Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Shadows wrap around me and the next second we are swirling in a vortex of them. The second my feet touch the solid ground of my dorm, my back is slammed against the door and Jayden’s lips are on mine in a brutal claiming kiss.
“What are you thinking?” he snarls, keeping me pinned to the door with his hard body.
“What do you mean?” I ask, breathless.
“Adrian told you that isn’t an option but you’re still considering it. What happened to forever and always, Beth?”
“That still applies.” I glance away.
Jayden grips my chin, turning my gaze back to his. “This life and the next. You are mine, Beth, and there isn’t a lifetime or alternate reality where I let you sacrifice yourself for me. Do. You. Understand. Me?”
“It’s not your choice to make,” I whisper.
Tears burn the backs of my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. His expression is gutted and tortured. I’ve never seen Jayden appear so completely hopeless. My heart cracks.
“You care so little for me that you would make me live the rest of my life without you?” He squeezes his eyes shut tight.
“It’s not like that. You would at least have a life to live, Jayden.”
“I would rather die a gruesome death than live a day without you.” Jayden kisses me again, slowly and deeply, pressing his body against mine.
“Jayden.” I grip his shirt, unsure if I’m pushing him away or pulling him closer.
“Tell me you won’t do it,” Jayden whispers.
“I can’t promise I won’t. If it is an absolute last resort, I will do it to save you all.”
“That’s all I can ask then, I guess. Don’t just run off to Hera and leave us alone without there being no other choice. Promise.” He presses his forehead to mine.
I stare into his devastated blue eyes and realize that’s a promise I can make. I’m not going to do what she wants unless there is no other option. I can’t leave my friends and Jayden on the whim of a vengeful goddess.
“I promise.” I lean forward and kiss him softly.
Jayden’s lips crash against mine, pouring all the pain, worry, and love from the depths of his soul into the kiss. I grip his shirt tighter, pulling him flush against me. I run my hands up under the hem of his shirt and a shudder rolls through him.
“We’ll find a way, my love. We always find a way to stop her. You won’t have to do this and we can be together forever.” Jayden brushes kisses along my jaw to my neck.
“We will. I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen. In this lifetime and the next.” I push his shirt over his head.
Jayden needs me to reassure him tonight. I need to prove to him how much I love him. If he’ll let me. He’s stubborn about my pleasure and holds himself back until I have come at least twice but usually three times or more. That can’t be what tonight is about.
His words come back to me like a punch to the gut. You care so little for me that you would make me live the rest of my life without you? How could he ever think that’s true? I am a terrible person. A terrible mate if that’s what we are. Fate seems to think that’s what we are. I need to show him.
“Can we try something different tonight?” I ask, tugging at the button of his jeans.
“Anything you want, my love,” he says as he licks down my throat.
“No, I want to show you how much I love you tonight. I want tonight to be about you.” I drop to my knees in front of him.
“Baby, you don’t have to do this because I was upset. I let everything get to me too much. I shouldn’t have said you care so little for me. The weight of everything is on you and nothing makes me happier than making you come repeatedly before fucking you hard and fast the way you like.”
“It’s not about me, tonight. I want to make you feel good, too. I completely wrecked your heart tonight and I need to make it up to you.”
I run a hand up his chest as the other fumbles with the button on his jeans. I lick him in a long line above the waistband of his pants, never taking my gaze from his. When I get to the deep V at his abs, I trace it with my tongue.
Jayden’s gaze is hooded as he shuffles his feet. His hands flex at his sides, probably itching to grip my hair and pull me where he needs me most, but he holds himself back. Just like Jayden always holds himself back.
I nip his hip as the jeans finally fall to the floor and lick across the seam of his underwear as my hand brushes up his calf to his thigh.
“Baby, you’re killing me,” he groans.
“What do you want?” I ask him the question he’s asked me a thousand times in these little moments.
“I want to throw you on your bed and lock you down with my shadows. I want to eat your pussy until you’ve come so many times you can never entertain the idea of leaving me again.”
“Jayden, this is about you.” I rub my thighs together as I squirm at the picture he’s just painted.
Did it suddenly get hot in here because dayum, that was hot.
“And that’s what I want.” He tugs me up from the ground. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”
“How is it that you always manage to turn it around on me?” I pout. “I just wanted to show you how much I love you.”
“And this is what I want you to do to prove your love for me. So be my good girl and do as I say, yeah?” Jayden runs his nose up the side of my neck.
I shudder when he calls me his good girl. Shit, that’s a new kink for me. What is he going to pull out of me next? I can’t wait to find out.
“Okay,” I say.
The second the word passes my lips, Jayden is on me, tearing my clothes off and running his hands over every inch of skin on display. He lifts me up into his arms and my legs wrap around his waist as he carries me over to the bed.
“Unwrap your legs, love.” Then I’m airborne, landing on the plush mattress.
His gaze roams over my body as the shadows explode out of him in a rush, caressing every inch of exposed skin. They brush along my body, licking and nipping places that make me squirm. Jayden watches me with heated eyes. He licks his lips and crawls up the bed between my restrained legs.
“Look how pretty you are as my shadows restrain you,” he murmurs. “Are you drenched for me, baby?”
“Yes, fuck, Jayden.” I squirm but the shadows have a tight hold on me.
“Do you have any idea how much pleasure it brings me to make you come all over my face?” he asks. “It makes me so hard to know that me and only me can make you feel like this. Needy and aching for my cock.”
“Yes, Jayden, only you,” I whisper.
“Forever and always,” he says as he licks his way up my inner thigh.
A finger presses into my entrance and a growl escapes Jayden as he glances up into my eyes.
“You are fucking drenched. I wonder how hard I can make you come with my fingers and tongue.”
He’s trying to kill me with anticipation but I told him repeatedly that this is about him so if he wants to drag it out, then I will endure the torturously slow pace. I will be his good girl.
“Hmmm, what was that thought that made you shudder like that?” Jayden asks.
“I decided that I will endure the slow pace and be your good girl,” I whisper, slightly embarrassed but extremely turned on at the same time.
“You like being my good girl here in the bedroom but a powerful badass in the real world. I can work with that, baby. I can be the dominant one and just make you feel everything and lose yourself to the moment.”
Is that what I have always needed? The words feel right.
Like maybe I’m a dominant person to the world because of my power but between these walls with Jayden, I can let that control go and just feel.
It’s the reason Jayden and I work so well together.
He knows exactly what I need almost instinctively.
“Yes, Jayden,” I cry.
Two fingers thrust into my pussy hard and fast. They curl in that way that has me seeing stars and arching off the bed but the shadows hold me down so I can’t move as much as I need. I whimper in protest even as they writhe over every erotic part of my body, sending me flying even higher.
Jayden leans over my prone body and whispers in my ear, “Mmm, that’s my good girl. You’re so close to coming and I haven’t even feasted on you yet.”
“Mmm, yes, Jayden, take control. I’ll be your good girl anytime you need me to.”
Jayden’s lips slam down on mine as his fingers pump in and out of me and his thumb roughly circles my clit.
He doesn’t give me an option but to open for him as he shoves his tongue in my mouth.
My body shudders and that peak gets closer and closer as he continues his assault on my pussy, fucking me with his whole hand while his tongue battles with mine.
“Be my good girl and come for me, now,” Jayden whispers against my lips.
The command tears through me as Jayden presses his thumb against my clit at the same time he hits that spot again. I scream as my entire body quakes with my orgasm. All the colors of the rainbow swirl behind my eyes that are squeezed tight.
“Such a good girl,” Jayden whispers. “Now, I think I’m hungry and it’s time to feast on you.”
Fuck, where did this come from? He’s going to kill me with his words alone. He leans down for another long kiss before sliding down my body. The shadows pulse, plucking at my nipples and licking my inner thighs and throat. He’s completely destroying me and he hasn’t even fucked me yet.
No words escape as he thrusts his fingers inside me again and swirls his tongue around my clit, then laps at the juices his fingers and dirty words created. He removes his fingers, then his long tongue pushes inside of me.
As the shivers rack my body, I fist the sheets at my sides, unable to stop from squirming at the touch of his tongue inside me. I whimper in pain and pleasure as the sharp sting of his teeth on my inner thigh startles me.
“Jayden, what was that?” I ask, breathless.
“I don’t know. I have the urge to mark these thighs and your neck so everyone will know you belong to me.” He glances at me in confusion.
As the words leave his lips, the same urge takes me over like a primal force that is slightly terrifying. “I have the same need, like I need to prove you’re mine.”
“We’re not shifters,” Jayden says.
“No, but I want to belong to you and I want you to be mine,” I growl.
“I have always been yours even without a mark, my love. Since the moment I first saw you in that pub.” Jayden crawls up my body and takes my lips in a passionate kiss that has me melting into the mattress.
“I want your mark, Jayden, but I want you to give it to me when you fuck me,” I say.
“We don’t even know if this is something that matters,” Jayden says.
“Still, even if it doesn’t last, I want you to mark me as yours.”
“I want you to be fully mine more than anything in this world or any other,” Jayden says.
“Then fuck me and mark my neck, Jayden, please,” I beg.
“Fuck, you’re so perfect. You’re mine.” He stands up from the bed and pulls his underwear off before crawling back up my body.
“Can I touch you?” I ask.
Jayden glances at the shadows around my wrists with a frown and waves a hand so my wrists are free, but the shadows continue stimulating my body even as I wrap my arms around Jayden’s neck and kiss him.
“Make me yours in every way,” I whisper.
Jayden thrusts into me and a scream tears through me as he pounds into that spot over and over again.
He’s wild and untamed as his lips devour mine.
His hand trails down my body at the same time his lips move to my neck.
He presses his thumb against my clit and tingles shoot through me.
His tongue swipes across my artery in my neck and he growls low in his throat.
“Come for me, my love. Come all over my cock as I sink my teeth into you, making you mine.” Jayden’s voice is raspy as he thrusts up into me again and again.
His teeth graze my throat. Have they sharpened? That shouldn’t be possible but if this is a mate thing, then that would make sense.
“Fucking Hades,” I scream as Jayden’s teeth clamp down on my neck.
They pierce through my flesh and rip another orgasm from me. My own teeth feel too big in my mouth. I need to bite him back. It’s a primal urge that I don’t even pretend to understand even as my body shudders and I scream my release.
“Bite me, baby. Make me yours,” Jayden says roughly.
He turns his head and bares his neck to me and I don’t hesitate to sink my weird fangs into his flesh.
The second I do, the world explodes into color as Jayden’s hips piston forward and back as he roars his own release.
I lick at the blood on his neck after retracting the fangs that are now my regular teeth.
“Holy fuck, my love. That felt so fucking good.” Jayden presses his forehead to my shoulder.
“Do I have a mark? What happened to our teeth?” I ask as Jayden rolls to the side and pulls me into his arms.
“You do.” He gazes down at my neck. “It’s healing and it doesn’t look like it’s going to heal completely.”
He runs a finger down my neck where he bit me and a shudder rolls down my spine. His touch elicits something in me.
“Yours is healing silver too.” I kiss his mark. “I wonder what it means.”
“It means we’re mates just like Orion and the fates said.” He kisses me hard. “You’re mine forever now, my love.”
“And you’re mine?” I ask with a small smile.
“I already told you, I was yours the moment I saw you. I fought it but it was useless. You’ve been in my heart from day one.” He shakes his head.
He pulls me closer and kisses my forehead. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” I say.
Jayden furrows his brow as he glances down at me. “Did you hear that?”
“What?” I ask. “You told me you love me.”
“I didn’t say that out loud.”
“What? Yeah, you did. I heard you.” My eyes widen as he shakes his head.
I said it in my head. Jayden’s lips don’t move as I hear his words.
What in the actual fuck? How is this possible?
“Fucking Hades. I heard you in my head.” Jayden’s arms wrap around me.
“What does this mean?” I lay my head on his chest over his heart.
“I don’t know but I wonder if Greyson has an idea?” he asks.
“He might. He’s known about the possibility of a mate from the time he was a child. Maybe this is normal and not something weird with us because we are gods touched.”
Is the thought too much to ask for our lives? Things just keep getting weirder and weirder for us now that we’re gods touched and I don’t have a clue what I even am anymore other than a freak.
“Either way. Whether it’s normal or not, it gives me hope that we will survive everything to come and will be together. If we can talk in each other’s minds, then we can keep each other safe.” Jayden kisses my head.
“That’s so weird but when you say it like that, it’s oddly reassuring. We can keep each other safe. Maybe that’s the reason behind the mind link so we know the other is safe at all times.”
In the end, though, will that link be a gift or a curse?