Twenty-Eight
My heart cantered wildly at the sight of the bed.
Of what I so desperately hoped was coming.
Before he could drop me, I raked my nails across his back and bit into his skin.
Hard. His answering snarl was a thing of pure, carnal want.
But he didn’t let me mark him for long. He set me on my feet and jutted his chin toward the bed.
“Lie down.”
I didn’t dream of denying him. What I didn’t expect, though, was the vines.
Dark, forest green, and impossibly smooth, they emerged from the floorboards.
And then they snaked around the four posts before wrapping my wrists and ankles.
I was spread within seconds. My breath hitched with anticipation.
“Fuck, that’s a pretty sight.” He tilted his head to the side, a sinister grin pulling at his lips, and he rubbed his jaw as he studied me.
He began unbuttoning his shirt. Even the way he undressed was meant to be a tease, but at least I got to feast on the vision that he was.
I could see every groove and contour of his muscled chest. The deep cut of his abdomen and the way his pants slung low on his hips.
I wanted to explore every inch. But the vines were deliciously tight around my wrists and ankles, so all I could do was stare.
When he let his pants and undergarments hit the floor, I couldn’t help but curse. Rorik chuckled. “I love seeing how much you want me.”
“Fuck, Rorik, please.” I tilted my hips in invitation. With ease, he crawled onto the bed and braced his arms on either side of my torso. His hard length rubbed against my stomach as he brought his mouth back to my nipples.
“You can’t possibly spend the entire night just sucking on my breasts,” I said.
“I most certainly can.” He moved to the other one for effect, and I groaned.
The need in my belly ached, and I desperately tried to shift beneath him to relieve the unbearable want cresting inside me.
He finally relented and dragged his lips to my sternum, placing kisses all the way down to my navel.
“I’ve been fantasizing about your taste since you first walked through the doors at Fernglove. That first dinner.” He trailed his tongue along my skin and paused near my hips. “Your quick mind was so damn tantalizing.”
“Yes, gods forbid I accidentally be poisoned by your family.” I exhaled sharply at the same time his teeth sank into the soft flesh of my side. “Good to know the thought turned you on.”
“It was the fact that you even considered it was a possibility. That you were smart enough to realize what a shitty position you were in.” He bit down harder, and a cry flew from my lips.
“And now?” I said breathlessly.
He looked up at me, brows raised and dermal piercings catching in the candlelight. “This better be the furthest thing from a shitty position.”
“Considering you still haven’t given me what I want,” I said as I arched my back, “it could be.”
“Patience, Edira.”
He kissed the length of my thigh, down my calf, and back up again. My entire existence narrowed to his mouth when he dragged his lips up the inside of my leg.
“Tell me a lie,” he murmured as he slid one finger inside my slick wetness. “A good one.”
“I don’t want to be here right now.” Tilting my chin down, I watched him closely as he slowly, torturously, continued to drive deeper into my core.
He raised a single brow. Then extracted his finger and examined the wetness coating his skin. “That is the worst lie I’ve ever heard.” And then he dipped it into his mouth and sucked it clean. His eyes fluttered closed for a breath.
My throat dried at the sight. “There is nothing I want more in this world than you.”
“Truth or lie?” He pushed two fingers inside me, and I let out a gasp.
“Truth.”
“Good.” With that, he brought his lips to my clit and finally, finally, rewarded me with the stroke of his tongue.
Gasping, I yanked on the vines holding my wrists in place.
I wanted—needed—to wrench my hands in his hair, to hold him in place while I wrapped my thighs around his head and made him taste every ounce of my arousal.
“Tell me what you want. What you need.” He sat back on his heels, giving me a full view of his cock, and beaded drops of his own desire glistened against his tip.
Then he drove back into my core once more with three of his fingers and coated himself with my slickness. And he stroked himself. Slowly.
“Fuck,” I moaned. “I want to touch you. I need to touch you.” Tapping into our heartbond, I picked out the cord of Fernglove magic controlling the vines and tried to wrest it from his control. They loosened a fraction of an inch. Just enough to give me hope, but nothing more. I barked out a curse.
“I love that mouth of yours.”
“Then let me do something with it,” I hissed.
He let go of his impressive length. “Fine, you’ve earned that at least.” As he kissed me, he reached one hand down and positioned his cock at my entrance.
I lost all control over my body. It bucked and moved of its own accord, trying in vain to shift from the vines’ grips so he could sheath himself in me.
“Fuck me, Rorik,” I said, heat and lust coloring my words. “For the love of the gods, please.”
Clenching his jaw, he pushed inside of me. Just enough for his broad tip to breach my wetness. The back of my head hit the pillow.
“More,” I begged.
There was so much feral desire coursing through his molten-gold irises that I knew his control was slipping. The hand he’d been using to guide his cock was now on my hip, and the pressure from his grip was divine.
“You feel incredible,” I moaned. “Every fucking inch of you is glorious.”
A low snarl barreled from his chest, and I was rewarded with a deep thrust. A whimper escaped the back of my throat. He waited to move until my body shifted to accommodate his thickness, and then he pulled out. Slowly.
He left me breathless. “Gods, Rorik, you have no idea what you do to me.”
“Tell me.” He breached me again but didn’t go any further.
He simply waited and held my gaze with a deep intensity that was colored with so much more than lust. Even though he’d already told me why he’d pushed me away, I could finally, finally, see how much he cared about me.
It wasn’t an act, like it had been with Orin.
I saw the truth etched into Rorik’s gaze.
He desired me with every fiber of his being, but he also believed I deserved more than whatever a life with him could offer.
I needed to convince him that he was the life I wanted.
The life I chose, no matter how short it would be.
This time when I reached for his magic down our bond, he didn’t fight me. I took control of the vines and banished them from existence. Gently, I trailed the length of his cheekbone with my fingers.
“I crave you in a way I’ve never craved anything before.
” I placed a chaste kiss on his lips. “Not just because I think you’re the most stunning person I’ve ever seen, but because you see all of me.
You want all of me. The pretty parts, the dark parts—all of it.
You don’t care about my power. You don’t care about what I can do for you. You care about me.
“You’re everything I didn’t know that I wanted.” I wrapped my hands around his neck and pulled his body closer to mine. “Now that I have you, I know that you’re everything I can’t live without.”
For a long moment, he simply stared at me until he finally let out a shaky laugh. It did nothing to mask the raw pain and uncertainty coating his words. “And here I was asking for you to tell me about how much you adored my cock.”
My answering smile was soft. Banter between us had always been easy. But this moment was so much bigger than that.
“I need you, Rorik. Just you. Nobody else. I am irrevocably yours.” Pressing my lips to his, I focused on our heartbond and let my emotions flood toward his consciousness.
I wanted him to feel the truth of my words.
I needed him to realize that this wasn’t some fleeting decision.
I’d been drawn to him from the moment I’d laid eyes on him.
Sure, there were times when I wanted to smack him into oblivion—and there was no doubt in my mind that would still be part of our future—but there was no one else who made me feel as safe as he did. As cared for. As loved.
A tear slipped down his cheek, and I brushed it away with my knuckles.
“Edira . . .” He spoke softly, as if every syllable were a weighted thing he could barely convince himself to say.
He groaned as he pushed into me, all the way to the base.
Every glorious, thick inch of him. With him fully seated inside, I wrapped my legs around his waist and caged him there.
For a minute, he didn’t move, but the moment I rocked my hips into him was the moment he let go.
A deep, guttural sound rumbled from his chest, and he wrenched his fingers in my hair at the base of my neck and tugged.
Hard. A gasp shot through me, and he kissed my exposed neck as he began to pump into me.
Stars bloomed across my vision. He’d spent so long bringing me to the edge of pleasure that I could already feel it building to a head within me.
Each stroke was kindling to the fire surging through my veins.
His other hand shifted to my thigh, and he gripped me tighter.
Pulled me in close. Angled my hips in such a way that somehow let him delve even deeper.
“Rorik,” I moaned, chest heaving. He caught my nipple with his teeth and sucked on it. The ache within me coiled tighter. I needed him to be the reason I came undone. Now. Always.
“I can feel you tightening around me,” Rorik whispered into my ear. “You’re so damn wet for me. I can hardly stand it.”
I dragged my nails down the length of his back. Sank my teeth into the curve of his neck and shoulder. Claimed him in every fucking way possible. I was his, but I so badly wanted him to be mine.
“You’re allowed to come now, Edira.” His thrusts grew harder, faster, and he abandoned my thigh to press his thumb against my clit.
“It’s time for you to scream my name so loud that you never forget it.
Because no one will ever worship you as much as I do.
No one will ever please you as well as I can. No one.”
I shattered into a million blissful pieces.
He was so deep inside, his words heated in my ear, that I had no chance of holding out any longer.
All the buildup from earlier exploded in a rush, and I lost control of my lungs.
I screamed as my orgasm hit with such force that a tingling numbness invaded my limbs.
His name was all I could say. All I wanted to say.
I’d anchored myself to his back with my nails and shuddered so deeply that I knew I’d broken skin.
But he didn’t care. He only slammed into me harder and caught the tail end of his name escaping my lips with his mouth.
“Fuck, Edira,” he groaned. The tremors of my orgasm were still coursing through my body.
My ache had finally been sated, and yet I couldn’t get enough.
The way he said my name, the feel of him still driving into me .
. . I was intoxicated by the very feel of his body.
By his presence. By the quirk of his lips and the banter we shared.
By the way he wanted to protect me, even when it would’ve cost him his life, his chance at love.
Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes, and I unwrapped my legs from his waist. “Rorik.”
His name was everything. He was everything. Our heartbond was wide open, neither one of us hiding from each other. We’d finally found our way to the middle of our golden river, and we were ready. We were ready for each other. For this.
For bliss. Desire. Love. I thrust it all down the bond for Rorik to examine. To feel. And then I said it.
“I love you, Rorik.” I threaded my fingers through his hair and angled his head to mine.
His gaze warmed my soul. “Say it again.”
“I love you.” And then I slanted my lips over his and kissed him deeply. He slid a hand beneath the small of my back and drove into me with such wanton desire that my own insatiable need began to swell again.
“Again,” he begged as his breath hit harder.
As his movements became more frenzied. His love crested down our bond like a wave threatening to swallow us both.
It was immense, like he’d been holding back the truth for far, far too long.
And now that he had the freedom to experience it, there wasn’t a dam that could keep him at bay.
Tilting his head down, I brought my lips to his ear. “I love you.”
He let out an intoxicating groan as his orgasm barreled through him.
Through us. He let it flow down our heartbond at the same time he spilled himself inside me.
I was swept away in the maelstrom of feelings, in the ardent heat of his climax that somehow also became mine.
It ripped through my senses and doubled back in the form of my own release, which I channeled right back down the bond to him.
We unraveled together, each one of us riding out the high of our shared orgasms until our bodies finally went limp.
Slowly, he pulled out of me and then rolled to his side, tucking me close so we were chest to chest. Breaths intermingled.
Gazes held. And then he smiled in a way I’d never seen him smile before.
An easy, loving, lopsided grin that stole my breath and sent adrenaline racing through to my fingertips.
This was why heartbonds were cherished. Because I knew what he was about to say before he said it.
“I love you, Edira.” He placed the gentlest of kisses on my forehead. Butterflies took flight in my stomach, and I nestled in closer. “Now you understand why I can’t lose you. Why I wanted you to find a way to live a fulfilling life. Even if that meant I wasn’t going to be in it.”
Trailing my fingers across his cheek, I sighed. “I believe you.”
“You said you’re irrevocably mine.” He turned his head to nuzzle the tips of my fingers with his nose. “I’m irrevocably yours, too.”
My heart swelled with an overwhelming sense of peace. “Good.”