Chapter 7 #3
It was there, geometric and ancient and bold against the right side of his ribs, the same cross she wore on the left side of her own ribs, the four-pointed cross her family had carried for untold centuries, inked on the body of a SEAL she had met in a Venezuelan jungle one year ago.
At the center, framed in the cutout where the realms intersected, sat the trident.
Black and sharp and forged into the heart of the cross.
The Quechua words ran down the side. Ukhupacha.
Kaypacha. Hananpacha. Three realms. Three truths.
The underworld. The middle world. The upper world.
Past, present, and future. Water, earth, and sky.
That last connotation hit her so hard, she made a sound she didn't recognize.
Flash lived in those worlds, his very identity tied to earth, water, and air.
Before she had any coherent thought, she pulled her shirt over her head, standing in nothing but her pants and black lace bra.
Her hand reached out before her brain had cleared the command.
She pressed her palm against his chakana, against his skin, against the cross that shouldn’t have been on his hard, beautiful body, and the moment her skin touched the ink, her own chakana ignited.
Lit. Heat bloomed across her ribs where her ink sat, sharp and bright and rising, the cross on her side answering the cross on his side, the geometry recognizing itself across the space between them. She gasped. She didn't pull her hand back. She pressed harder.
His chest heaving, he gently held her wrist. His other hand came up and found the place on her own ribs where her chakana was, and his palm settled flat against her ink, and his heat answered hers.
She felt it through her bones. The crosses had found each other and were singing through both their skin at frequencies that shouldn’t have existed.
A raw, guttural sound tore from Flash’s throat, his head snapping back as the connection slammed into him.
She felt it all, knew everything about his reaction.
It wasn't just the heat of her touch, but a current, a live wire of recognition that surged from her palm through his ribs and straight to his cock.
His entire body went rigid, his hips jerking forward in a helpless, instinctual thrust as his chakana blazed with a searing, golden light.
He fought for control against a pleasure so profound it bordered on pain.
The spectral wings behind him flared wide, the feathers rustling with an audible whisper, a brilliant, terrifying display of the power coursing between them.
He was looking at her now, his gray eyes wide and wild, dawning with an earth-shattering understanding.
He wasn't just a man being touched by a woman he desired.
He was the key fitted into the lock, and the universe was holding its breath for the twist.
She was overcome with his untamed desire, whiplashing through her, and she whispered, "Turn around.”
His wings spanned his back from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, sweeping wide and arching down the back of his arms in the same configuration as hers.
Larger. Scarred at the trailing edges, the feathers shaded with burn-texture, the wings of a fierce bird of prey that had flown through battle after battle for a nation that would stay free or die. War wings.
He’d done this because of her, for her, to honor her, to keep her close, and he never got a chance to ruin her with his mouth.
She was already devastated. The placement, the sweep, the arch down the arms, the way the feathers traced the same muscle groups, the way both pairs were designed to move, the way both pairs would lift if their owners ever truly flew, the geometry was identical.
She had inked her wings to mean I do what I have to do alone. He had inked his wings to mean I will carry you.
Two birds. Two predators. Two halves of the same flight.
She laid her palm flat against the center of his back, between the wings.
His skin was hot under her hand, and his wings lifted underneath her palm.
A pulse of motion that wasn't motion, a shimmer of intention, the wings answering her touch the way they'd been waiting to answer it for a year, for as long as her hand had been making its way toward this exact place on his body.
He cried out again, his breathing ragged and wrecked.
Her body answered in a rush. Her breasts felt heavy and swollen, the lace of her bra suddenly an abrasive torment against her sensitive, pebbled nipples.
A deep, insistent ache bloomed in her core, a liquid heat that pooled between her thighs.
The need for friction, for pressure, for anything to relieve the exquisite tension building inside her was overwhelming.
She reached behind her and unhooked her bra, then to the waistband of her pants.
In one smooth motion, she pushed them down, along with her soaked panties, kicking them aside.
Completely bare, buzzing with a need so potent it was almost painful, she pressed her aching body against him, the loneliness, the pain of wanting him over impossible distances barely assuaged.
The breath broke out of her in a sound that was almost a sob. "Jae."