CHAPTER XXI #9
“I should tell you now,” I sigh, “that I will never let that content life hold me again, not after everything I’ve experienced with you.
My appreciation for the simpler things will always remain, but the urge to embrace something bigger, something more intense and exhilarating, to meet fire with fire, is all that I care about.
You helped me find that deeper purpose. You made it easier for me to love the excitement and the unknown.
You brought me closer to the door filled with such a bright light behind it.
You made it easier to let go of my old, content self. ”
“When we came back from Pyre, when we were back in Fumagalli, I was ready to tell you then, to speak those words. I had embraced my call to action more fully in the heights of that library. I challenged myself and everything that could have held me back and found that I loved it. I was so proud of myself, Keane, and so damn ready to tell you then…”
“But I’m genuinely glad that I didn’t. When I look back on it now, on everything leading me towards that door, towards you, I think I needed to finally come back to the Court of Knowledge to fully understand the entirety of those words, to appreciate them and the old life that I knew I was going to leave behind.
Without that travel, my words to you would’ve been half-truths, not paying homage to what you deserved, to what the being of all of you so rightly demands. ”
I hear Keane’s heavy intake of breath. His eyes narrow on my lips, catching each of my words carefully and letting them fall into him hard.
“You’ll want to hear the words more directly,” I give him a playful smile and reach my hand back out to the Shadow Oak for support, “so here they are… I am Warrior, Keane. I am strong. I am confident. I am curious and I let that curiosity will me to action. I think I’ve always been Warrior, just needed a push in that direction and someone to light the flame that rested so deeply within me.
I live. Always have and always will. And I embrace that curiosity with courage, wanting everyone and everything around me to live up to the same challenge of life.
Because why shouldn’t we? Why shouldn’t we embrace the best in ourselves, the strongest in ourselves?
Why shouldn’t we embrace the call to our deepest desires?
I’ve lived too much of my life in simple idleness,” I shake my head as the ground below me begins to rumble, “but no longer.”
Keane moves swiftly through the roots, his full body stopping in front of me as his arms wrap themselves around my waist. He pushes my back into the oak in heated desire, his eyes narrowing on my lips like he wants to kiss me for years to come.
“I am not done,” I exhale sharply, welcoming the rough wood and granite against my back. I grin up at the man that holds onto me fiercely, the man who still needs to hear more, who deserves to hear everything that I need to tell him.
Keane releases my waist with the smallest hesitation, taking a small step back to look down at me. I press my shoulders firmly into the oak and grin up at him, watching as his gaze rakes down my body.
“You’ve told me of all the ways you were denied in taking me fully…
but did you not think it wasn’t the same for me?
You and your damn confidence, Keane, commanding every inch of my body and always lighting that fire within me.
Have I ever told you how much your touches claim every part of me?
How they claim every single one of my emotions?
You touch me how I feel, how I want to feel, always burning for that life I want to build, burning for you… ”
Keane reaches a hand out for my face, wanting to hold me to him as the ground begins to tremble. I quickly turn away with another grin and give my own knowing tsk.
“I’m selfish with you, Keane. I will continue to be selfish with you. I have seen you with other women, have watched them want you…”
“But they do not want you like I do. They do not see you like I do. They don’t deserve you. I do.”
The ground shakes violently below us. Keane thrusts his hips against mine, closing the space between us as his hands hit the oak next to my head. I let my Prince cage me in, but still give a firm warning shake of my head to let him know I’m not done.
“I deserve you, Keane,” I continue steadily, “I deserve the man that you are, the man that you will be. I deserve the feeling of vindication I get from you, knowing that my own selfishness matches yours. We deserve each other and we deserve these feelings, feelings that have always felt right from the damn Ancients beginning when you first found me under this oak.”
My eyes catch and hold his as every inch of my body begins to light to flames.
“I find in you what I find in myself. You tell me that no other man will have me…” I roll my hips into his and feel him ready for us, “I will let no other woman touch you. I will let no other woman feel what I have felt with you. Because I know that the fire within you is a match for mine. Only me. I know that you are the only one I will hold onto for the rest of my life. The only one who I will let touch me, feel me, experience me. And if there is such thing as destiny, if it truly exists, then I smile in the knowledge that you and I were meant to be together, that we were meant to find eachother.”
“Fucking Ancients, Alexis,” Keane groans.
He grabs my neck and pulls me forward, mouth crashing down on mine as his tongue savagely parts my lips to deepen the kiss.
He claims my mouth with a pure and commanding hunger that I’ve never felt before, the intensity of him making me whimper in his hold.
I quickly bring my hands up to the back of his head and thrust my hips, needing the feel of his cock to combat the desperate ache between my legs.
Keane thrusts in return, colliding us into a needy embrace that finally has the two of us coming together in a heated desperation.
I drop my hands and run my nails along Keane’s back before pulling up his shirt in a frenzy.
Keane brings his own hands down to his torso and quickly peels the fabric over his head, throwing it to the ground just as I grab the front of his waistband.
I pull him into me and tilt my hips in greeting, moaning when his hands move swiftly for my breasts.
He squeezes with a groan and then leans back down, lips finding my lower neck as he starts to trace kisses against my collarbone.
He nips all the way down the cut in my shirt, kissing and sucking the curves of my breasts with an urgency that consumes us both.
“You’re all mine, Alexis,” he groans against my breast, hands squeezing.
“Yes,” I moan, “yours.”
Keane nips against my skin and then moves his palms down my stomach.
He pulls at my shirt and releases it from my waistband, grabbing the bottom as I lift my arms high into the air.
The gold satin is thrown over my head without care, falling to the ground just as Keane grabs both of my wrists from above.
He crosses my hands together and then pushes them back into the Shadow Oak, his lips finding mine again as the feel of wood and granite quickly reaches around my wrists.
“Keane,” I moan breathlessly, looking up in heated astonishment at the oak wrapping around my skin.
Keane releases my hands as we both watch his summoning move across my wrists and fingers, the limbs entwining themselves around me and pinning me to the trunk.
He takes a small step back with a smirk, his satisfied gaze lingering on my bound wrists before his eyes trail down my arms. He takes in my lips and the heavy breaths falling from them, then farther down to my chest, looking at the black lace resting against my flushed breasts.
“This isn’t fair,” I glare at him and his hungry eyes, trying to move my hands against the oak.
“I don’t care,” he laughs, hands moving back to my breasts.
He grabs the lace and pulls it away with one strong tear, his eyes lighting with a fire at my peaked nipples. I moan and push my shoulders hard into the oak behind me, arching my chest to that intense gaze as Keane swiftly cups my breasts and then pushes them up to his mouth.
“Ancients!”
His teeth come down in a sharp nip, rolling and sucking my nipple into his mouth until I begin to grind on his cock. He releases one breast to grab the inside of my thigh, spreading my legs apart before he thrusts his length perfectly against me.
“Fuck,” I moan, “Keane.”
I pant and try to move my hands away from the oak again, but the limbs hold on tight, as if anticipating my trying escape.
The feeling of being bound makes me moan in a soft cry, hating that I’m unable to touch Keane but loving the way his cock rubs perfectly against my sweet center.
His mouth continues its torment of teeth and tongue on my breast, everything about his movements on my body demanding that I surrender yet again.
Keane wants me to remain at his mercy, at the oak’s mercy, to feel everything he’s giving me.
He wants me to sit back in ecstasy and let him work my body in only the way he knows how…
and fucking Ancients, he’s doing just that.
His heated breath against my breast is the only warning I get before he takes me harder, sucking and rolling my nipple in his mouth with an unrelenting force.
I quickly give up on trying to release my hands and push my head against the oak, arching my chest into his mouth as I close my eyes and give him control.
Keane’s hand on my thigh runs up my leg to brush against my heat, his fingers teasing my clit before they find the curve of my hip.
He lets two fingers dip just below my waistband and skims both of them against the lace barrier, but he doesn’t drop them any lower.
“Touch me, Keane,” I beg.