Chapter 34 #2
The mead warmed my belly, and I felt myself relaxing further with each sip. I was letting my guard down, my vision slightly blurring enough to let me know the alcohol was affecting me.
I shouldn’t be getting drunk, but fuck it. Honestly, fuck everything. Talking to Hael all night just made me more pissed off. With Dahes. With this whole Suns-damned situation. With myself.
I didn’t want to betray him.
I wouldn’t.
You have to, Magnolia. You don’t have a choice. If you don’t, Masin will suffer.
I took another sip. Then another.
“Whoa, slow down,” Hael smiled, and Suns, why did it affect me so much? Why did my stomach flutter every time I saw his dimple?
I contemplated my next words for all of two seconds before I blurted them out. “I don’t want to take it slow.”
His smile faded. I wasn’t talking about the mead.
Maybe he knew it. His eyes flicked over me, ignoring my breasts, even though I didn’t cover myself.
I had my hair pushed over my shoulders. It was still wet from an outlier wave that crashed over us—well, over me.
It had only reached Hael’s chin and he laughed when I frowned at him.
The water was mostly calm, but Hael told me that sometimes Caerulus dragons affected the tides as they soared over the coast.
“You’re shivering,” he said. “We should go in.”
I took a step toward him, the alcohol warm in my belly, giving me courage, because honestly, I wasn’t thinking straight. All I knew was one of these nights was going to be my last, and I wouldn’t realize it until it was too late.
I didn’t want to waste it anymore.
I had an eternity of wasting my life, and I might only have a single night to truly live it.
And I wanted to. I wanted to feel, wanted to live, wanted to give into this before Hael would hate me so fully.
“I don’t want to go inside.” I swallowed, then took another hesitant step toward him. “I want… I want you,” I breathed. I knew he wasn’t going to make the first move. I’d waited all week for something, anything to happen, but besides talking, Hael didn’t push anything. It was infuriating.
His eyebrows pinched, somewhere bordering pained and unwanted restraint. “Nollie, we don’t have to rush anything.”
Yes, we do.
“Please. I don’t want to take it slow anymore.
” We’d been bordering it all week. Each night we spent together talking, our bodies were slowly drifting closer and closer.
Last night, we spent our time curled together on the sofa, our knees brushing under the blanket as we talked well into the morning.
He had to be exhausted. Neither one of us slept, and while I could rest when he was off doing whatever drakin duty he had to during the day, I knew he couldn’t.
He didn’t say anything right away, just kept staring at me.
“Do you not want to?” I asked, holding my breath because maybe he didn’t, maybe he was only being nice, maybe everything was in my head, and I’d been reading the entire week wrong—
“I want nothing more on this fucking Suns-cursed planet than to kiss you,” he said, cutting off my thoughts. “You’re all I’ve been thinking about. I can’t get you out of my head.” His hand rose to my face, brushing away stray strands of hair plastered to my cheek.
“But I also know that this is new for you. I know you have some bad history with this, and I don’t want to rush anything. No one will find you here. You can stay until it’s safe to go into Ryaranthia.”
“What if I don’t want to leave?”
His hand wrapped around my neck, his thumb grazing my chin, tilting my head up. “You can stay as long as you want. You can stay in this cabin forever if it’d make you happy. I want nothing more than to keep you.”
I nodded, his thumb pressing harder into my jaw from the movement. My bare breasts brushed against his chest as I took the last remaining step toward him, fully closing the distance between us.
“Then keep me,” I whispered, my fingers slipping as the bottle dropped into the ocean. I should probably go get it, make sure it doesn’t shatter against a shell and ruin the perfect beach, but my mind was too far gone, too focused on exactly what I wanted.
My fingers pressed into his chest, my heart sounding like the rattle Aura makes before taking off.
He was wrong. I wasn’t shivering from the cold.
I was trembling, burning up from the inside out, feeling like my body was going to catch on fire again if he didn’t touch me, only this time, it had nothing to do with being drugged.
“I want you,” I murmured, feeling his hesitation.
“Gods, Nollie, I’m so fucking terrified of scaring you away.”
“You won’t.” I rose on my tiptoes, the waves at my back now, pressing me further into Hael’s chest. His scent engulfed me, leather and vetiver, mixing with the mead on both of our lips.
His hand trailed down my back, cupping my hips.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he said, pulling back to stare at me.
I nodded, desperate for more, willing to say anything if it meant his lips would be on mine again. I wanted to do everything again but without the Ahthimil running through our veins. I wanted to remember this.
To savor it.
He stared at me for one more heartbeat before he leaned forward, giving me exactly what I wanted. I unraveled, moaning into him the second his lips met mine.
His tongue slid into my mouth on the next heartbeat, taking advantage of my parted lips, but it still wasn’t enough. I wanted to be closer. I wanted to melt into him until we became one. I wanted to lose myself in his essence until it was all I could think about.
Surround me. Engulf me. Consume me.
He deepened the kiss, groaning into my mouth, as I bucked my hips, pressing into him.
His erection brushed against my stomach as he roamed his hands down my body, cupping my waist, and lifting me up by my hips.
My legs instinctively wrapped around his waist, like I was designed to fit perfectly in his embrace.
I was only half aware of the chill running through me as he walked us out of the water and onto the sand, never breaking our kiss. My back pressed into the wood of the cabin, just long enough for him to open the door, holding me upright with one hand, before kicking it closed with his foot.
I frowned as he stepped toward the sofa, avoiding the bed. We’d been avoiding it all week—even when he left during the day, I opted to sleep on the sofa or drag a blanket out onto the sand.
But now I wanted it. I pulled away long enough to tell him that, but he shook his head.
“Not tonight. Not when we’ve both had too much mead to think straight.” He sank onto the sofa, still holding me to his lap.
My lips pouted, frustration coursing through me just as much as my need for him. He wasn’t getting it. I wanted this. No—I needed this.
“Please,” I begged, not caring how desperate I sounded. I frowned, pulling my lip between my teeth when he shook his head again. “You don’t want to?”
“Gods, Nollie, yes, I want you. I’m losing my mind wanting you.” I could feel he wasn’t lying. His erection was pulsating against me. “But I don’t want to rush you, rush this.”
“Why?”
His hands moved from my back to my face as he cupped my cheeks. “Nollie, I don’t even know what terrifies you. What if I do the same thing—”
“That’s why I want to. I want to take control back,” I swallowed. Any alcohol I consumed was fading fast as sobriety shot through me. “I want to do this. With you. Only with you. Please—”
His gaze was locked onto mine, like he was seeing everything without me uttering a single word.
“Have you ever had sex before, Nollie?”
I shook my head. “On Moriann, someone tried to,” I admitted, my voice soft, but Hael was so silent, so still, that I knew he heard me.
I never told anyone this before. I never even spoke it out loud to myself, barely tried to think about it.
“He was about to. He had me pinned, he ripped my dress…” I took a shaky breath, trying not to cry as I forced this out.
“He was just about to when my Token manifested.”
A tear must have fallen over my cheek because he gently wiped it away with his thumb. “I’m so fucking sorry, Nollie.”
I leaned forward, our foreheads pressing into one another. “Me too,” I whispered, then said even softer. “I’ve been afraid of anyone touching me ever since. I thought…” I choked on the words. “I thought I’d never want it—until you.”
His breath was ragged at my words, his hold on me tightened, but he didn’t let go.
I leaned into him, my forehead still pressed against his as I sat on his lap.
Maybe I should have cared that neither one of us were dressed, that we were still wet from the ocean and soaking the cushions, but I didn’t.
I closed my eyes, feeling his breath against my face and savoring it.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that, just breathing softly, before he spoke again.
“Is he dead?” His voice was so lethal, so feral that I pulled back, just enough to see his eyes holding the promise of vengeance. “The bastard that did that to you. Is. He. Dead?”
His question stumped me because technically Dahes was dead, but he didn’t pay for anything he did.
I shook my head.
“I will walk into Moriann right now and kill him so slowly that it’ll take months. Hell, I’ll drag him out here so you can do it yourself if you want to. Just tell me his name.”
I shook my head. “Someday I’d love nothing more than to do that.
But right now, this is all I want.” I bucked my hips forward for emphasis, gasping as I felt myself slide across the length of him.
“I was serious about wanting this, Hael. I didn’t think I’d ever want this, but I do—with you.
These past seven years, I felt so numb.” I sucked in a breath.
“It was like I was dead, barely living, and I’m just learning to breathe.
I want to take it all back. I want to have a night where I don’t have to think about him and what he tried to do.
I just want to…” I thought over the right word.
“Feel,” I whispered, leaning forward. “Please. Let me feel.”
He stood, rising with me still on his lap. I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck as my legs tightened around him. He kissed me, walking us backwards, but I wasn’t paying attention to where. All I cared about was the way his mouth felt so right against mine.
I frowned when he set me down in front of the mirror, having no idea why we were in the bathroom.
“You are in control of your body, Nollie.”
“It’s Magnolia,” I blurted, and his eyes widened as he stared at me. “My full name. It’s Magnolia.”
He smiled, his dimple melting any hesitation I had.
“So fucking beautiful.” He leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to my cheek, then my other.
“You’re in control of yourself, Magnolia. No one can take that away from you.” He dropped to his knees. “Even now.” He raised my leg, wrapping it around his shoulders, and I gasped, my body falling forward from the movement—closer to his face.
I could feel his breath hot against my thighs. Heat rose in me as I felt wetness drip down my leg, and I couldn’t convince myself it was from the ocean.
He dragged my hand down to his hair, weaving my fingers through the strands. “You have control.” For emphasis, he moved my wrist, his head dragging with it, before he let go, leaving me holding his hair in a death grip. The strands were soft, almost slippery from the water.
He was so close…
“I want you to watch,” he said, staring up at me.
“I want you to see how much power you have with your own body, how much you can enjoy it.” My gaze snapped to my reflection in the mirror.
My eyes were wide, my cheeks flushed with heat.
The ocean water was slowly drying across our bodies, but my hair was still drenched, droplets slowly cascading down my shoulders and onto his face.
“I need you to tell me,” he said, his tone so serious that it dragged my back off the wall as I leaned forward. “If you don’t like anything, tell me. If you want me to stop, I will, no questions asked.”
I nodded, barely breathing, and I knew my voice was gone. My stomach was hunched over his face, half my weight gone as it fell onto his shoulder.
“Good,” he droned, “because ever since I got a taste…” He pulled my body the rest of the way toward him. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about.” His hands trailed up my thighs as he spread my legs wider.
My lips parted as I stared down at him.
“We’re still taking it slow,” he smiled, eyeing my reaction. “We’re not having sex.” He grinned further as I frowned. “Not tonight, but tomorrow…” His words died on his tongue as his mouth wrapped around me.
And I might have died over and over again as his fingers pressed into me at the same time he sucked and licked and devoured every inch of me.