Chapter 32 Honesty #2
Before I could think of what to say to that, his arm wound roughly around my waist. He yanked me up against him.
The fingers of his other hand fisted in my hair, hard enough to tilt back my head.
I barely had time to take a breath, or to meet his gaze, when his mouth crashed into mine, and then I couldn’t breathe at all.
I kissed him back, without thinking about whether I should, or anything I’d told myself while he’d kissed me in that chair by the bonfire.
When he pressed me up against the stone fireplace, right up against the mantle, I let out a low gasp of surprise.
He deepened the kiss, leaning his weight into me, right before his fingers clenched in the thin, silky, and now-wet fabric of my blouse, and ripped it open across the front.
I should have been angry, I suppose.
I should have at least lodged some sort of complaint.
Instead, I let out a low moan when he shoved his trouser-clad thigh between my legs.
He pressed my back into the stone as his hands massaged my breasts over the lacy bra I wore.
Pulling me partly off the fireplace, he started taking the bra off me, too, tugging the straps off my shoulders, along with what remained of the blouse.
When he pulled it down far enough that it wasn’t covering me at all, I didn’t fight him that time, either.
My back arched, and his fingers found the clasp at my spine, unhooking it and pulling off the last of it. Once he had me half-naked, he let out a heavier groan.
His tongue and lips dropped down to kiss my throat, and my hand clenched in his hair as I fought to breathe all over again.
He was kissing me lower then, sucking and licking as he pressed my legs apart, yanking on my knickers as hard as he had the blouse.
I heard the lace rip, felt a bite at my hip, then those were gone, too.
I almost didn’t hear his voice at first.
Or maybe I did hear it, but I was too out of my head to comprehend his words. It hit me suddenly that he was talking though, out loud, his voice low, guttural, but right by my ear.
“Can I go down on you?” he murmured. He kissed my ear, then my neck, his hands back to massaging my breasts.
“I’ve wanted to kiss your cunt since that fucking dream…
before that, really. Gods, maybe well before that.
I wanted to do it in that gods-damned coffee shop in Bonescastle, right in front of Joran and the rest of them. ”
I shivered when his teeth grazed my neck, but I nodded before I’d thought about that, either. I don’t know what I’d expected. For him to drag me to his bed maybe, under the windows on the other wall of the room, or even down to the rug in front of the fire, or the couch, or one of the chairs.
Instead, he dropped to his knees in front of me, the instant he got my answer.
I let out a choked cry when he dragged one of my thighs over his shoulder, then kissed me, open-mouthed, right on my cunt, without any hesitation at all.
I let out a sound I don’t think I’d ever made in my life, and his hands tightened on me, right before two of his fingers slid in me to the knuckle.
“Fuck,” he groaned, giving me another long lick, slower that time. “You’re so bloody wet. And you taste better than I imagined.”
He was kissing me harder then, with more precision, his thumb stroking my clit, and I moaned when I felt myself promptly building, before any part of my mind could catch up with what we were doing.
He stopped whenever I got too close, and waited for me to cool down.
Within minutes, I gripped his hair in one hand, his shoulder in the other, and then I was rocking against him, my hips moving of their own accord as he began fucking me rhythmically with his fingers.
I felt the satisfaction on him as he got me closer and closer before he stopped.
Then his mind rose in mine, and I felt him watching me, trying to feel what I felt. Instantly, he got a lot more precise, and I let out a disbelieving, half-pleading whimper.
“Fucking… sadist,” I gasped.
Gods… yes… come on my tongue, Shadow…
His fingers grew more precise along with his mouth, curling upwards as stroked me on the inside, in a place that made my vision slant out. Between that and his tongue on my clit, I don’t think anything had ever felt so good in my life.
I whimpered when he kept going.
Then I’m pretty sure I was begging him.
I yelled out his name, and he broke out in a sweat.
Fuck… do that again… His magic flooded over me in a heated, out-of-control wave. Gods, you pretty, gorgeous little sex kitten… come for me… I’ve waited so long…
I lost it. My fingers gripped his hair in both of my hands, and I bucked against his mouth and hand, unable to help it as I came apart.
I have no idea what sounds I made, but I was groaning when I grew aware again, still holding him against me while my whole body seemed to spasm and jerk uncontrollably.
I hadn’t recovered from that when he rose to his feet.
He kissed my mouth so that I tasted myself on his tongue, his fingers finding the fasteners on my skirt as he took it off me.
His skin felt like fire now.
He was still fully clothed, or close enough.
His face was flushed, his hands rough as he yanked the last of the skirt off my hips.
He picked me up then, part-carrying, part-pushing and dragging me to his bed.
He pushed me down on top of it, and I felt that out of control thing on him worsen.
When I started unbuttoning his shirt, he groaned so loudly I jumped.
“Are you okay doing this?” he managed.
I massaged his cock and he let out a choked gasp.
“Tell me,” he growled. “You need to tell me. Now.”
I looked up at him, confused at first, then I realized what he meant, and remembered what he’d told me the last time I’d been in his bed.
“Are you?” I asked.
His eyes closed, longer than a blink, and his face went soft, right before his magic snaked out of him in a hard coil and into me.
I let out a gasping, disbelieving sound as my vision whited out, and he pinned me to the bed, his legs holding mine apart.
I felt him fighting to pull it back, to bring it under some semblance of control, but he couldn’t.
It’s all right, I told him, still fighting to breathe. Hey. It’s all right. You don’t have to control it with me. You won’t hurt me, Bones. It feels good for me, you must know that by now. I want to do this. I want to if you do.
He groaned again, louder, his weight growing abruptly heavier as his skin practically burned mine.
My hand found the front of his trousers, massaging him through the fabric before I started unhooking his belt.
He was harder than he had been even in that chair by the bonfire, heavy, throbbing, and I didn’t want to touch him for very long.
His hand tightened in my hair as I got the belt undone, and when I finished undoing the rest, the fingers of his other hand wrapped around my hip, tight enough to bruise. He yanked me closer, so I was directly under him.
I felt him hesitate as another wave of worry hit him.
I don’t want to hurt you, he thought at me.
You won’t.
I’m not going to last very long, he thought next, gasping into my neck. Gods, Leda, I’ll be lucky to get it inside you.
Then we’ll try it again later. If you want.
His fingers clenched violently in my hair, and he kissed me on the mouth, hard, shifting down to hold his weight up on his elbows as he reached down and freed his cock from his trousers.
I used my feet to help him the rest of the way out of his clothes, then he was lining the head up with my entrance, groaning as he looked down our bodies, his weight now pinning me to the mattress.
His magic slammed into me again, and I whimpered, feeling so much of him in it, the emotion there caught in my chest and throat.
“Don’t lie to me,” I blurted. “Please.”
It was a strange thing to say, but for some reason, he didn’t blink.
“I won’t.” He said it vehemently, like a promise. “Gods, Leda. I won’t.” He hesitated a second longer, then his voice turned coaxing. “Look at me, darling. Please. Fucking look at me for this.”
I hadn’t realized I’d closed my eyes until he said it.
I opened them to find him staring at me.
The fire in his irises illuminated his face, the light rippling over his skin like liquid gold.
He was panting, both of us were, and sweating, and magic seemed to crackle over his skin.
He didn’t look real at all. He definitely didn’t look human.
I was still staring when he notched into me, then rolled his whole body up and into me in a hard, sensual arc.
“Oh, fuck…” he groaned.
It wasn’t just him.
Gods, it felt so insanely good.
His magic coiled into my chest and belly like a fiery snake, and I felt myself want that, maybe as much as I wanted his body. I opened to him more when his magic flared, winding my own magic into his in return. He let out another, heavier groan when I did, and fucked his cock into me a second time.
That time, I felt his magic with it, and nearly blacked out.
When my eyes cleared, my arm was tight around his neck.
I was gasping, my legs clenched around his waist.
He raised himself up on his arms and looked down at me as he arched into me a third time, then harder with the fourth.
His eyes looked totally gone as his hands and fingers caressed my face.
He groaned again as he found a slow, heavy rhythm, and I felt myself building almost at once.
When my fingers dug into his back, urging him deeper, he changed angles slightly and I cried out, arching towards him.
I came apart under him a few strokes later, and felt his shock.
It snapped him out of the trance long enough that he stopped altogether.
He hung over me, gasping, his mind sliding into mine as he felt me come. As I clenched around him, I felt him lose control, that time of his body as well as his magic.
Both things slammed into me at once.
I couldn’t see him at all by the time he came, groaning my name as he fucked me roughly into his mattress, my wrists pinned over my head.
He seemed to come for a long time.
He was talking to me by the end, but my mind couldn’t comprehend any of it.
I felt so much relief on him, it somehow brought my heart to my throat.
It didn’t feel wholly physical, that relief.
I felt him throwing his magic into me, along with his body, and something about the combination seemed to unlock a catharsis in him that ended with him pressing down on me with all of his weight, still gasping as he leaned his forehead against my shoulder.
He didn’t move for what felt like a long time. He gripped me in his hands, breathing hard, kissing my neck, pressing his face to mine.
I thought about the few times I’d had sex before now, the drunken fumblings in parked cars outside human clubs in Overworld, how quickly we’d parted afterwards, and my mind couldn’t even connect the two experiences as being the same.
Whatever this had been, it felt nothing like that.
It couldn’t possibly have been more different.
He shifted slowly to his side, pulling me with him, and his hand began massaging my back, then my neck. I still felt that relief all over him, mixed with a hotter desire that didn’t feel remotely sated by what we’d just done. If anything, I felt the opposite on him.
He leaned closer, and kissed me lingeringly on the mouth.
When he rested his head back on the mattress, he never took his eyes off me.
“Are you my witch now?” he asked, gruff.
I stared at him, somehow more thrown by that question than I was by what we’d just done.
Some darker, more twisted part of me wanted to laugh, but I knew that was just a nervous reaction, and probably a version of me running away, and nothing at all to do with how I actually felt.
I also knew he likely wouldn’t react well if I did.
“I don’t know.” I fingered his long, platinum hair out of his eyes, and traced his jaw. “What are you really asking me, Caelum?”
He shivered at my touch, and maybe what I’d called him.
Then he leaned closer and kissed me, using his tongue.
When he paused the kiss, a few seconds later, I felt him thinking about what I’d asked.
His magic still sparked and swam over my skin, making me feel light-headed.
One of his hands cupped my breast, stroking the skin around my areola with his thumb.
“I don’t want you doing this with anyone but me,” he said, his eyes hard, direct.
“I don’t want you touching anyone else. I don’t want anyone touching you.
I don’t want you kissing anyone else. Or going on dates with anyone else.
Or fucking anyone but me.” His gold eyes rippled with heat as they studied mine. “Is that clear enough?”
I thought about that, then nodded slowly, biting my lip.
“And you?” I asked. “What about your revolving door, Bones?”
He let out a scoffing sound, but never stopped stroking my hair, or my breast.
“You think I’d ask for exclusivity from you, without being willing to do the same?” he asked drily. “Bloody hell, Shadow. You really do think I’m a prick, don’t you?”
I flushed, but genuinely thought about the question.
Slowly, I shook my head. “No. That’s not why.” I rested my head on my arm, watching him look at me. “I just don’t know what’s considered normal here. Especially for royals.”
“It’s not that,” he grunted. “Not for me, at least.”
I nodded. My heart was back to slamming in my chest.
“Okay.” I met his gaze. “Then, yes. I guess I am your witch.”
His eyes flinched. Then he smiled, tugging on one of my curls. “Good.”
Something about that smile brought a sharp pain to my chest.
I’d never seen him smile like that before. It looked and felt completely guileless, without any hint of a smirk or indifference or calculation or even humor. I’d never seen him do it with any of his friends, in any context, in the entire year and a half I’d known him.