Chapter 18 #2
“Who the hell do you think you are?” I shrieked, fully fighting now to get free so I could punch him in the face.
“Your bond, babe, we discussed this,” he said, pulling his leg back once he realized it left a very sensitive part of him unguarded. “Gods, you’re a cranky cucumber, aren't you?”
He didn’t know the half of it. I just admitted my deepest, darkest, regret and he called it bullshit. Bullshit . I was going to fillet him. Claw his eyes out. Rip his dick off and feed it to the goldfish I saw him sneak into the pool.
“Are you done?”
I screamed in frustration.
I wasn’t getting up. Ezra had me pinned well and good, with only one arm and half his body weight. Bastard. It became too exhausting to keep fighting against him, but my entire being vibrated with my contained emotions, just waiting for him to slip.
Ezra’s face hovered slightly over mine, and despite how amused he sounded through all of this, he looked decidedly serious now.
“Are. You. Done?” he asked again in a clipped tone that left no room for argument.
I stared back in quiet rage, but he had my attention.
“You have a soul, Rani,” he whispered, and some of that storm inside me lessened and took notice.
“As your bond, I can feel it, and I want you to listen very closely when I tell you that your soul is beautiful, and bright, and pure, and one hundred percent the first thing that made me start falling for you.” His head cocked, almost like he could hear all that bottled emotion swirling inside me, waiting for an outlet.
That teasing smile returned. “The second thing is definitely your ass.”
The laugh burst out of me like a cannonball, and once I started, I couldn’t stop.
Not when my stomach cramped and my chest heaved.
Not when the tears began leaking from my eyes to run down my cheeks, and the snot dripped from my nose.
Huge, wracking sobs came next. It wasn’t beautiful, and it wasn’t bright.
It was a dark, deeply scarred hurt that poured out of me.
Everything. All I’d been holding in and carrying since the day I woke up with the taste of decaying brine on the back of my tongue and my entire insides moved around to make room for something foreign.
I wasn’t myself anymore. Sure, this new me had the potential to be pretty badass, but I still mourned who I was .
Ezra held me, somehow pulling me half on top of him and completely wrapping me in his arms. He smelled like the purest snowfall, and he felt like home .
If he said there wasn’t a mass of darkness rooted in the very core of me, I believed him.
Unfortunately, it would take more than a crying cuddle fest to straighten out that trauma.
“I think you’re afraid to be happy,” he claimed, fingers lightly trailing through my hair. “It’s okay, you know, if you need to talk about it.”
I shook my head, which was more like rubbing it against his chest. “I thought I gave it away in order to come back.” His hand stopped for a heartbeat before resuming its gentle caress. “I wasn’t afraid to be happy, I’ve just hated myself too much to be anything but angry.”
“And now?”
It was a good question. Those heated emotions still claimed me, but they weren’t as all-encompassing.
They had an end. There wasn’t a cavernous pit waiting to swallow me whole when I thought about that night.
Progress, I think some would call that. Hearing him say my soul was intact, it shined a light on all those dark spots inside me; sent those dark whispers and their monsters running. I had room to breathe .
I turned my head, resting my chin next to his shoulder so I could gift him with the genuine relief in my gaze.
“Now, I think I’m ready to face it.” Truly.
That was pride on his face. My heart almost exploded into goo at the sight. Something swooped in my chest and my stomach when he looked at me like that. The hand playing in my hair drifted over my shoulder and down my side. When it stopped at the curve of my waist, Ezra’s fingers dug in.
“I think someone deserves a reward for being brave,” he hummed, and rolled me onto my back.
Hovering over me, his eyes slowly trailed from the skipping pulse in my throat, past my collarbones, to where my twisted sleep shirt gaped over one shoulder and revealed the curve of my breast.
One of his fingers drew light circles on the delicate skin.
“You have a couple options for being such a good girl. Option one.” He hooked under the stretchy cotton and pulled it down, inch by inch, until the hardened tip of my nipple was exposed.
“We go downstairs and I bake you the best damn chocolate chip cookies you’ve ever had. ”
It kind of wasn’t fair for him to dangle my favorite dessert in front of me like that, especially when his mouth was so close. I couldn’t think about anything else but where it was going next.
“Or we can go with option two,” he continued, dropping his head until his lips brushed against me as he spoke. “I test the limits of this bond and make you come so hard the neighbors hear you chanting my name.”
My jaw dropped, and I was somehow breathless from the mere idea. “The closest neighbor is two miles down the road.”
Every low muscle in my body clenched at his dirty smile. “Exactly.”
Warm breath ghosted over my nipple, and it all but stood at attention and saluted ‘yes sir’ to the fantasy Ezra laid out.
My fists clutched the comforter, twisting it into a wrinkled mess as my legs shifted restlessly farther down the mattress.
Faint beams of moonlight snuck in around the drawn curtains, just enough to allow me to watch Ezra ease the blankets from my grip and gradually pull them down.
Then off. Goosebumps pebbled against the cool night air.
“I need you to say it out loud,” he ordered, voice husky and low. “I want both of us to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that when I make your toes curl and your pussy weep from pleasure, you asked for it.”
Was I holding my breath? I had to be because the shock of his words, the absolute need they created within me, made it almost impossible to answer. My entire body flooded with warmth, and it felt like a slice of life given back to me after so long in the frigid dark. I wanted more.
“Option number two,” I wheezed out.
Ezra moved. He used his knee to push mine to the side, opening my legs and allowing the delicious pressure of him to settle into the cradle of my hips.
“That’s my girl,” he rasped, then captured my lips in a lazy kiss.
I’d been kissed by plenty of men, and a few women, but none of them ever made me feel like this .
Like my entire body was a captive under the seductive onslaught of his touch.
When he rolled his tongue against the roof of my mouth, a sizzling streak of heat went down my spine.
And when he bit my bottom lip before sucking away the sting, it echoed in my roaring pulse.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered what he said about sexual contact and the bond.
We risked strengthening it by doing this, but I didn’t give a flying fuck.
I couldn’t find it in me to feel regret.
For the first time since I fell in that ocean, I was surrounded by warmth, and I needed it to grow.
I no longer wanted to feel frozen and disconnected from everything.
If Ezra’s touch is what brought me back to life, then I would suffer the consequences later.
My hands dove into the thick hair at the back of his head and tugged at the roots.
He grunted into the kiss and punished me by sucking on my tongue while long fingers circled my wrists and disentangled my hands.
Ezra broke away, eyes blazing and chest heaving as he pointedly lifted both above my head and directed my fingers to wrap around the chilly, metal bars of the headboard.
“Keep them there,” he demanded.
Heart in my throat, I could only watch through hooded eyes as Ezra let his hands play.
His fingertips, coated in cool magick, grazed my overheated skin, leaving trails of ice on my body from the dip in my neck to way down below my belly button.
I was so hot the crystals melted in seconds, leaving me shivering for more.
Cold fingers suddenly plucked at my nipple, and my back arched at the abrupt jolt of pleasure.
“So responsive,” he praised, then sucked that same nipple into his mouth.
The contrast coaxed a whimper from my throat. I felt his smirk on my breast, followed by the sting of his teeth and another soothing stroke of his tongue. He really was serious about getting the neighbors to hear me scream. Not even ten minutes into this, and I couldn’t control my gasps.
Tired of playing with the soft skin of my lower belly, Ezra’s fingers teased the waistline of my panties before dipping further south.
“ Fuck, you’re drenched.”
My brain short-circuited at the first long swipe of his finger. My legs spread wider while everything he touched seemed to pulse. All my focus zeroed down to one thing: pleasure. I forgot to hold onto the rails and clutched at his shoulders when a faint wave of it knocked me off balance.
Oh, this was going to be a big one.
All touching immediately stopped, and my hands were once again guided above my head.
“Put them back or I will tie them there,” Ezra threatened. The cool tingle around my wrists told me exactly how he planned to do that.
Ice handcuffs? My breathing increased to all-out panting. Fuck me, I think I liked the idea. His brows snapped up, something in my expression alerting him that I wasn't completely opposed, and his mouth curved into a carnal smile.
“So full of surprises.”
The thinnest band of ice closed around my wrists. I felt him messing with the temperature until it was just cold enough to hold its shape, but not enough to burn my skin. I tugged against them, hard. The chains gave off a faint clink when they hit metal, but they weren’t going anywhere.
And neither was I.
My breathing grew even more ragged, and Ezra returned to his fun with a new intensity.
He teased my entrance with that cold fingertip, circling and circling and pressing, before slipping the long digit in to the first knuckle.
The warmth of my body sucked at his magick, melting it away.
Static bloomed in my chest as the bond between us lit up like I’d doused it in kerosene.
“Did I mention how I knew you were having a nightmare tonight?” Ezra asked, lips scorching a path up my neck to the spot behind my ear that made my knees weak. He licked it. “It’s the same way I know to curl my finger… here…”
Lightning zinged straight to my clit. The pad of his finger swirled over that one spot over and over and over…
“And how to stretch you just right…”
He withdrew and returned with two fingers, pumping and scissoring them until fire pooled in my stomach.
He curled them again, and that tension coiled into a tight spring.
My legs shook, and my toes did indeed curl against the sheets.
Sparks exploded on the back of my eyelids as every muscle in my body strained for that release.
But Ezra held it at bay, twisting it tighter and tighter. He added his thumb, rubbing it on my clit in gentle, firm circles. Could the neighbors hear me begging for mercy?
“I can feel your emotions,” he admitted, voice hoarse as he plucked and pushed me closer to the edge. “The bond gave me a roadmap of your body, and now I know exactly how to make you fall apart.”
I felt the pull on his magick, but nothing prepared me for the feel of his frozen thumb pressing directly on my clit.
Time slowed. I was splintering. Shattering.
A strangled noise escaped me as I fought to get enough oxygen in my lungs to scream.
My skin prickled as my release slammed into me.
Wave after wave of electricity seared every single nerve ending, from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair.
“That’s it, baby. Let me hear you.” The scream finally left me, and Ezra made sure to guide me through it.
Aftershocks made my legs twitch as I slowly came down. My panties were carefully rearranged, and the blankets were swiftly pulled over us. The ice around my wrists disappeared, and my arms were gently brought back. Warm hands rubbed at the cool spots that remained on my skin.
“See how well you can follow directions when you try?”
I couldn’t open my eyes, couldn’t move my body when every muscle in it had turned to liquid, but I was going to get him back for that later.
Much later. After I slept for a billion hours and regained function of my legs.
A heavy arm draped across my waist, and the corner of my pillow dipped with the weight of another head.
“Go back to sleep, Rani,” Ezra whispered in my ear. “I’ll protect you from the nightmares.”
I drifted off to the scent of winter and the sound of our breaths merging into one slow exhale.