Chapter Thirty-Two #3
I suck in a sharp breath in anticipation, before his cock slides inside me slowly. Stretching, adjusting, acclimating to the size of him.
I whimper in pleasure as I stretch around him.
He begins to move rhythmically. Slowly at first, to allow me time to adjust. But his restraint is slipping.
He drives his cock in and out, filling me so completely that there is no beginning or end to the pleasure that floods me.
I reach my hand between us, rubbing slow circles over my clit and I instantly clench around him.
His hand grabs my wrist. “No. That’s my job.”
His fingers replace mine, the even pressure he applies to my clit a god-sent sensation. His long, deep thrusts possess me in a way that make me feel like he’s everywhere, all at once.
My eyes drift closed again, my breathing ragged and tortured, my frame languid under his charge.
“Eyes open,” he commands, as he leans over me.
There is nowhere else I can be. His arms, his gaze, his body.
I can only be here, with him.
“It’s you,” I pant.
“It will always be me,” he promises through gritted teeth, as he grinds his hips into mine.
It’s always him.
His lips press into mine, and I submit. The kiss unhurried but heated. His tongue tastes me as if I am something to be savored, and I let him.
We devour each other in a dance of command and submission.
Be here. He bites at my lip.
I’m here. I open wider to let him in.
Stay. His tongue sweeps across mine.
I’m staying. I let him claim me.
His thrusts intensify, riding and pumping, while his thumb presses down on my clit in an even pressure that I grind against, desperate for the friction.
His eyes are trained on mine—a demand that I give myself over.
He removes his hand from my clit and wraps it around my throat, adorning my skin like a necklace.
He’s tentative at first, like he’s reminding me that touch is earned, not taken.
I press into his hand, letting him know I consent.
He firms his grip just slightly, and I go languid under his hold.
In a heartbeat, he rewrites touch. Given, not taken. Wanted, not resisted. Desired, not forced.
“Be a good girl and come for me,” he whispers into my ear in a growl that has my pussy clenching around his cock. The muscles of his chest and shoulders bulge under his efforts, the veins in his arms visible, and the sight breaks me apart.
A moan rips from my throat, and my hips buck wildly at both his words and hold.
He fucking owns me.
I pant through the grip he has on my throat, pleasure building, desperate for release. I roll my hips, try to take more of him into me. His cock responds, twitching and pulsing inside me.
Then, I shatter—
Waves of pleasure crest and crash. My pussy tightens around his cock, as he bucks and jolts, finding release, too.
I shake, my legs trembling under his touch, and a whimper flies from my throat as the pleasure ripples.
Kael’s hand moves back to my clit, adding pressure that I grind into, wringing every last shred of pleasure from my body. I feel my eyes fluttering closed—
“Look at me while you come, my love,” he demands.
So, I do.
I look at him. I let him watch me come undone.
I feel unmade and remade in the span of a heartbeat.
His eyes are trained on me, that gorgeous smirk kicking up his lips.
“Perfect,” he says, as my body shudders in release.
I don’t say anything, because I can’t.
Raw emotion surges through me, uninvited. Unwelcome. And the prickle of tears floods my eyes.
I have spent so long trying to take myself away from moments that make me feel, but here with him, I can’t escape. There’s nowhere to go. This is no dungeon. No tavern fight. No castle dining hall. This is love, not war, but somehow, it cuts deeper.
Every part of him demands I stay—every part of him calls me to presence.
“Let go, Elyssara. I’m not going anywhere,” he reminds me, as he lies beside me, pulling me under his arm, so I can rest my head on his chest.
I cry.
I allow tears to fall, and I watch as they spill onto his chest and leave trails across his markings. New terrain on the map of him. Like, together, we’re forming new paths through the Stars themselves. New stories. Because beyond fate, beyond destiny, there is us.
I lean into him, taking comfort. Taking support. Taking connection. Just taking.
He doesn’t say anything, but he stays. He holds me. And that says everything.
Though, despite myself, my mind races. Thoughts of The Underbelly, Maldrak, Thalmyr, threvenar, Nymeris—they collide violently with my peace.
Kael notices the shift, because his hands begin tracing idle circles on my shoulder, and he says, “What is it, El? Are you okay?”
I pause—desperate to cling to this fragile peace.
But peace is an illusion.
So I shatter it.
“You gave up your magic for me,” I finally say, breaking my own silence.
“I did,” he confirms. “I would give up anything for you, Elyssara. Don’t you know that by now?”
But thoughts of Nalya flash in my mind. The ambush. The deal he cut to swap me. I know he tried to change course, but intentions are no match for the reality of actions.
“That’s not entirely true, though. Is it, Kael?” I ask tentatively, unsure if I want to open this conversation. Wondering, perhaps, if this is another way to punish myself—to push him away.
But he doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t rise to the bait. “It’s more true than you realize, Duskae,” he says, never stopping the circles he’s tracing on my shoulder.
I look to him, confused.
He pauses, weighing his next words very carefully. “Nalya’s life is bound to mine. If she dies, so do I. And if I die, Elyssara, so do you,” he says, and the air steals from my lungs.
What?
“She was there—at the ambush. At knifepoint. I chose the only path that would mean you live, my love. You are my end.”
He notices my shock. The way I still at his words, mouth agape.
“Maldrak’s Arcanist bound our lives. He’s always had my life in his hands—he’s played games with me all this time.
If he wanted me dead, he had Nalya in the dungeons as the solution.
It’s what’s made rescuing her so fucking impossible all these years,” he explains, voice solemn and pained.
“And you, Duskae? Starbound tethers aren’t just a bond of body, mind, and heart.
They’re a bond of life. I’d make any choice to keep you safe, even if it made you hate me. Even if you never understood why.”
My breath hitches, and I cling to him, gripping the blankets that drape across his torso.
He’d risk losing me to save me.
“You saved me,” I breathe in realization.
“And I’d do it again, no matter the cost,” he says, his voice like cold steel.
I bury my face in his chest, pulling myself into him, like he’s exactly who he said he is: my safe harbor. My home.
As if he’s reading my mind—perhaps he is—he says, “No one knows. If word got out, the three of us would be culled within hours. The less people who know, the safer we are.” He pauses, and I think he’s finished, but he adds, “I also thought you’d probably use the information to end me yourself.”
My eyes shoot to his, and I hit him playfully on the chest, huffing a petulant laugh, and gods it feels good. He returns the laugh, smiling at me with a devilish grin.
But the moment is cut short by a heavy thud on the door—
“Kael, El!” Therion bellows through the door. “It’s Ronyn! Something’s wrong. Hurry!”
Fuck.