rumble caught low in his throat then, as his mouth skimmed down her chest before taking a nipple between his teeth.
Elara arched her back at the sensation, water splashing around them as she gasped. Enzo took her other breast in his hand, kneading it, his thumb brushing back and forth over her nipple as his tongue circled the other, Elara’s panting beginning to fill the air.
‘Your skin tastes like the night,’ he murmured, groaning as he again sucked hard on her peaked breast, earning a curse from Elara.
‘Look at how beautiful you are,’ he said, more to himself than her.
She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath in as she allowed herself to savour the precious moment, the feel of his mouth on her, the honey that dripped from his words.
Awed. Adoring. Everything that she had admitted she desired, he had listened to and given her.
She swore that she could hear his smile. ‘My light in the darkness,’ he whispered, his mouth finding its way to her lips again. ‘My beacon calling me home.’
One of his hands splayed against her sternum as the other pushed her dress down to her hips, her navel now bare.
Enzo lowered his other hand, both now cinched around her waist as his tongue traced a line from between her breasts to her stomach.
Fire coated every inch of her in his wake, and it was then that Elara realized just how cold her world had been without him, how much she had needed his flames.
Enzo must have read the desperation in her eyes because with the next push of his hands, Elara’s dress slid off beneath her, floating away in the pool. Enzo pushed himself up on to the quartz ledge with Elara.
With one strong arm he pulled her into his lap, and she gasped as she straddled him, feeling his length pushing against her, not a stitch of clothing between them.
‘You know,’ he drawled, kneading her hips, and maybe it was the rose quartz that framed him, but he’d never looked so handsome.
Her heart yearned at the sight. ‘All these days at sea, I’ve been thinking about how far away you are from your throne with all this travelling.
How a queen should never be without one. ’
He gave a wicked smile as he pulled her flush against his chest.
‘I’ve made you a new one for the time being,’ he said before lying back, the rivulets of shallow warm water barely grazing his curls and broad shoulders as they drifted off the pink rock and into the deep pools beneath. He gestured to his face. ‘Sit.’
‘You aren’t serious,’ she laughed.
‘Oh, I’m very serious,’ he said, staring at her intently.
Elara’s breathing quickened as she pulled herself further up Enzo. His large hands gripped either side of her waist.
‘Gods, I love your hips,’ he said softly, sinking his fingers into them.
He looked up at her, pinning her with his stare as she hovered centimetres from his mouth. His grin was rakish. ‘Let me show you how loyal I am to the crown, my queen.’
He pulled her down on to him, and she moaned at the new sensation as his tongue lapped against her.
She had committed the first time he’d run his tongue over her to memory, but nothing, nothing compared to being met with the reality once more. She moved and then moaned again as the friction against his face reverberated through her.
‘Hold on to me,’ he murmured in between his passes, the vibration of his voice sending shockwaves through her as he continued to feast.
She obeyed, wrapping her hands in his curls as she let him move her how he wished. She rocked against his tongue.
‘I will never tire of tasting you,’ he whispered before sucking the most sensitive part of her.
‘Oh gods,’ Elara moaned. ‘Don’t stop.’
‘You like it when I do this with my mouth?’ he asked.