Chapter 7 #3
“Every day since you left, I’ve thought about what it would have been like.
If we’d had time. If the bond had formed slowly, the way it’s supposed to.
If we’d gotten to know each other properly.
If I’d been brave enough to say what I was feeling instead of letting paranoia drown it out.
” His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth, and I stopped breathing.
“I think about it,” he whispered, “and it kills me. Because I’ll never know. ”
The tears came without warning. Only two, making hot tracks down my cheek. Draco’s thumb caught one, wiping it away gently.
“Don’t,” I managed roughly. “Don’t do that. Don’t make it worse.”
I closed my eyes. His forehead pressed against mine, and the bond surged between us, bright and aching and so fucking alive it hurt.
“We have a lot of work to do,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“A lot.”
“I know, Jupiter.”
“And I’m still angry. I’m still so angry I can’t see straight some days.”
“I know that too.”
I opened my eyes, and I could see the flecks of silver in the violet. He looked tired, but so devastatingly beautiful that it hurt to look for too long.
“But I want to know,” I said after a long moment. “I want to know what it would have been like.”
His mouth was close enough that I could feel his breath against my lips. Close enough that all I’d have to do was tilt my chin and we’d be—
I pulled back. Just an inch. Just enough. “Slowly…”
He nodded, hand dropping from my face, and the absence of his touch left a cold patch on my skin.
“Slowly,” he agreed, though he looked like he’d rather chew a handful of thorns.
We sat there for a while longer. The sun moved. The waterfall kept rushing. Noodle had gone back to sleep in the grass, apparently deciding that the emotional crisis had resolved itself sufficiently for him to resume his nap.
Eventually, Draco stood. He offered me his hand, and I took it, and he pulled me to my feet with that easy strength that always made my stomach flip.
“Kelpies,” he said, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re really going to waste a perfectly good afternoon chasing kelpies.”
“I’m going to find one,” I told him, brushing grass off my shorts. “And when I do, I’m going to name it after you.”
“Please don’t.”
“Draco the Kelpie. It has a ring to it.”
I grinned and turned to walk away, already planning my kelpie-hunting strategy for the next weekend, but his hand caught my wrist before I’d taken two steps. I pivoted to face him, ready with something snarky about personal space, and the words died in my throat.
His face had gone serious. The half-smile was gone, replaced by something rawer, hungrier, eyes gone dark as storm clouds. He pulled me toward him at the same time as he walked us backward, and my shoulder blades hit the rough bark of an oak trunk before I’d fully processed what was happening.
“You’re going to have to forgive me later for this,” Draco said, his voice rough over the roar of the waterfall, “because I can’t wait a fucking second longer to taste you.”
He kissed me like he’d been starving for it, like the months of distance and silence couldn’t hold back anymore, and the sound I made against his mouth was somewhere between a gasp and a whimper.
My fingers sank into his hair, gripping tight, and he pressed me harder against the tree, one hand flat against the trunk beside my head, the other sliding around my waist. His mouth was hot, tongue sliding against mine, and I kissed him back with everything I had, every ounce of anger and want that had been festering in my chest since the day I’d walked out of Dominion.
He lifted me, hands under my thighs, and my legs locked around his waist on instinct, ankles crossing at the small of his back.
The bark scraped against my spine through my t-shirt, and I didn’t care.
Didn’t care about anything except the heat of him against me, the hard ridge of his cock pressing through his pants right where I needed him.
I ground down against it, and the sound that came out of me was obscene—a low, broken moan that echoed off the canopy above us. Draco made a noise against my mouth that was barely human, hips bucking up into me, and the friction was so good it made my vision white out.
He practically fucked me against the tree in slow, agonizing rolls of his hips, and I met every one of them, my fingers fisted in his hair, my mouth open against his, our breathing ragged and fast and completely out of control.
“Draco—Draco, I’m—”
“I know,” he growled against my jaw, and his hand slid between us, pressing flat against my clit through the thin fabric of my shorts, and that was all it took.
The orgasm hit, my whole body seizing, a cry tearing out of my throat that I was distantly grateful nobody could hear this deep in the forest.
He let out a guttural, broken “fuuuck—” before his hips stuttered, his whole body shuddering against mine as he came hard, his forehead dropping to my shoulder, his breath hot and ragged against my collarbone.
We stayed like that for a moment. His weight against me, my legs still locked around him, both of us breathing like we’d just run a marathon.
The waterfall kept rushing. The birds kept singing.
Somewhere in the ferns, Noodle had apparently decided to pretend this wasn’t happening, because there was no judgmental commentary, which was either a blessing or a sign that he’d wandered off to hunt something.
Draco’s forehead was still pressed against my shoulder. I could feel his heartbeat through his chest, hammering against mine, gradually slowing.
“Slowly…” I whispered breathlessly.
He laughed. “Yeah. Slowly. We’re doing great already.”