Chapter 20 #2
“All of it,” I whisper.
He leans in, his mouth finding mine.
The kiss is not tentative. It lands with a quiet certainty that steals the air from my lungs, his lips warm and sure against mine as if he has already crossed this distance a thousand times in his mind.
For a suspended instant I do nothing, only feel. The solid line of his chest against mine. The heat of his hands at my back. The slow, devastating patience in the way he tilts his head, coaxing rather than taking.
And then my lips soften under his.
It’s a yielding so small I almost don’t register it, but he does. His breath shifts, a quiet catch against my mouth, and the pressure of his lips deepens by a fraction—no more than an answering question.
I slide one hand up the length of his shoulder, over the familiar breadth of him, until my fingers find the warm silk of his hair. It’s a hesitant touch, reverent without meaning to be, and he leans into it as if the contact itself steadies him.
A low sound vibrates through his chest when I part my lips and taste him.
The change in him is immediate.
Heat floods the space between us, thickening the air. His breath roughens against my mouth and he pulls me closer until there’s no space left at all. I feel it then—the edge he’s been holding, the control slipping, the dragon in him rising to meet the way I’ve opened to him.
He answers with hunger, the first real claim threading into the kiss.
His hand tightens at my back. I feel the shift in him, the dragon rising under skin, possession sharpening.
He rolls us so I’m beneath him, the weight of his body a hot press that drives every thought from my head except the taste of him.
My fingers tighten in his hair and he breaks the kiss only far enough to drag my top over my head, the fabric catching and then gone.
He kisses me harder now, the line between patience and hunger gone. I feel his control unraveling thread by thread.
His mouth leaves mine only to find my throat, warmth and pressure and teeth that are almost a mark. I arch into him on a broken breath, fingers still tangled in his hair.
He catches my left wrist.
The movement is swift, instinctive. He presses my hand into the mattress above my head, his mouth still at my neck, breath rough against my skin.
A pulse of heat goes through me so sharp it’s almost pain.
“Dayn—”
My other hand slides over his shoulder, nails grazing. He makes a low sound and catches that wrist too, dragging it upward until both my hands are pinned above me in one of his. Effortless. Certain. The weight of his grip warm and unyielding around my wrists.
My breath stutters.
He lifts his head.
For a moment he just looks at me—hair fallen loose, mouth parted, chest rising under him, my arms stretched above my head in his hold. Something dark and possessive flares in his eyes at the sight, dragon-deep and undeniable.
“Gods,” he murmurs, voice gone rough. “You undo me.”
The admission feels dragged out of him.
His eyes move over me again, slower now.
My wrists trapped in his hand. My chest rising under him, bare where he tore the fabric away. My mouth still parted from his.
I feel the shift in him as he takes it in—the tightening of his grip, the subtle drop of his weight, the dragon in him answering the sight of me held open beneath him.
His gaze flicks to my throat. My breasts. The line of my body arched under his.
Hunger darkens, deepens.
For a heartbeat I think he’s going to come back down on me. Claim. Take. Everything. Finish what he started.
My pulse jumps.
His thumb shifts unconsciously against the inside of my wrist, as if feeling how fast it’s racing. The contact sends another sharp wave through me; my hips move before I can stop them, a helpless seeking under his body.
That almost breaks him.
A rough breath tears out of him. His eyes close hard for an instant, forehead lowering until it nearly touches mine. His grip on my wrists tightens—then stills, as if he’s holding himself there as much as me.
When he opens his eyes again, the heat is still there.
But something else has forced its way through it.
Control. Decision. Restraint dragged up from somewhere deep and brutal.
He exhales once, shaky.
“I could keep going,” he says quietly. “You would let me.”
Heat coils deeper in my stomach at the certainty of it.
“But you’re not fully here yet.”
I still.
His gaze pins mine, steady, unflinching, seeing too much.
“I can feel where you’re still… coming back into yourself,” he says softly. “The edges of you that aren’t settled. Not all the way present.”
His forehead lowers until it rests lightly against mine.
“I don’t want what you’d give me out of instinct. Or need. Or the part of you that’s still surviving.”
The words land low between us.
“I want you,” he breathes. “Whole. Burning. Able to meet me in it.”
His grip eases, but he still doesn’t release.
“When I take you,” he says, voice dropping, dragon-dark beneath the control, “I want you there for all of it.”
A pause.
“All the way inside yourself.”
Only then does he release my wrists, hands sliding down my arms slowly, as if letting go costs him something physical.
“So I’ll wait,” he finishes quietly. “Until you are.”
The words settle between us, heavy and strangely gentle.
For a moment I can’t speak. I’m still pinned beneath him in every way that matters—breath unsteady, skin burning where his body pressed into mine, the echo of want still moving through me in slow, liquid waves.
But under it…
Something catches.
A hollow note inside the heat.
He must feel it, because his hand comes up—slow now, careful—to brush my hair back from my face. The touch is different from before. Closer to reverence than restraint, hunger.
“You’re trembling,” he murmurs.
I hadn’t noticed. But now that he says it, I feel the fine aftershiver through my limbs, the ache low in my body where desire still coils tight and unsatisfied.
“I’m… here,” I say, and hear the uncertainty in it.
His eyes search mine, not correcting me. Just seeing.
He lowers beside me instead of over me, one arm sliding around my back, drawing me against him protectively. My wrists, finally free, fall between us; instinctively I fold into him, cheek against his shoulder.
Skin meets skin everywhere it can.
My bra is still on, thin lace damp and warm against my breasts where his chest presses close. His bare torso is heat and muscle and the steady rise and fall of breath under my palm. One of his legs hooks loosely over mine, keeping me anchored to him.
It should feel complete.
It almost does.
His hand moves slowly up and down my back, long strokes that ease the last tremors from my body. My own fingers drift across his ribs, tracing the now-familiar planes of him, the solid heat that only minutes ago felt capable of consuming me whole.
I should still be lost in it.
But that strange hollow place remains. Like a chamber inside me that hasn’t fully lit. Sensation feels like it reaches toward it and falls short, as if part of me is a step removed from my own skin.
I press closer anyway.
He tightens around me at once, answering the movement without hesitation. His mouth brushes my hairline, breath warm there.
“You’re quiet,” he murmurs.
I hesitate.
There’s no accusation in him, only attention so precise it makes hiding useless.
“It felt like I was almost there. In myself… With you,” I whisper. My fingers curl lightly into his side. “But not all the way.”
His arm tightens.
“I know,” he says softly.
No surprise. No doubt. Just certainty.
I swallow, cheek shifting against his chest. “It’s still… missing. Something.”
His hand cups the back of my head, holding me there.
“We’ll bring it back,” he says, low and certain. “All of it.”
The promise settles through me, warm and steadying.
For a few breaths we lie like that—tangled, skin against skin, the earlier heat diffused into something slower, deeper. My body gradually unwinds against his; the sharp edge of need eases into a heavy, lingering glow.
I’m just beginning to drift into it when—
Something brushes the edge of my awareness.
Faint.
Cold.
I go still.
Dayn feels it instantly. His arm tightens, now alert. “What is it?”
I don’t answer at once.
I’m listening.
There—
Again.
A thin, distant pressure against my senses which aren’t entirely physical. Like breath across the surface of still water. Like threads of presence moving just beyond sight.
My pulse shifts.
“Spirits,” I whisper.
Dayn’s body stills under my cheek.
“Where?” he asks quietly.
I turn my head slightly, senses stretching outward past stone and air. The feeling resolves—multiple signatures, faint but distinct, moving somewhere in the valley.
I push up on one elbow.
Dayn’s arm loosens, though I feel the reluctance in it—a brief tightening before he lets me go. Cooler air slides over my skin as I shift free of his warmth. I find my shirt and pull it back on, the linen whispering over still-sensitized skin.
The sense pulls again.
Stronger now.
I swing my legs from the bed and for a heartbeat I just listen, the echo of his heat still along my back, my spiritual senses answering the distant stir in the valley.
There.
Again.
“Esme?” Dayn says quietly behind me, as I move toward the window.