Chapter 13 #2
Leaning down, I replace the touch of my hands with my mouth. I drag my tongue along the sensitive column of her throat, feeling her pulse race directly against my lips. “Rakan,” she moans, a plea and a prayer wrapped into one.
I move lower and take one of her nipples into my mouth.
Iris gasps, her spine bowing off the mattress.
I suckle slowly, letting the searing heat of my mouth burn away the lingering chill of Kasim’s threat.
My hand cups her other breast, my thumb brushing relentlessly over the tightening bud.
Her fingers tangle in my hair, pulling me closer.
I want to worship every inch of her. I drag open-mouthed kisses down the center of her ribcage and over the soft, pale dip of her stomach. I want to consume the spaces where fear lived just minutes ago. Her thighs part naturally for me, inviting me inside.
I settle my weight between her knees. The scent of her arousal invades my nostrils, making my cock throb so hard it hurts. A part of me wants to just plunge in and feel her tighten around my dick. I already know how well her body receives me. But this isn’t just about the sex.
When I lean down and press my mouth against her center, Iris jolts and lets out a small cry.
The noises she makes intoxicate me more than the most potent incense. I trace the wet, swollen folds with my tongue, dragging it up slowly to taste her delicious juices. When I wrap my lips around her clit and suck gently, her hips jolt off the bed.
“Rakan.” Her voice fractures into a breathless sob. Her hands fist in the dark silk.
I want her completely undone. No, more than that.
I want her to feel just how much she is worth to me.
I slide two thick fingers inside her slick heat, mimicking the slow rhythm of a thrust. All the while, my mouth continues its relentless work.
Iris writhes on the bed, increasingly loud, more and more desperate.
Every time I drag my tongue over her clit, her inner muscles clench tightly around my fingers. I push her right to the edge, feeling the tension arch her body like a drawn bowstring. “Please,” Iris sobs. “Rakan, please. I need you. Inside me.”
Her voice holds more power than the magic of the djinn. I pull back and slide up the length of her body. Settling my weight between her thighs, I brace myself on my forearms to keep from crushing her. The blunt head of my cock rests right at her opening.
“I’m already inside you,” I murmur, “just like you are inside me.”
It’s a feeling that’s been quietly taking root in me for weeks now, a deep bond that shouldn’t have been possible between a djinn and a human. But Iris is there, in the deepest recesses of my heart, and nothing will ever drag her out.
She looks at me as if I had just fulfilled the truest desire she didn’t even know she had. And I slide inside her.
As her wet heat envelops my cock, I groan, sensation erupting over my body.
I sink all the way to the hilt and freeze, letting her body adjust to mine.
She’s made for me. I know that, but even so, I don’t want to risk harming her in any way.
She’s more precious to me than the lamp that holds my very soul.
Iris lets out a soft, breathy gasp. It isn’t a sound of pain. It’s one of absolute surrender. And it beckons to me like a spoken wish.
I begin to move. Her body feels almost impossibly good around me, but this isn’t about me.
Right now, there’s nothing I want more than to replace the memory of Kasim’s cold threat with the enveloping warmth of my own body.
I want the only magic she feels to be the protective, burning devotion pouring out of my skin.
Her hands map the broad expanse of my back. She arches into every stroke, her breath hitching, falling into a perfect cadence with my own. The friction builds up between us, thick and heavy.
My control begins to fray, not with violence, but with overwhelming emotion. “Iris.” I bury my face in the curve of her neck, inhaling her sweet, human scent. My pace quickens.
She whimpers, her head tossing back against the pillows. Her inner walls clench tightly around my shaft. I catch her mouth with mine, swallowing her ragged cries as she shatters underneath me. Her climax ripples through her body in a beautiful, vulnerable wave.
The feeling of her coming around me snaps the last threads of my restraint. I bury my cock deep inside her one final time. As my own release hits, fire dances over my skin and over Iris’s. It doesn’t burn her. It never could.
Together, we shake through each wave of our shared orgasm. As the pleasure starts to settle into something more quiet, I collapse beside her and wrap her in my arms. I pull her back flush against my chest, her steady heartbeat against my ribs the only anchor I need.
Eventually, her breathing evens out. The exhaustion of the day should pull her into sleep. But she doesn’t close her eyes, and neither do I.
The last time we were together like this, she called our relationship a mistake. As the silence in the bedroom grows heavy, so does my heart. Because the reality of what waits outside these walls hasn’t changed. If anything, what I know about Kasim now makes the situation all the more dire.
Kasim is broken and dangerous, and he is hunting her. I can’t kill my own brother, and he will never stop until he erases the woman he perceives as a threat.
She turns to look at me. There’s no fear in her eyes. There is only a heartbreaking, resolute clarity. We’ve been dancing around the inevitable since the moment Kasim breached the wards. Ever since I told her the truth about my brother.
“There’s only one way to end this,” I tell her. “You know this, and so do I. Make the wish, Iris.”
She knows what wish I’m talking about. She’s too intelligent not to have guessed. But she’s still looking at me with pleading eyes, perhaps willing me to reconsider.
“I won’t let him hurt you, no matter what.” I squeeze her hand. “But… This is the only way to stop him for good.”
When I went to retrieve Kasim’s lamp from the ocean, I had a certain plan in mind. Now, I realize I was short-sighted. I pick up my own lamp and shove it into her hands. “Make the wish.”
Iris takes a deep breath and finally speaks. She makes the wish—the one I can never fulfill, no matter how hard I try. I feel the moment I’m bound to the lamp, and I know there’s no other way.