27. ZARA
ZARA
By the time I’d got Tilly and Jules settled and made it back up to the apartment, I was so tired I’d completely forgotten Eli had said he’d left something there for me.
I stopped dead as I saw the envelope bearing my name on the coffee table, my hand flying to my chest as I recognised the handwriting.
There was a post-it note stuck to it with Eli’s scrawl, and I plucked it off to read it.
Seth wanted you to have this on your birthday, Princess. Open the gift first.
My hands trembled as I reached for the little package lying next to the envelope and tore off the wrapping.
Inside was a jewellery box and I gasped when I opened it and recognised the diamond and pearl earrings nestled inside.
The last time I’d seen these was at the little jeweller’s shop in Paris where he’d taken me the day after my not-birthday, when I’d steadfastly refused to look at them more than once in case he noticed and insisted on buying those as well as the others he’d got me. And yet somehow he’d known.
Of course, that was the very same day we’d sat in a little bistro overlooking the Seine and he’d promised nothing could ever take him away from me. Fighting back tears, I placed them gently back on the table and picked up the letter.
My Beautiful Kaderi,
I could hear his voice in my head as I read his words, as if he were right there with me, murmuring them in my ear.
As I write this, I haven’t even left yet, but my soul misses you already.
On your birthday – your true birthday this time – I’ll be thinking about you every single moment, as I will be every moment of every day and every night until we are together again.
Know that I am counting down the days until I return to you.
Eighty-four. It felt like a life sentence.
I hope I chose the right earrings. You tried so hard that day not to let me see how much you liked them so I wouldn’t buy them for you.
I’d planned for them to be a Christmas gift, but when we found out your true birthday it seemed appropriate to keep them until then.
I only wish I could be there to give them to you in person.
Think of me when you wear them, my love, and never forget how much I love you.
Eighty-four and counting.
Your Seth.
The tears came then, unstoppable, ugly wracking sobs that stole my breath, opening up every barely healing scar from the day he left.
“Sweetheart?” I struggled to see through my tear swollen eyes, but I didn’t need to see him to know it was him.
Not when the sound of his voice and the very essence of him were engraved on my heart.
Wordlessly I reached out for him and let him gather me close, stroking my hair and crooning words of comfort until I finally calmed.
“Is it really you?” I whispered, hardly daring to say the words out loud in case this was just a beautiful dream and I woke myself up by speaking.
I reached up to touch his face, tracing the line of his cheek and jaw with my fingers.
He wasn’t as clean shaven as he’d been when he’d left, making him look more rugged and somehow dangerous. Not to me though. Never to me.
“I’ve missed you so much. I tried to dream walk to you, but I couldn’t find you. I tried so hard, I promise I did, I—” My voice gave out, still hoarse from crying.
“Shh,” he soothed. “It doesn’t matter now, my love. Nothing matters except that I’m here and that I love you.”
He cradled my face in his hands and kissed me as if I was the air he needed to breathe, and my body moulded itself to his like he was the last missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of my soul.
“I can’t believe you’re here. That you’re home,” I murmured when his lips finally left mine and travelled to my neck, shivering at the sensation of the stubble that now lined his jaw brushing against my skin.
“Less talking, more kissing.” His lips captured mine again and I almost forgot how to breathe, never mind talk, as his hand slipped under my top to rest gently on my ribcage, his palm hot against my bare skin.
I arched into him as his thumb brushed lightly over the sheer lace of my bra, my nipple pebbling instantly at his touch.
“Too many clothes,” I complained, wriggling around to try and get my top off, and he chuckled.
“I couldn’t agree more, pet. Here, let me get that for you.”
My top was pulled over my head and flung aside in an instant, quickly followed by my bra, and the heated look in his eyes as his gaze landed on my breasts sent a jolt of arousal straight to my core.
“You have no idea how much I’ve missed this view.” He dipped his head and flicked his tongue across my nipple and a little moan slipped from me as he sucked it gently into his mouth before releasing it with a little nip and turning his attention to its twin.
“I could feast my eyes on you for days and still be left craving more.” His hands drifted down to my jeans, deftly undoing them and tugging them down my legs, along with my panties.
As soon as I was free of them, he slid to his knees, trailing kisses down my body as he went.
He stopped just short of where I wanted him, his grip tightening on my thighs as he looked up at me.
“The taste of this pussy has haunted my dreams every night I’ve been away from you. And the scent of you too. The scent of mine.” Fuck me. If he kept saying things like that I was going to come apart just from listening to him.
“Tell me you belong to me, Zara,” he demanded. “Tell me you’ll aways be mine. Even when we’re apart, you’re mine.”
“I’m yours… only ever yours… Seth, please…” I begged breathlessly, “I need you to touch me.”
“Oh, I’m going to touch you, my lustful little siren, never doubt it.
I’m going to touch you the way I’ve imagined myself touching you every time I’ve watched that video.
Every time I’ve tormented myself with the memory of that night and all the others that went before it.
” He nipped at the inside of my thigh, and I heard his breath catch at the way my body reacted instantly.
“Always so ready for me.” He ran a finger through the flood of arousal he’d just caused, then sucked it into his mouth. “And always so fucking delicious.”
I gasped as he finally put that dirty mouth where I wanted it, twisting my fingers into his hair and grinding myself against him the way I knew he loved.
His hands were gripping my hips now, his fingers curled into me possessively so that I couldn’t have pulled back if I’d wanted to.
Which I didn’t. When the first orgasm hit, he didn’t stop, and I screamed as another, and then another, rolled over me until finally I had to push him away and beg for mercy.
“But that’s only two, pet,” he said with a smirk as he licked his lips clean of my arousal. “I’m not nearly done with you yet. I intend to give you one for every week we’ve been apart.”
“Three,” I panted. “That was definitely three. Maybe even four.” He’d been gone fourteen weeks for fuck’s sake, and I didn’t think I could handle even ten more like that, let alone twelve. “I need a rest.”
“We’ll see how we go then,” he said with a chuckle. “I wouldn’t want to break you.” He stood up and held out a hand to help me up. “Come to bed, sweetheart.”
I was only too willing to comply with that request and a little mewl of approval escaped me as he swept me up in his arms and carried me to our bedroom. As soon as he put me down, I got to work unbuttoning his shirt, already feeling my desire start to build again.
“Lose the jeans. I need to taste you,” I whispered, loving the way his eyes flared with heat in response to my demand.
“As my siren commands.”
When I had him naked, I found myself unable to do anything but stare at him for a long moment.
I’d seen him like this so many times before, but this felt like the first time all over again.
My eyes swept hungrily over him, tracing the chiselled planes of his chest and stomach, his powerful thighs, and of course the very obvious evidence of his desire for me.
He looked even more impressive than I remembered, although I wasn’t sure how that was possible.
And he was all mine. A possessive little growl escaped me and he smirked.
“I take it I meet with your approval, pet.”
My answer was given with my tongue, but not with words, as I sank to my knees and licked slowly along the length of him.
Groan after tortured groan tore from him as I teased him mercilessly before I finally took him into my mouth.
His hands fisted in my hair as he guided my pace and I lost myself in the taste of him, still hardly able to believe he was really here.
He came with my name falling from his lips like a prayer before collapsing back onto the bed and drawing me into his arms.
I clung to him, my head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart, afraid to move or even speak in case this was a dream and he was about to fade away.
Eventually though, the risk of falling asleep started to outweigh my other fears, because dream or not, I didn’t want to miss a second of being with him.
Ignoring his protests, I eased myself off him and wriggled my way up the bed so I could prop myself up against the headboard.
“I still don’t know if this is really happening or if it’s just a dream.
Is it over?” My awareness narrowed until the only things that existed for me were him, and my own heartbeat pounding in my ears, as I waited for his answer, hoping with every fibre of my being that he would tell me he was home and that he’d never leave me again.
“It’s only just beginning, sweetheart.” The smug look on his face told me we were talking about two very different things, but he didn’t give me a chance to point that out.
“Come here,” he demanded as I started to protest that that wasn’t an answer. “I believe the count so far is only three.” The protest died on my lips as he grasped my hips to pull me back down the bed and rolled on top of me, already hard again.
“Demigod remember,” he whispered teasingly as he saw the look of surprise on my face.
Instead of sliding into me the way I’d expected though, he turned his attention to my breasts, taking his time tormenting each in turn, sucking and biting followed by soothing lathes of his tongue.
But I wanted more. I ground myself shamelessly against the hard length of him, but it still wasn’t enough.
“Seth, please… I need you inside me,” I pleaded, desperate now to feel him filling me.
His mouth crashed against mine, as he finally pushed inside me and my legs instinctively wrapped themselves around him, drawing him in deeper.
He held himself there for a few heartbeats as we both savoured the moment, before he started to move, slowly at first and then faster, my hips rising to meet his in a rhythm that was as familiar to me by now as my own name.
This time my pleasure was slower to build, a gentle heat that radiated throughout my entire body, leaving me in a state of languid bliss and incapable of doing anything except giving myself over to him completely.
But my body didn’t need my input, it just needed his touch to send me spiralling once again as he emptied himself inside me with a satisfied roar before I sank into oblivion.