Chapter 35 #4
Wind whipped the flag up in a cyclone, twisting the sodden fabric around their entwined bodies as the tentacles enclosed them too. Yves’s lips moved hungrily against his, the kiss growing more fevered and possessive. One of the tentacles cradled the small of Rowan’s back, anchoring them.
For a moment, anxiety spiked. Despite Yves’s tender words, this would be just like last time. Loveless. Pleasure without substance. Hot tears pricked in the corners of his eyes, and Yves pulled back, holding him at arm’s length by the shoulders, black eyes wide and wanting.
“I missed kissing you,” Rowan croaked, barely loud enough to be heard over the howling wind. “We didn’t…You didn’t…You haven’t kissed me in so long.”
Yves’s expression crumpled, softness seeping in through destruction.
“I’m sorry I was so brutal with you, darling.
” His fingers tightened, then loosened on Rowan’s shoulders, like he was holding back from crushing him in another embrace.
“I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on you. I should have been in control.”
Rowan’s breath caught. He didn’t know what to say. It hadn’t just been Yves’s anger that fueled their unloving, desperate couplings in the hallway and alley. Rowan had been just as guilty of using Yves, even if he was the one at a disadvantage.
Yves’s tender, hopeful expression warred with the terrifying countenance of the demon.
He was waiting for Rowan to speak, to deny him.
Rowan removed Yves’s hand from his shoulder, and Yves drew in a sharp breath, the wind dying with it for just a second.
But instead of leaving, Rowan stepped closer into his arms.
The wind howled through the closing distance of their bodies like a jubilant song.
Yves cupped Rowan’s face between his scorching hands again, tracing the crossed scars with his thumb and searching Rowan’s expression like he couldn’t believe Rowan still wanted him.
Rowan had no words to give to what he felt, but a small, tentative smile curved his lips.
Yves fell upon him like a starving man, kissing his jaw, his neck, tasting the salt spray clinging to his cold skin.
Rowan tilted his head back. The rain no longer felt like cold needles, but cleansing waters that would wash away the last of his anger.
Yves twitched the collar of Rowan’s shirt aside, mouth traveling across his collarbone to the hollow of his throat.
The tentacle tightened around his waist possessively.
“I missed you.” Yves’s words came as hot and desperate as his kisses. “I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. Just say you still want me. Say you still love me.”
Shock sliced through Rowan like lightning, and his voice came out timid. “You still want my love? I’m not back to being your plaything?”
Yves jerked back. “You were never just a plaything,” he said vehemently, cupping Rowan’s face again. His eyebrows pulled together. “You must know that you are the only person in the world I love.”
The only person in the world he was capable of loving. Rowan still didn’t understand it. But whether it was fate, or the demon had simply decided Rowan was his, it didn’t matter.
Yves’s fingers tightened in Rowan’s hair at his silence. His expression was stricken, and Rowan’s heart squeezed painfully.
“Rowan, please tell me you never doubted the depths of my love.”
He was so earnest. Rowan swallowed, and shook his head, but Yves sensed the hesitation in it.
Yves sank to his knees, hands trailing from Rowan’s face and down his arms to grasp both of his hands. He gazed up at Rowan with pure adoration, pure contrition. Stars that didn’t exist in this stormy sky reflected in his eyes.
“I know I am selfish. I am cruel. And I’ve not treated you as you deserve. But I will do anything, give anything, to make you happy.” He flung an arm out to sea where the Kraken fought the waves. “If we cannot save the Siren, I will give you the Kraken’s Fury.”
Rowan searched his face and found only honesty there. Yves would give him anything he desired, even his most treasured possession. But he could never accept it.
“If we cannot save the Siren”—his voice only wavered slightly—“you will steal the next fastest ship in the Islands for me.”
A wry smile played at the corners of Yves’s lips. “Anything you desire shall be yours. I will obey your every word, enact your every whim.”
Rowan’s thumb caressed the curve of Yves’s lips. He drew Yves to standing again. “Anything?”
“Yes.”
“Then kiss me more. Make love to me properly.”
Surprise flitted across Yves’s face. “You do not have to offer me this,” he said seriously.
But Rowan wanted to. He wanted Yves to love him properly for the first time in months.
He captured Yves’s lips in a tender kiss.
And when he pulled back, Yves’s expression had settled into a familiar hunger.
He took Rowan’s chin between thumb and forefinger and tilted it up so that droplets of rain slid down his cheeks like tears.
Their lips met again. Tenderly at first, then growing in hunger.
Rowan melted into it, his heartbeat quickening with every breath they shared.
The tip of the tentacle at his back slipped beneath the hem of his shirt.
Cold, barely-there flesh sending a shiver up his spine in contrast with how Yves’s human touch warmed him.
Rowan released a small, pleased sound, which seemed to spur both Yves and the tentacles on.
He backed Rowan against the wheel, still lashed in position.
Rowan’s back arched, giving the tentacle room to explore further, his hips canting against Yves’s body.
His cock engorged as Yves’s hot mouth moved across his scars and down his throat.
Yves’s teeth nipped at his chilled skin, his other hand trailed down Rowan’s body to cup his hardening manhood.
“Shall I bring you to your bedchamber or are you eager to have me here?” Yves’s voice trembled through his body like thunder.
Rowan’s heart thrilled at it, and he tried to drag Yves closer by the front of his coat, but they were already pressed together.
He growled in impatience and tugged open the buttons at Yves’s collar.
“Very well, then.” A smile edged Yves’s voice now.
The flag wrapped around them like a living thing as Yves dragged him down to the deck.
He laid him on his back on a spread-out corner of the flag, and wasted no time in rucking up Rowan’s soaked shirt and kissing the exposed flesh of his chest. As his tongue roved over Rowan’s peaked nipples, the tentacles crawled across the deck like mist, solidifying into dark blue flesh speckled with light.
One of the tentacles coiled around his wrist, holding it to the deck.
Yves’s lips moved down over Rowan’s ribs to his stomach.
He arched his back into the touch. Wanting more, needing everything.
Yves stroked a thumb up Rowan’s shaft through his pants.
Rain pooled in Rowan’s navel and Yves licked it away.
Pleasure rippled up Rowan’s spine, and he wanted to close his eyes, to savor it, but he was mesmerized by the dark, lightning-threaded clouds and the rain falling down on them.
He blinked, trying to keep his head as Yves mouthed his cock over the sodden fabric, slowly loosening the ties of his britches.
Rowan’s hips bucked involuntarily, chasing the pressure of Yves’s glorious mouth.
“Yves,” he gasped. The suckers left little puckered kisses as the tentacle coiled further beneath his sleeve. Yves tugged down the waistband of Rowan’s britches and undergarments, his tongue swirling around Rowan’s sensitive cockhead, cold rain dripping from his hair down Rowan’s shaft.
Rowan gasped, the duality of hot and cold sending his mind swimming.
His body moved without his direct order, and before he knew it, Yves was beneath him instead, thin waist trapped between Rowan’s thighs.
Yves’s black hair spread out around his head like a dark halo, melding with the flag beneath him.
He gazed up at Rowan’s half-undressed and needy form with shining eyes.
Rowan rutted down on Yves’s hardening cock, and Yves grabbed him, long-fingered hands framing Rowan’s waist.
“You’re beautiful.” It sounded like a confession.
Rowan leaned low over him, lips brushing his. “When you first stepped foot on this deck in the rain…” He ran his hands up under Yves’s silken shirt, relishing the burning skin. “I thought you looked like a god. You are the most beautiful, most terrible thing I’ve ever seen.”
The tentacles writhed, and the obsidian of his eyes seemed to darken further. The demon seemed pleased at being named a god by their beloved.
“Who says I am not a god?” The echoes of the demon’s voice curled through the storm like the waves below.
“Shall I get on my knees in worship of you?”
Yves smiled. “You already are.”
Rowan kissed him, hips rutting against him and a moan between them. “Shall I pray to you then? Beg for your mercy?”
Yves ground up against his buttocks. “All my mercy is yours to command.”
It felt like a promise as much as the earlier apologies had.
Yves’s hands slipped from Rowan’s waist to his hips, thumb once again skimming the rim of Rowan’s pink cockhead, and Rowan forgot everything but his touch.
Rowan’s body shuddered, and he continued lavishing open-mouthed kisses over Yves’s wet skin, slowly undressing him from his fine clothes.
A pleased rumble vibrated beneath his lips.
Rowan had long ago given up trying to separate the reactions of demon and man.
They were often the same, but sometimes the separation was obvious.
Now, they both wanted to ravish Rowan with Yves’s inhumanly beautiful body.
But Yves held them back, basking in Rowan’s attention. Letting Rowan take what he willed.