Chapter 24
Reiven tossed his gloves into the bonfire as soon as we returned, and it seemed like it freed him. He loosened his shoulders and cracked a grin, joking that Ash must be blind if he couldn’t see the smoke from our fire.
After a night of restless sleep, we made it our mission to keep the fire burning strong and high the whole day, and that meant countless journeys into the jungle to retrieve dry sticks and grasses. We even added some fresh green palm fronds that caused the smoke to thicken.
Around nightfall, Ashkade reached out to Reiven to let him know they had spotted the smoke through a spyglass, and that the captain estimated they would arrive in a matter of hours.
We sat side by side in the grass, eating pineapple chunks and watching the furious orange flames flicker into a slow death of darkness.
As the glow of the fire faded, the moon rose in the canvas of night to cast sterling light over the island.
I leaned my head against his shoulder and shut my eyes to absorb the cool evening air, the birdsong in the treetops, and the wind, intertwined with the scent of salt, earth, and fruit.
Reiven ruined my peace by poking a stick into the embers and charred logs, throwing up a shower of sparks and a fresh cloud of smoke that made me cough and swipe at the air before me to clear it away.
“Sorry,” he said, leaning back to recline on his elbows.
“Man, I’d do unholy things for some rum right now. ”
“I gave you permission to relax tonight, not to party.”
He finished off his last bite of pineapple with a grin. “Not really a party if it’s just one person drinking, is it?”
The reddish glow of the embers permeated his eyes, leaving flecks like rubies scattered about a dark cave.
They sparkled when he laughed. I absentmindedly touched the outside corner of his eye as I admired it, then clambered to my feet before he asked what I was doing.
“If you want to do something fun, you could come for a night swim with me.”
He stood too, but whined, “I don’t want to get my clothes wet, Blue, please.”
“Just take them off then.” I said it without thinking, but the rakish grin he gave me had me reconsidering the ease with which I could just blurt stuff out with him.
Determined to maintain control, I gripped the bottom of the shirt he had insisted I keep wearing.
“Just take them off,” I repeated, moving to lift it over my head, but he grabbed my hands to stop me.
What, are you shy now?
Reiven met my gaze and slid his hands beneath the shirt for a moment, his scorching touch grazing my stomach.
A breath puffed out of my lips as he tugged the shirt up, and I lifted my arms so he could remove it.
His eyes darkened and drew down my body, pausing briefly when they reached the scarring word etched into my stomach.
He skimmed over the marks gently with his thumb, but said nothing as he gripped my hips and turned me to face away from him, until I stared at the ocean.
His fingers brushed my skin as he unhooked my bra painstakingly slowly, like each hook was more difficult to undo than the last. Teasing me, no doubt.
My breaths quickened in time with my heartbeat.
Rei pressed his lips against the curve between my shoulder and neck, traveling up until he reached my ear. “You’re breathtaking,” he whispered, dropping my bra in the grass.
A wave of shivers assaulted me, body and soul. Flattering words shouldn’t affect me at all, but when they came from him, I melted like sugar.
Reiven pulled me back against him, the hard planes of his body meeting my soft ones. He caressed my shoulders and down my arms, a hum low in his throat.
Without even thinking, I covered his hands with mine and guided them back up my stomach until they enveloped my breasts completely with warmth. I dropped my head back to rest on his shoulder with a grateful sigh.
His voice lowered to a sultry timbre. “You like being touched like this?”
“Only if…if it’s you, yes.”
He rewarded me with a gentle squeeze. “Being honest tonight, are we?”
“I’m…always honest,” I lied weakly.
“I’m not. I haven't told you a lot of things…But I think maybe I should.”
I held my breath.
“Things like…I wanted to kiss you ever since you told me you liked when I called you ‘Blue.’ I remember that moment so vividly, everything from the moonbeams in your hair to the warmth of your body right beside me.”
All I could think about was the memory of his fingers brushing against the back of my hand that night. The odd rippling in my chest, a rippling that echoed inside my heart now. Reiven nipped at my ear and trailed his mouth down my neck, leaving a distantly cool line of moisture on my skin.
“That night, I think I saw the real you, though you probably didn’t mean to show me.
When you offered to take away my pain, I saw that even if you didn’t want to care about me, you couldn’t stop yourself from wanting to help someone hurting.
And…that night I had you beneath me on my cot…
” He trailed off, leaving space for me to remember the heat between us, the heady words.
His hands kept busy massaging my breasts, and another sweet kiss on my neck turned into a nibble that made me gasp his name.
“Mmhm. I felt like I was in a dream. I knew it was all just a tease to you, but…I wanted it to be real.” One of his hands snaked down my stomach so that he could hook his fingers around the top of my underwear, lacy fabric that suddenly felt like it covered nothing at all.
He tugged at it, but didn’t take it off.
“A-are you enjoying undressing me as slowly as possible, Reiven?”
I felt him smile against my neck. “Definitely. But I’m not just undressing you, I’m also distracting you.”
“Distracting me from wh—”
His lips formed some word against my skin, a foreign word that was hardly audible. Something about the word filled me with a sense of relief, as pressure I hadn’t even realized lingered around me lifted away.
He removed his hands from my body, along with the Druinnic choker from around my neck. The solid gold ring that had magically sealed itself on me now appeared to have a clasp he had undone.
He threw it carelessly into the bushes in the jungle behind us. “Since I’m undressing you, figured I might as well do it properly.”
“But…how?”
The waves rolling onto the beach whispered to me, and my heart slowed to beat in time with them.
If I decided to, I could just…go home. Right now.
There was nothing I wanted more. Nothing—yet I paused at the warmth of Reiven’s bare chest against my back, his hands locking around my stomach as he rested his chin against my shoulder.
“That Druinn general, Shaddan, figured out I didn’t actually know how to disenchant it, so he told me.
I think he might’ve wanted me to release you, to give you a chance to live if they killed me.
Probably feeling guilty after seeing how you were treated, so maybe he does have a conscience.
” He released me and stepped back, but losing his body heat made me want to scream.
“I’d wondered if this would be goodbye.”
I faced him, only for him to nod at the ocean.
The girl I was a few months ago would have left in a heartbeat.
Forget the plan, forget the Voidtome, forget everything but the Deep.
But his eyes had me caught in a trance; a magnetic pull urged me closer.
I stared up at him, completely silent. The idiotic piece of my heart that belonged to him whispered and sang until it overruled every rational thought inside me. I giggled.
“‘Goodbye?’ But Rei…You’re stuck with me.”
We moved at the same time, his lips colliding with mine like a bolt of lightning striking the sea during a tempest. Something warm erupted inside my heart—dangerous enough that it might melt me or burn me to cinders, but in that moment, it made me weightless.
Reiven was a force of pure heat and power, and I yielded to the warmth of his body, to the tight hold of his fingers speared into my hair.
Every touch was blissful, exhilarating surrender… yet I still had control.
It felt like freedom.
Our kisses were laughably haphazard, but neither of us bothered to care.
Unable to breathe, equally unable to stop, I pressed closer to him, eager to taste more of that tangy-sweet pineapple on his tongue.
It still wasn't enough. A growl escaped me mid-kiss at the realization that he was significantly more clothed than me, and not only was it unfair, but I wanted to see all of him. I seized him by the belt.
“Mm—Blue—this is a surprise,” he mumbled between unabashedly messy, wild kisses, but he didn’t sound surprised at all, damn him. He smirked and bit his lip while I fumbled with his belt buckle.
“Don’t you dare play innocent. You were the one taking my clothes off and talking seductively. You put thoughts of this in my head.”
Reiven blinked at the way I hurled his belt off into the darkness of the jungle, and had the audacity to laugh at how I practically ripped the buttons off his trousers in my haste and frustration. “I wasn’t trying to be seductive—”
Go drown in a whirlpool, you liar!
“—but that’s definitely seductive,” he said, motioning in the general direction of his newly lost belt, as if he found my lack of care for his clothing sexy.
I gave up trying to get his pants off without his help. “Take them off. Now.”
“You’re bossy when you’re hot and bothered,” he teased, but obliged me. “But you also like being told what to do…Interesting.”