Chapter 13 Iris #2
It's impossibly erotic. The wet fabric between us. The vulnerability of my throat in his mouth. The way his control is slipping, his hips rolling up against mine in tiny, desperate movements.
"Cadeon," I breathe.
He makes a sound against my throat. Something between a groan and a growl. And he digs in deeper. The pleasure intensifies, coiling low in my belly, and I rock against him, seeking friction.
His hand slides down from my back, over my hip, between my legs. When his fingers find me, I cry out, the dual sensation, his mouth on my throat, his hand between my thighs, almost too much to bear.
"I can feel you," he rasps against my neck, his fingers stroking through my slick heat. "Feel how much you want this. It's incredible."
"Don't stop. Please don't stop."
He doesn't. He seals the bite with his tongue and moves his mouth lower, sucking at my collarbone while his fingers keep working, finding the perfect rhythm. Through the bond, he knows exactly what I need, can feel my pleasure building and adjusts accordingly.
I'm grinding against his hand now, shameless, desperate. The water sloshes around us with every movement. His clothes are ruined. I don't care. He doesn't care.
"I need you, please." I gasp, reaching for his trousers, fumbling with the fastenings under the water.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Please. I want to feel you."
He helps me with the buttons, and then he's free, hard and ready, and when I sink down onto him we both moan. The sensation is overwhelming. Him inside me, his wet clothes against my skin, the water warm around us, the bond wide open between us so I feel everything he feels.
"Move," he breathes. "Please, Iris. Fucking. Move."
I move.
It's not graceful. Water splashes over the edge of the tub. His shirt bunches awkwardly between us. But it's perfect. Raw and real and desperate in a way that makes my heart ache.
His hands grip my hips, guiding me, meeting my every movement with a thrust of his own. Through the bond, pleasure loops between us endlessly and I feel his sensation layered over mine, his building climax tangled with my own.
He stretches me, and bruises me with his gripping fingers, and lathes me with this mouth. I never knew I needed this. That I was missing this.
"I love you," he gasps, and the words break something open in me. "I love you, I love you, I—"
"I love you too." I cup his face, kiss him deeply, tasting my own blood on his lips."
The orgasm hits us both at once, the bond making it impossible to tell where mine ends and his begins. I shatter, crying out against his mouth, and I feel him follow, feel his release pulse through both of us. The heat of his cum washing inside me.
For a long moment, we just hold each other, trembling, gasping, overwhelmed.
The water has gone lukewarm. Half of it is on the floor. Cadeon looks thoroughly debauched, shirt plastered to his chest, white hair in disarray, a dazed expression on his face that makes him look almost young.
"Your clothes are ruined," I manage.
"I don't care."
"The floor is flooded."
"I don't care."
"You're smiling."
He is. A real smile, unguarded and bright. "I'm happy."
The simple admission makes my eyes sting. "Good. You deserve to be happy."
"So do you." He pulls me closer, tucking my head under his chin. "So do you, Iris."
We stay like that until the water goes cold, wrapped around each other in a ruined bath, thoroughly soaked and completely content.
Three days until everything changes.
But right now, in this moment, everything is already perfect.
Later, much later, after we've dried off and changed and mopped up the flooded bathroom, we lie together in my bed.
His head rests on my chest, my fingers combing through his damp hair. It's such a human position, vulnerable, trusting.
"Tell me more," I say softly. "About Mariana. About what the bond was like before."
He's quiet for a moment, and I feel him sorting through memories. "She used to make me tea. Every morning, without fail. Said a partnership meant taking care of each other."
"I leave tea outside your door."
"I know." His arm tightens around my waist. "The first time I found it, I didn't know what to do. I stood there for ten minutes, convinced it must be some kind of test."
"It wasn't a test. I just wanted you to feel... "
"Cared for. I know that now." He presses a kiss to my collarbone. "Mariana would have liked you. You have the same approach to magic: gentle but persistent. Healing instead of harming."
"I wish I could have met her."
"She would have told you stories about me. Embarrassing ones. She delighted in reminding me that I was once young and foolish."
"You were young and foolish?"
"Devastatingly so. I challenged a duke to a duel once because he insulted her cooking."
I laugh, startled. "You didn't."
"I did. Nearly caused a diplomatic incident. Mariana had to smooth things over by sending him a basket of her scones with a note apologizing for her 'overly enthusiastic familiar.'"
"Overly enthusiastic."
"Her words." I can hear the smile in his voice. "I was not enthusiastic. I was righteous. Her cooking was excellent."
"What happened to the duke?"
"He apologized. Profusely. And then asked for the scone recipe.
" Cadeon shifts, propping himself up to look at me.
"That's what I forgot, during Elspeth's time.
That the bond could be... joyful. That serving someone didn't have to mean being diminished.
Mariana never made me feel lesser. She made me feel chosen. "
"You are chosen." I trace the line of his jaw. "You're my choice, Cadeon. Every day."
"And you're mine." He catches my hand, presses a kiss to my palm. "Whatever happens at solstice, whatever the bond becomes, know that I chose you first. Before the magic forces any decisions. I'm choosing you right now."
"I know." I pull him back down, settling him against me. "I know."
Outside, snow falls softly past the window. Inside, the fire crackles low.
But here, in this bed, with this man who has finally remembered how to be happy, here, time could be any century.