Chapter 18
~18~
A lise put her hands in Cillian’s, the nerves still thrumming through her, but on a different frequency, changing pitch from trepidation into excitement. Standing before him, nearly naked, in the truly scandalous underwear Nic had insisted she take when her own grew ragged from too many washings—and which she’d frankly forgotten she was wearing—Alise felt new inside her skin.
Maybe it was the avid way Cillian stared at her, going off into a reverent waking dream, but she actually felt… pretty. Beautiful, even, when Cillian said so with that raw frankness, his desire sharpening his magic. As she’d told him, Alise usually “saw” magic, and Cillian’s appeared to her most of the time as a quiet aura, shifting in grayscale, sometimes more black or more white, but always organized. It changed in character now as he took her in, cataloguing her body with potent admiration. And when he touched her…
Well, the tactile sensation of his magic had nothing quiet about it. It surged like the feel of ocean waves. Alise had gone to the coast with her parents one time, accompanying her papa on a summer excursion to evaluate some Elal shipyards, and she’d played in the surf while he worked, Maman absorbed with holding Nander’s hand and keeping him in the shallows. Nic must have been off at Convocation Academy already. It had been a rare bit of independence for Alise and she’d swum out, discovering how to go with the swells instead of fighting them, learning to recognize when they would curl and start to break—and how to swim just ahead of them until they caught her like a hand and sent her sailing back to the shore.
Cillian’s magic felt like that, both gentle and powerful, a deep swell carrying her, with a cresting force welling up, ready to take potential to crashing reality. Not at all what she’d expected from a librarian. Hidden depths.
He guided their clasped hands to his shirt, encouraging her to undo the buttons, and she did so with building curiosity. One by one, she slipped the buttons free—no fancy Ophiel garment for him—spreading the lapels as she worked. His breathing quickened, but he stood patiently while she performed the simple task, revealing his lean chest, a sprinkling of silky black hairs in loose spirals on his pale skin as if they’d been inked on by a scribe. She traced her fingertips along them, touching the velvet of his nipples, glancing up when he drew in a hiss of breath. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” He breathed a laugh, his hands in loose fists at his sides. “It’s arousing.”
“Oh.” She actually blushed, which seemed silly, given that she stood there in her revealing underthings, touching his bare chest. Speaking frankly of arousal made the blood heat her cheeks and she had to look away.
Cillian tipped a finger under her chin, lifting her gaze to his. “Everything good?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s just a lot.”
“We can stop at any point. Just say so.”
She nodded, his finger still on her chin, but she didn’t want to stop. A large, practical part of her wanted this over and done with, so that Gordon Hanneil couldn’t rob her of that first time, and that same practical part knew if she articulated those thoughts to Cillian, he’d balk again. Resolute, she pushed the shirt off his shoulders, then dropped her hands to unfasten his pants, all the while holding Cillian’s gaze. “I don’t want to stop.”
His fingers tightened on her chin, a spasm of need that thrilled her, and when he dropped his lips to hers to take her mouth in a long, drugging kiss, those waves of his magic dragged her under water. Ancient and deep, his magic felt like thousands of minds, like diligent study and the love of words. Debates and thoughts and descriptions and the weighty feel of books in the hand and crisp pages as they turned. Never would Alise have called such things erotic and yet, with Cillian’s mouth on hers, his hand on her waist sliding slowly up her ribs, nothing had felt more sensually stimulating.
When his hand cupped her breast, she gasped into his mouth, and his lips curved into a smile against hers. “So sensitive,” he murmured. “So fucking sexy.”
She couldn’t say why hearing the normally reserved and polite Cillian curse made her more aroused, but the words rocketed through her and a moaning, pleading sound escaped her. His pants had fallen down and she clung to his naked hips, seeking more of his mouth, kissing him greedily.
“Yes, love. We’ll take care of you, easy now.” He trailed kisses along her jaw and down her throat, sliding the straps of her chemise down her arms, dragging the silk over her already taut and aching nipples until they sprang free. Cillian cupped both breasts in gentle hands, though his magic swelled like a sea in an approaching storm, and he brushed her nipples with his thumbs so she trembled and shuddered, whimpering, and he slowly kissed her collarbones, and the space between her breasts, a tantalizing seduction that drove every thought and worry from her mind. Over his bent head, she dreamily watched out the window as the snowflakes emerged from the soft gray overcast, manifesting from nothing to take sparkling shape, swirling with their companions to thicken in a lacy fall.
Cillian murmured his affection, his reverent admiration, along with gentle reassurance, another blizzard, but of words, some elegant, some filthy. He kissed her nipples, drawing them with sweet succor into his hot mouth, then sucking hard and chuckling wickedly when she yipped, her hands now burrowed hard into his curls.
“I adore you,” he said, withdrawing and lifting the chemise over her head before tossing it aside, his hands immediately returning to her breasts, fondling her sensitized nipples so she squirmed helplessly. “You have me thoroughly enchanted. Intoxicated. Kissing your skin is like drinking the headiest of red wines.” He dropped kisses to her nipples, drawing on them as if he drank and she writhed and sighed at the exquisite sensations and the delicious words he gave her. Not just a scholar, but a poet, in thought and deed and touch. “Your nipples are dark as bloodred roses and a thousand times sweeter.” He inhaled deeply, humming deep in his throat. “I could breathe you in forever. I need to taste you. May I?”
“You already are.”
He laughed again, a dark sound of sensual amusement. “Oh, darling. No, I’ve barely begun.” Kissing his way down her belly, he sank to his knees, slipping fingers under the lace of her barely-there panties. Then, shocking her, he placed a kiss directly on her mons, breathing hot, moist breath over her pussy.
“Oh,” she gasped in pleasure and realization.
“Yes.” He eased her panties down her thighs, inhaling again as if he couldn’t get enough. “Delicious.” Kissing her there again, this time with his mouth directly on her, he slipped the tip of his tongue into the cleft between her nether lips, with lightning results.
She convulsed, a strangled cry escaping her. His hair bit into her fingers, she held on so tightly. “Cillian!” she gasped.
“Oh, yes, darling,” he said with satisfaction. “You taste as delightful as I imagined you would. I need more. Step out.” Sliding her panties all the way down, he held them for her to kick out of as he’d done with her pants. “Good girl.”
Why those words melted her, she didn’t know—and she’d never want anyone else to know how they worked on her—but she loved hearing it on some core level beyond reason.
Grasping her thighs, steadying her, Cillian backed her toward the bed. “Sit, sweetheart,” he coaxed. “Also, you can relax your death grip on my hair.”
“Oh! Sorry,” she muttered, having forgotten in her dazed desire.
“Don’t be sorry,” he replied, a wicked grin she’d never seen on his face before. “Feel free to pull all you like—and you’re going to want to—I just don’t want you to fall over.”
“I wouldn’t fall over,” she protested, slightly offended.
“You were swaying, dizzily.”
“It wasn’t that extreme.”
“It will be,” he promised with dark sensuality, placing his hands on her knees. “Spread.”
Flushing, both self-conscious and aroused, she eased her thighs apart, allowing him to open her even wider to his wizard-black gaze. “So fucking gorgeous,” he breathed. “Lie back if you need to.”
“Why would I—” She broke off on an undignified squeal as he licked her nether mouth from bottom to top. The sensation shot through her, heating her to the melting point and buffeting her with the waves of his magic. Her head swam as he ministered to her, licking and sucking, making sounds like he did when eating one of his hot, fresh cinnamon rolls. That image sent her even further over the top. Unable to hold still, she squirmed under his teasing kisses and caresses, making a guttural sound when he slid a finger into her passage, pressing deep within her.
She climaxed then, a thousand times more intensely than when she made herself come. This was Cillian, his dark curls and exquisite face between her thighs, feasting on her with such erotic abandon that she lost all control, her thoughts scattered to the winds, a blizzard now of black and crimson. Distantly, she heard her sobbing cries of pleasure. Her head swam and she realized she had indeed fallen back, her fingers clawing the sheets as she bucked her hips in the helpless throes of what he brought her.
And he didn’t stop there, instead looping her knees over his shoulders and feasting more, thrusting additional fingers inside her to add a deep, welling drive to the sharper sensations evoked by his scraping teeth and clever tongue. The additional contact gave her a keener, more overwhelming sense of his magic and she caught the wave of it, surfing ever higher and faster, until she crashed, tumbling head over heels into release.
With a wordless sound of delight, Cillian kissed his way up her body, pausing to lavish attention on her breasts, then laid himself beside her, smoothing a hand over her quivering belly and propping his head on the other. She rolled her head to look at him, her eyes not quite focusing.
“Still in there?” he asked with a smile, very much the cat who’d been in the cream. Recalling exactly what he’d been lapping up with such enthusiasm, she blushed. “Ah, I see you are.” He bent to kiss her and she tasted salt on his lips, more echoes of the ocean. Still in a sensual dream, she imagined his magic and her body had somehow blended to make the elixir.
“Mmm. Delicious,” she murmured.
“Yes, you are.” He gave her one more lingering kiss. “I should get started on that gingerbread for you.”
She grabbed hold of him before he could move away. “Wait. I know that’s not all.”
His brows climbed. “We don’t have to do everything the first night.”
But what if it’s the only night? She knew better than to speak that fatalistic thought aloud to sunny-minded Cillian, with his lovely family and his head in the pages of a book. “I want to have sex,” she told him decisively.
“I feel I should inform you that this is all sex,” he replied with a quirk of a smile.
“Don’t be pedantic. I want you inside me.” She enjoyed how his black on black pupils dilated with renewed arousal. “Or I can go down on you,” she added, feeling bold in the delight of taking him by surprise. “Return the favor.”
“Darling Alise,” he said, his voice hoarse, and he combed his fingers into her short hair, “you know it’s not an exchange of favors, yes?”
“A figure of speech.”
“Yes and no. I want you to understand that what we just did, I did out of desire, not to put credit into some kind of karmic savings so I can withdraw similar acts from you. Lovemaking, sex—this is for us to share. It should not be transactional.”
There was a bitterness behind his earnest words that made her wonder. “Did something happen to you, to give you such strong opinions about sex becoming transactional?”
He shook his head, not in negation, but brushing off the question. “That’s not a story I want in bed with us. My point is that it’s very important to me that everything you do with and for me comes from a place of consent, not from obligation.”
“Cillian.” She laid a hand on his bare chest, unable to resist stroking the fine, silky hairs. “I don’t feel any obligation. I just really want to give you pleasure also. I’d be more assertive, but I don’t know what to do.” Unexpected emotion swamped her. She didn’t like being the na?ve, awkward one. If only she were older, more experienced, and could employ some exotic, seductive skills on him, startle and please him as he had her. Feeling a bit self-conscious, she pressed a kiss to his chest, then took a chance and kissed his velvety, pink nipple. He shuddered, his fingers clenching in her hair, close to the scalp. The shockingly erotic sensation made her melt against him.
He pressed his lips to the top of her head, muttering something she didn’t catch, then released her hair and dragged her up for a devastating kiss. She clung to the kiss, to him, like a drowning woman. He slid his hand down the curve of her hip, making a sound when she eagerly spread her legs for him.
“So wet for me,” he said on a shuddering sigh, then turned on his back, drawing her with him. “Straddle me. That way you can control it, in case it hurts.”
She’d been shy to look at him too closely before, but now she gingerly took hold of his cock, marveling at the feel of it, so very different from her own body. Her knees on either side of his narrow hips, she carefully explored his member, surprised at the softness of the skin of his shaft, the tip even more velvety than his nipples. Cillian lay still, eyes closed, pained lines creasing his face. Halting her exploration in concern, she asked, “Am I hurting you?”
He cracked open one eye. “Yes, you’re killing me, but that’s no reason to stop.” At her hesitation, he trailed reassuring fingers along her hip. “This is my every fantasy come true, darling Alise, and I’m doing my best to ensure it doesn’t end too soon for you. And for me,” he added, with a hint of a smile. “However, allow me to encourage you to move on, if you’re determined on this.” He lifted both hands to her breasts, teasing and lightly pinching her nipples, renewing the flame of need that hadn’t abated despite everything so far.
She squirmed, breath growing short, her pussy aching with it. “Cillian,” she panted.
“I only stop when I’m inside you.”
Having quite a bit of trouble concentrating, she positioned the head of his cock at her entrance, sliding down a bit so he stretched her. His hands on her breasts stilled and they both let out a long, sighing groan of mutual desire.
“You feel so good,” he muttered, eyes closed again. “Please don’t stop.”
She had zero intention of stopping, though her tissues complained a little. The sting was nothing compared to the craving, and she wriggled, lowering herself more. Cillian dropped his hands to her thighs, holding her, his face once more a rictus that looked like agony but that shimmered with erotic pleasure. Watching every nuance of his expression, with him looking so beautiful with his nearly black curls spread on the pillow, his lips flushed from their kisses and play, she slowly lowered herself until he was sheathed to the hilt inside her. That last bit of contact sent bolts of pleasure through her. Having his flesh so intimately against hers came as a revelation. More than ever, she was beyond grateful she’d chosen him to be the one. It didn’t bear thinking how it would be with someone else, especially in violation.
A wave of tenderness washed over her, partly his quiet magic, partly her own gratitude and deep affection for this beautiful boy filling her so perfectly, completing her so deliciously. Slowly, Cillian opened his eyes, rubbing his palms up and down her thighs.
“That can be enough, he said, gaze roving her face with concern.
“Oh no, it isn’t,” she replied on a breath of a laugh. Moving judiciously at first, then with more vigor, she rode him, amazed by the bone-melting sensations flowing all through her, mirrored and enhanced in him. Their magic interweaving, commingling with profound intimacy.
The orgasm took her hard, her spine arching of its own accord, a cry escaping her as she threw her head back, utterly entranced and catapulted. Cillian grasped her hips, vising his hands on her and holding her in place as he drove upward, following her with frenzied, deep thrusts that extended the waves of completion carrying her to his familiar shore.
She collapsed over him, purged and limp, dimly aware that he stroked her back with long, affectionate caresses, his love words a gentle susurrus in her ear. The thought ran through her mind, though never clearly enough to reach her lips, that this, being with him, being so connected to him… there might never be enough.