Chapter Twenty-two
BEN
By the time we launched ourselves from the castle ruins, the moon was up, the stars bright in the darkness.
Cold air rushed beneath my wings the instant I caught the wind, glorious and familiar. No matter how often I flew, awe filled me each time with how it felt—freedom and power and something I’d never found anywhere else.
Until now. Because as I turned and saw Dominic, that same feeling of awe overwhelmed me. Silvery grey in the moonlight, he was powerful, dangerous and effortlessly sure of himself. He was so beautiful, my heart ached.
He banked the moment he saw me looking and moved lower in invitation, close enough that our wingtips nearly brushed as we swept together over the valley.
Then he folded one wing and dropped. I followed before thinking. Wind tore past us as we spiralled downward, the ruined castle rushing up out of the dark hills below. At the last possible second he levelled out hard above the hillside, his laughter ringing bright and wild in my head.
Show-off. I surged after him anyway. The sheer joy of it burned through me, the speed, the cold, the certainty of Dominic always just ahead or beside me, turning back towards me again and again as though he physically couldn’t help it. And perhaps he couldn’t. Neither, increasingly, could I.
We finally landed hard among the ruins, with twin thumps that threatened the stability of what was left of the tower. The moment I shifted back, cold air hit my skin sharply enough to make me gasp.
Dominic was laughing, eyes bright in the moonlight as he shoved wild hair back from his face.
“You nearly clipped that tower,” I informed him, still half drunk on flying.
“You loved it.”
Unfortunately, he was right.
He stepped closer, and my breathing hitched at the sight of him there among the ruins, flushed with exhilaration, beautiful beyond reason, entirely alive.
And then, somehow, we were kissing. His hand was in my hair, cupping my head as his lips covered mine, and he kissed me until my lungs were burning.
When he finally broke the kiss, he buried his mouth in my neck, hot and needing, and it was so good that I didn’t know how I was still standing.
I grabbed at him, my hands desperately clutching to hold him as close as I could.
“Dominic.” It was plea and need and something more.
Something I wasn’t ready to name because it had only been two days, but I’d never felt anything like this.
Being with Dominic felt like it was going to consume me, except Dominic saw me enough, was careful with me enough that I knew I’d never lose myself.
I’d always be Ben with him, but perhaps not the Ben I’d thought I was.
I tangled my hands in his hair and pulled him back to kiss me. “Greedy,” he murmured against my lips, and was unable to say anything more as my tongue pushed deep into his mouth.
His fingers were digging in so tightly to my arse he was going to leave bruises, but then he let go long enough to slide his right hand between us and wrap it around my cock.
His fingers curved around it like they were made to fit me, moving up and down the length, sliding his thumb over the head on every upstroke, making me whine into his mouth.
I pulled back from him, while I still could. He had me so close already, but I didn’t want to come like this. I wanted his weight on me, pinning me down, for us to touch everywhere until there was no space left between us.
He laughed when I lay down on the grass, but obediently settled above me, and his laughter turned to a groan when I rolled my hips up, pressing my cock against the smooth heat of his.
He lowered his head and kissed me so thoroughly that I had no breath, no thoughts, nothing except the need to keep kissing him, to rut against him.
His hands roamed over my skin, possessiveness in every touch, until I wasn’t even able to kiss him anymore, moans spilling out of me with every shuddering breath.
When he reached down between us, taking us both in hand, I came so hard everything whited out. The world came back into focus just as he buried his face in my neck and groaned out his own orgasm.
For a while afterwards, neither of us moved. Dominic lay on top of me, kissing me slowly between uneven breaths, and I wanted to stay like this forever.
That lasted until we finally stopped kissing, at which point I realised I was seriously cold. Wet grass slid unpleasantly against my skin, and something suspiciously twig-like appeared to be digging into my shoulder blade.
“Well,” I said, trying not to think about what I might be lying on, “this seemed like a much better idea five minutes ago.”
Dominic made a low sound of agreement somewhere against my throat, though he still sounded deeply pleased with himself.
“I’m serious,” I informed him as he nipped lazily at my jaw again. “I’m cold and wet, and I’m almost certain there are rabbit droppings in my hair.”
He simply kissed the hinge of my jaw, profoundly unworried.
“And I’ve got to put my clothes back on when I’m half-covered in come.”
That finally seemed to penetrate. Dominic lifted his head slightly, eyes bright even in the dark.
“Oh,” he said, with the air of a man struck by a genuinely excellent idea.
Before I could ask what that meant, he ducked down again.
“Dominic—”
As he slid down my body and slowly licked me clean, the rest of my protest dissolved into helpless laughter and a noise I was deeply grateful no one else was around to hear.
“Problem solved,” Dominic informed me when he finally finished, and kissed my chin. He sounded smug as hell.
“You are unbelievable.”
“Yet here you are.”
Unfortunately, he continued to be right about that.
Getting dressed while damp and shivering proved to be more of a challenge than taking my clothes off had been.
Dominic, entirely untroubled by either cold or any notion of shame, kept grinning at me each time I fumbled with my buttons.
I’d been right all these years not to give in to spontaneity if it ended up like this.
But as I looked at Dominic, I realised I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat. Once I’d warmed up, that was.
By the time we reached the house and made our way up the back stairs, my teeth were beginning to chatter in earnest.
“You first,” Dominic said, steering me towards the bathroom before I could object. “Have a shower, get warm.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll survive another ten minutes,” he said, sounding very brave.
The water was almost painfully hot against my cold skin, and I didn’t warm up until the shower had been running long enough for steam to fill the bathroom. By the time I got back to Dominic’s room, hair towelled until it was only damp, I had finally thawed.
Dominic had brought the heater through from the records room and plugged it in beside the bed, where it was doing its best with its one bar of bright orange heat.
“Dominic—”
He caught the back of my neck and kissed me, quick and warm. “Get into bed,” he said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Which was how, some time later, I ended up half asleep beneath the thick duvet while Dominic climbed into bed beside me, tugged me back against him, and settled there with one arm warm around my waist like there had never been any question where I belonged.
Outside, rain pattered softly against the windows again.