Chapter Twenty-Six
SAYING THE WORDS is like unfurling a sail on a torrent of wind—wild and untethered.
His mouth descends upon mine, his hands pulling my body more firmly to his.
The sweep of Ozias’s dancing tongue along the roof of my mouth blissfully erases all thoughts from my mind.
The pressure of his body dampens the feel of my dragon scratching at my seams. His fingers press into my thighs, enticing me to part my legs further for him to nestle in more deeply.
I’m not shy with my want as I rake my fingernails down into the neck of his robe, pushing the fabric off his back.
Ozias trails hot, open mouthed kisses down my neck and unbinds the tie holding my top together until my breasts spill free.
He stops, pressing his forehead against my breastbone, gathering his breath.
I whimper, needing him to move, to keep me here.
My dragon pulls and tugs—as if to tell me he’s waiting for me on the other side.
To tell me she wants me to go. I squeeze my eyes shut tight, wrap my legs around Ozias, grasp him by the jaw and lead him up to kiss me again, pressing my bare chest to his.
He moans into my mouth and I take it. I need to fill myself up, and keep my mind and body heavy with this want and desire.
When Ozias lifts his head, breaking our kiss, his eyes are a dark ochre. “What are you doing to me?” he asks, genuine confusion pinching his brow.
“What?” I ask, breathing heavy. I hazily recall asking Zhoric the same thing days ago.
“It feels…sometimes around you, I feel weak.”
I frown, which has him shaking his head.
“I’m explaining it wrong. I don’t know how to describe it.”
Squirming beneath his scrutiny, I pull back, feeling myself fade. As swiftly as I pull back, that pull from my dragon rises.
“And now it’s gone,” he says, dragging his hand up along the side of my ribcage, passing all too briefly along the side of my breast until he cups my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“What did you do? To make it stop?”
“I—” I hesitate on the words, trying to decipher what was happening. “I pulled back.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Whatever you were doing before—do it again.”
I shake my head as if to say I don’t know what he’s talking about, but his mouth is on mine again and I try doing what I was before—I take. I imagine filling myself up with Ozias—his power, and I move desperately against his large, hard frame.
His mouth trails down my throat and over my breastbone again. Only thankfully, this time he doesn’t stop.
“Yes, Kaisa.” His tongue finds the peak of my nipple. He swirls it around his tongue. “This is it.”
“What?” I ask again, breathless, the question thick.
“Your elahi. You’re taking power from me.”
I tighten my hold around him and go completely still.
Ozias’s hands move to replace his mouth on my nipples, rolling and pinching them between his thumb and forefinger as he tips his head up to look at me. “Don’t stop. Take from me, Kaisa. Whatever you need, take it.”
I need him too much right now to deny him, and so I do. I arch up and let his mouth trail down my belly towards the band of my pants. His mouth and movements become languid, almost as if he were intoxicated. He pulls my pants down over my hips, my thighs, all the way until he tosses them aside.
Now that he’s mentioned it, I notice it; his energy is a waterfall, sliding off his shoulders and into me.
I feel heavy and on edge with his power.
I recognize this now. I’ve done this before.
From the very air around me, from the dragons of Dyēus when Ozias and I were dragged over the border, tonight from the rogues, and anytime I’ve maintained a shift during the daylight.
This is what I can do.
I can take.
Ozias’s hand trails down from my breast all the way to the top of my mound, his thumb slipping between my legs to brush along the seam of my sex.
“Gods,” he curses. “You’re already so wet.” He slips his thumb inside of me and I arch, my inner walls pulsing with need around the single digit.
I wiggle my hips from side to side, seeking more friction, just, more.
“Ozias,” I whine. Annoyed at the sound of my voice, I groan.
He pumps his thumb in and out of me once, then twice, before placing his thumb into his mouth, tasting me, and he rumbles with approval.
“Stop teasing,” I order. “You’ve done enough of that.”
Ozias’s chuckle is low as he slides up my body. Somewhere in the time he’d been down there, he’d taken off his own pants, and now nothing separates us. “Why don’t you make me?”
I rise to his challenge, drawing so much of his power into me, he visibly loses his breath.
I take the opportunity to flip him onto his back so that now I’m astride him.
He runs his hands up my thighs, my hips, to the curve of my waist, all the way to my ribcage.
I reach down between us and take him in my hands, heavy and hot.
Ozias is breathing hard again, so I loosen up my hold on his power.
“Don’t,” he says. “Keep it.”
I pause to make sure he means it, then slowly bring it back, as slowly as I stroke the length of him.
He hisses, watching my hand glide over him.
Watching as I poise him at my center. Watching as I sink down onto him, taking him into me little by little, rising and lowering until I’m fully seated on him.
I want to hold here. To make him wait. To feel the delicious lick of desire pulse within me. But I can’t. I rock my hips and the relief is immediate. I move again, seeking my pleasure. Ozias moves with me, almost like he’s a vessel for my release.
“Take, Kaisa.”
I don’t stop moving, I don’t stop chasing that twisting sensation pulling taut, low in my core.
I stay with it, driving that sensation higher.
Last time Ozias stopped me before I could tumble.
This time, I won’t let him. My body bows over as my release grips me tight, coiling hard around Ozias before fluttering into bliss.
My undoing loosens my hold on Ozias’s power and he grunts as he thrusts into me.
He lifts me off of him, rotating us so that I’m lying flat on my stomach on the mattress.
I move to raise my hips as I’ve done before with farmhands once I’m done with them and need them to release their spend, but he pushes me back down, his chest on my back, his hard length lined up to enter me again while I’m flat on the bed.
“You made a mistake letting go of my power,” he says into my ear, taking my dominant hand and guiding it down between my body and the mattress, ensuring my fingers are pressed exactly on the bundle of nerves at the apex of my thighs.
“I’m going to have you come for me again and again. I won’t hold back.”
All I can do is whimper and press myself back against him.
Then he thrusts into me fast and deep, only to pull out slowly and slide into me again. His movements, the feel of him filling me up combined with my fingers pressing on myself, bring me swiftly back to the edge. And Ozias makes true on his promise. He makes me come undone again and again.
When I don’t think I can handle a single orgasm more, he moves fast and wild and I crest with another wave of pleasure, taking Ozias with me. He growls and huffs as he pumps into me, eking out his own pleasure as I lay sated with mine.
Ozias kisses the side of my face, tender and sweet, nuzzling into me for a long moment before he rolls off to lie by my side.
We stare at one another for a long time.
He looks beautiful. He also looks like a stranger.
I shore myself up with a deep breath and turn my head towards the ceiling.
My mind already spinning, already on the thousands of thoughts constantly vying for my attention in my head.
I hold onto the one that brings me most relief. The one that’s mine and mine alone.
“So I have an elahi,” I say.
Ozias grumbles, though the words are good natured. “No ‘That was amazing, Ozias.’ Or ‘Thank you for your time.’”
I turn to him again to see him smiling. I smile back. “That was amazing, Ozias. Thank you for your time.”
“Was that so hard?”
My gaze flicks down between us. “Could have been harder.”
His nose wrinkles in a faux growl, and he snatches me around the waist to draw me into him. “You’re a menace.”
“One that has the ability to take power from others.”
“A nightmare, then.”
My heart skips a beat. Zhoric said the same and now I’m thinking about him. I can’t. I can’t. I tug on Ozias’s power to tether me here. I have to stay here tonight. Bile creeps up my throat at the thought of seeing Zhoric now after being with Ozias like this.
Ozias seems to sense my mind unease and he presses a kiss to my mouth. One that’s gentle, but that I quickly turn fevered. He doesn’t question it. He doesn’t stop me. He simply lets me take.
And so I do.
Dawns early tendrils seep into Ozias’s room.
He’s asleep, laid out on his back, chest bare.
As beautiful as he is, and as wonderful as our night together was, there’s a sour twist in my stomach.
I move slowly, trying not to rouse him from sleep as I slip out from between the sheets, dress silently, and pad across the room.
Once in the receiving hall, I breathe easier and move swifter.
It’s the way I always end my night with someone I’ve been intimate with.
My mind shuts off during the act, but once my partner has fallen asleep, it resumes running, putting off rest until my body can’t stand being awake another moment.
Down the stairs, I stop short.
“Atlanta,” I say, startling at seeing her up and about so soon after her injury.
She looks at me, a quick up and down. “Ozias—” I wait for her to continue, but that’s all she says.
“He’s asleep,” I say. She turns her head.
“I’ll come back another time.” She pivots and bounds down the steps.
“Atlanta,” I call after her, but she doesn’t stop.
“Atlanta,” I call again, moving faster to catch up with her, placing my hand on her shoulder. “Are you well?”