27. A Blur Of Bliss
TWENTY-SEVEN
A BLUR OF BLISS
Seven
I couldn’t breathe.
I pressed one shaking hand to my tingling lips. I could still feel where his teeth had grazed me there. He could have cut me. Could have drunk from me.
My brand burned. I hadn’t given it a single thought in years. It was just … there. But now, it was like the pads of his fingers tracing the outline of my number had brought it back to the forefront of my mind.
‘We will go back, and we will kill them all.’
Those words … and then his mouth crashing into mine.
He kisses like he’d fuck so good , the whisper cooed.
How would you know? I retorted. We’ve never been kissed before.
It had never been something I’d desired. When I was in the Guardian Program, I was so focused on fighting. On becoming the deadliest version of myself. There had been no room for desires.
And then I’d been moved to R Block. And anything to do with being intimate with males was raped out of me.
Until now.
I was naked, standing in the middle of the cabin, my jumpsuit a soggy pile at my feet. And all I wanted was for him to come barging through that door again, look at me the way he had just before he’d apologized and left. And then take me to the mattress, and show me what it was really like. Sex. When it was wanted.
Because I wanted it … that much was far too obvious from the damp ache between my legs. And the tingling in my nipples. And the heat pulsing low in my belly.
But wanting this was the stupidest thing I could do. Whatever … connection there was between us, it could only cause problems. The vision of Twelve screaming. Of Nineteen begging. That had been enough to make me push him away.
He’d said he would go back and kill them all. Because they branded me. Because that mark on my chest had affected him so much, he wanted revenge on the entire system that had allowed it.
Those words … he couldn’t have said anything that would make me desire him more.
I forced that desire deep down. It scared me, and I didn’t have time or space for fear right now.
Rebuild my power. Regain my strength. Refresh my fighting skills. Go back there and show them what a colossal mistake they made, giving me a chance to escape.
Join with him, and his power will be on our side.
I ignored the whisper. His power was already on my side. I didn’t need to cause either of us pain to have him as an ally. In fact, muddying the waters with … exploration of whatever was between us … that was the wrong path to take.
If only my stupid body would agree with me. Why it wanted to … Join, or whatever the whisper kept calling it, I had no idea. I was so thoroughly horrified by the idea that I’d end up a weeping, screaming mess like Twelve … or reduced to begging like Nineteen.
Sex wasn’t worth any of that.
Not even if his hardness rocking against my pelvis just now had been the single most arousing thing I’d ever experienced.
“Get your jumpsuit dry enough to put on,” I snapped to myself, snatching it from the floor and stalking to the fire, dragging one of the chairs over and spreading out the clothing as best I could. Steam immediately began rising from it. It better not take too long to dry—I needed clothes on. Desperately needed a barrier between my fingers and the parts of me they longed to stroke.
My nipples puckered at the thought, and the whisper cackled, dragging up the memory of him under that cursed outdoor shower, gripping his impressive length, thrusting into his fist.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but that didn’t help, because the image was seared into my brain. And my fingers were sliding down my belly, through the curls between my legs … parting me.
I should stop.
I didn’t want to stop.
I groaned quietly at how wet I was. At how sensitive the nerves were as my fingers swiped over them. Dipped into me and came out soaked.
It had been five hundred and … I’d lost count, really, since the last time I’d touched myself like this. I’d thought I’d never want this again. But here I was, one foot on the chair by the fire, swirling fingertips, delving deeper inside, muscles clenching as I thrust one, then two fingers inside, rocking my swollen bud against the heel of my hand as my fingers curled inside me.
I bit hard on my bottom lip, my partially-shifted teeth piercing the skin there, blood pooling in my mouth. I moaned, sucking on the coppery tang … wishing it was the addictive flavor of his blood.
My fingers curled deeper, then out, circling the swollen parts of me that ached so deliciously when I touched them. And back inside me once more.
His eyes, glinting up at me. On his knees. His big palms clasping my upper thighs. Spreading me. Growling at the sight before him. Leaning closer, his mouth almost on me.
His tongue, his lips. His teeth. On these parts of me that had never been … attended to like that.
My eyes flew open as the heat, the ache, built and built and then crested in a throbbing, shuddering wave of pleasure. Muscles pulsed and squeezed, and I was barely able to breathe because I knew if I did, I was going to make some animal noise that would immediately clue him in that I was climaxing, on my own hand, and I could picture him, as if he was really there, burying his face into my orgasm and feasting.
Was that something that males even did to females? Was it something that … females might do to males?
The thought of his thick length, in my mouth … my teeth piercing him there. Drinking his blood … swallowing his climax …
My body shook again as a second wave hit me … or was it just the first one, still rolling through me? I couldn’t even tell. It was all a blur of bliss.
Either way, by the time it had subsided, my legs were nothing but jelly. I collapsed into the chair, not even caring that I was sitting on my still-damp jumpsuit. Finally, I managed to suck in a hiss of breath, my body still pulsing steadily. My brain nothing but fog as I struggled to find a normal breathing pattern once more.
That cannot happen again , I told myself firmly, staring into the flames, my muscles still quivering in the aftershocks of intense pleasure. I don’t need this sort of distraction.
Everything will feel different once we Join with him, the whisper insisted. Everything will be better. No distractions. Just connection.
That is a lie , I argued.
But my thought lacked conviction.
I t was close to an hour later before I felt like I’d calmed down enough to check on my jumpsuit, still crushed under my backside.
The fire was starting to peter out, flames reduced to the orange glow of embers. I should put another piece of timber on it, but I wasn’t sure how to do that. Open fires weren’t something we’d been given access to in Taiga.
Lots of things about this outside world had been denied me.
My suit was still damp, but at least warm from my body. I sighed and struggled into it. I couldn’t just sit around naked in here forever. I wondered where he was. If he was outside, waiting for me to be decent.
Heat crept up my neck. Would he know what I’d been doing? Would he be able to smell it on me?
What a stupid question. Of course he would be able to smell it. I could hop back in the bathtub. Scrub what I could of the remaining slipperiness from between my thighs. But he’d still smell it. He was a Shifter … and an Echo at that. More powerful than most. His senses may well be even stronger than mine.
There was nothing for it. I’d just have to go out there and hope that he didn’t ask questions that I absolutely didn’t want to answer.
Taking a deep breath, I tugged my hair out from under the collar of the jumpsuit and strode purposefully towards the door.
He was sitting on the edge of the porch, those big hands white-knuckled on the silvered timber. When the door creaked, his head snapped up, and of course, he inhaled. And of course, my cheeks flamed. And of course, his eyes flashed gold for a split second before he clenched his jaw and wrested control away from his ‘monster’.
His Shifter-self is so strong, my whisper cooed.
But neither of us spoke of the fact that I smelled like I’d touched myself. And I certainly didn’t say a word about the smell of his spend, fresh in the air.
He’d taken care of his own needs, too.
You could have just taken care of one another , the whisper grouched.
“Did you … uh … enjoy your bath?” he asked, resting his shoulder against a post and folding his arms over his broad chest. He smiled up at me lopsidedly, and my chest fluttered.
“Well, I feel cleaner,” I managed. “But I don’t know if baths are really my thing.”
His grin turned to a smirk, his eyes glinting.
“Too stimulating for you?” he asked, then his jaw twitched again, and he looked away, running a hand through his golden hair. It was so much longer than it had been when I’d first seen him.
“Shit. Sorry, that was … just pretend I didn’t say that, yeah?”
I didn’t answer, but I lowered myself onto the weathered timbers, not close enough that we were touching but close enough to feel the heat emanating from him.
I didn’t feel like there was anything to forgive. In fact, I found that I quite enjoyed his funny little, innuendo-laced remarks. It felt almost light after so much heaviness.
“I haven’t had the best experiences with water deep enough to be submerged in,” I said simply.
“Why?” he asked darkly.
I shrugged. “They wanted to see how long we were able to hold our breath underwater. It was … unpleasant.”
“Unpleasant,” he repeated in a low growl. “Fucking unpleasant !”
I glanced over at him, but his eyes weren’t glowing with the Shifter’s consciousness. This was his own anger. On my behalf.
I had to look away, but the ache that unfurled in my chest was a little too intense for me to want to analyze.
Instead, I let my eyes rove over the clearing toward the trees in the darkened distance. He didn’t speak again. The warmth of his presence was like a ghost embrace, and I let it reassure me as I finally forced myself to look up into the endless depths of the sky, pricked with the tiny, twinkling lights of stars.
“How far away are they?” I asked, pointing. Letting my curiosity overcome my fear of the vast wideness of the sky.
“Good question … I was never much for science at school,” Jack replied, his tone sheepish. “Like, maybe billions of miles?”
“Is school a place to learn science?” I asked, turning to him, propping one foot up, and resting my chin on my knee. I was tired. I wasn’t used to shifting so frequently as I had in the last couple of days.
Jack nodded, wrinkling his nose in a way that made my stomach tingle. “And a bunch of other subjects as well. I wasn’t super smart at school. I graduated back in May. I got into college on a sports scholarship … but none of that means anything to you, does it?”
His eyes flashed with something that almost looked like pity, but he hid it well. My gut churned. I didn’t want him to pity me for surviving the life I had.
“Help me learn,” I said instead. “Tell me about something you love about the outside … about the life you lead before all of this.”
His grin was brighter than sunshine.
“Well, I think you would actually love football,” he said.