Chapter 41
He pulls me closer, kisses soft and slow. Every movement unhurried and savored. It’s so different from the classroom, where he seemed ready to devour me. This is gentle yet still tastes of desperation.
I wrap my arms around his neck and lose my fingers in the silken strands of his hair.
Take me, I could beg. Make me forget all of it—my fear, my doubt, the endless decisions and second-guessing of my every movement.
Make me forget every fracture and scar that all the magic in the world couldn’t mend.
As if he can hear my thoughts, Kaelis pulls back slightly, eyes ablaze even as his movements remain soft and gentle.
Never has his desire been more apparent than now.
Never has our restraint left us at the point of gasping.
Questions and fears war in both our eyes.
Never have I ached so deeply for him that I can’t stop myself from pulling him back and kissing him.
Just…kissing him. Savoring the taste of his tongue.
The way his lips, wet and hot, glide against mine.
“Clara,” he rasps against my lips. My name sounds different. It’s reverent, yet hungry.
I don’t have a chance to respond before he moves, leading me into the hall, our fingers laced. Just touching that little bit of skin has a flush rushing through me. My heart is beating so hard I wonder if he can feel it in my fingertips.
Does he notice how different my hands are now?
How our proportions have shifted ever so slightly, since my transformation?
It’s all these little things I’ve barely discovered that suddenly seem placed beneath a magnifying glass.
I’ve never been so aware of my own skin.
Of every errant thought, suddenly so loud.
My heart beats harder to try to drown them out.
In an instant, I’m weightless. Kaelis lifts me into his arms, carrying me through his apartments and to his bed. I cling to him, pressing my face into the curve of his neck, my lips against his hot skin. I breathe him in like the world is poison and he’s the antidote.
My back meets the bed, and his eyes never leave mine as he crawls over me. I see myself reflected there, as though I am forever trapped within those voids. My lips parted, eyes wild. I’m desperate and beautiful and aching.
“Do you want me?” he asks, though we both know the answer. Maybe he wants to hear it.
Maybe I need to say it. “I do.”
The memory of our last encounter settles on me like the heat of his body. It was messy, hasty, mostly clothed—on the desk in a frenzy of need that left no time for exploration. That’s why this feels different.
We want this more than anything else in this moment. But we aren’t rushing. His touch is as exploratory as his stare.
Gentle kisses are as hot as embers on my throat.
Kaelis shifts on top of me, and I let out a sigh as the weight of him presses me into the bed.
I exhale all the air from my lungs and then some, as though I could leave no room for doubt or second-guessing.
As if I could exhale the pent-up pain and frustration that cling to the insides of my ribs like barbs.
He shifts, one hand supporting his weight as the other traces paths around my breasts like one would the uncharted territory on a map.
“I want to see you, all of you…properly this time,” he murmurs against my collarbone.
“If you didn’t see properly last time, I think that was mostly your fault.” I lean back into the pillows, looking down at where his lips drag toward my yet-clothed breasts.
Kaelis twists to look up at me with one eye. Enough that I see the smallest curl of the corner of his mouth. What a smug asshole, I think with supreme fondness.
He grabs the hem of my shirt, and I arch toward him.
Slipping the garment over my head, he discards it onto the floor, doing the same with his own shirt.
They land with a whisper of fabric as the cool air hits my skin.
But it barely registers. All I see is him wearing an expression that puts a lump in my throat.
Admiration and wonder. That’s the only way I could describe what I see in his eyes as they drink me in. It’s not the calculated and clinical way he regarded me as I was remade. Not a man desperate, as he was in the classroom. It’s something far more intimate and overwhelming.
“You’re…” Kaelis shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair.
“I’m what?” I can’t leave it hanging.
“Magnificent.” He leans back down and captures my mouth with a growl. “There is no way in which you couldn’t be. No world in which you are anything less than perfection. It is as intrinsically your nature as being fate’s chosen vessel.”
The words are a balm to fears I hadn’t realized—or admitted—I’d been carrying. When he kisses me again, it’s more raw. Hungrier.
His mouth travels lower, worshiping every bit of skin it meets. He reaches the swell of my breasts and pauses. His breath on a ragged inhale rakes against my skin the same way his teeth close around my nipple. It’s the same as it’s always been, but different.
When his fingers hook into the waistband of my trousers, I lift my hips. I help him strip me the rest of the way and then aid him in doing the same. We explore each other as though it’s for the first time. Better, perhaps, than the first time. As now we are far more comfortable with each other.
Kaelis settles between my thighs, and there’s a slight tremor to his kiss, as if he’s straining against invisible shackles.
Eyes locked with mine, he slowly pushes forward.
I’m ready—dripping—so he enters with ease.
He brings his forehead to mine, eyes closing.
I press mine shut so tight it’s nearly a grimace.
There is nothing between us, and yet I can’t get close enough. My arms and legs are around him, and yet I can’t reach him. I can lose myself in the feeling of his body moving with mine, and yet I somehow feel…oddly alone.
Kaelis sucks in a breath as if to say something. I hold mine, waiting. But no words are exchanged.
What are we doing? The thought bubbles up, and I kiss him as if in response to it. As though that’s the answer. What is this? What are we?
This isn’t what we’ve done in the past. We’re not fucking. Not clawing at each other with teeth and nails. But it is desperate and hungry in its own way.
But we’re not…we’re not lovers, so this can’t be what some call “making love.” Yet I imagine this might be what it feels like. The soft movements. The longing looks, as if he’s across a crowded room and he’s not fully embedded in me.
Pleasure builds slowly, almost sweetly. I lose myself in the feeling of how we move together—the way he fills me perfectly. The way his hands hold me as though I’m something precious, and gentle, and all those soft words I’ve never associated with myself.
Tension coils tighter, reaching a point that’s inevitable. We know each other too well not to reach climax. Kaelis knows just where to find my clit, and I know just how biting his neck where it meets his shoulder does it for him.
We lie tangled. Him on top of me. My fingers knotted in his hair.
Never has anything felt so perfect…nor so hollow. That strange notion I found between thrusts still has yet to abate.
“What are you thinking?” he whispers into the fading light of the fire.
“That it’s strange to not be screaming until my voice is cracking when you fuck me.” The lie comes easily. I can’t tell him all these racing thoughts that I barely want to admit to myself. We’re still pretending like this will be enough, I think.
He laughs softly and shifts, falling out of me and rolling onto the bed. “Next time.” Kaelis hands me a deck, and I swiftly use cards to clean myself up and prevent any unwanted consequences of our pleasure.
“I’ll hold you to it.” I grin, and he returns the expression. Effortless, beautiful deflection. Even here, even after what we just shared. Even wanting to lose ourselves in each other. We still come up against the walls we’ve built to keep other people out. Never have I felt them more.
We’re both too afraid to call this what it is. But denying it is becoming more glaring by the day.
“Stay tonight.” He grabs my wrist.
“I’ll be gone before the morning,” I warn him.
“I expect nothing less.”
I go to the bathroom and then slip back between the sheets.
His breathing is already slowing, eyelids as heavy as the arm he wraps around my waist. Closing my eyes, I decide to pretend for just a little bit longer.
Pretend that we are a normal couple. Pretend that he knows all about me and I know all about him and the world is simple.
Pretend that I’m not still lying to him.
When dawn comes, it all begins again. But for now I dream of a home that can’t be taken from me. Of people I won’t lose. And…of letting myself trust enough to fall in love.