Chapter 32 #2
It takes everything in me not to shudder and cave after the first time. She runs her fingertips, her lips, and then her tongue over every mark, learning to inflict a new torture, one that I’d happily bask in and never leave for the rest of my days.
“You like that?” she whispers over my torso, her breath tickling my stomach before she licks at another wound.
“Fuck, yeah.” I swallow, my breathing laboured as my head falls back on my shoulders, and I tense my jaw, holding myself back.
“What do you want me to do next?”
“Whatever you want. I am yours, completely, and if you command me to stand and do nothing, I will. But I’d much rather you have at me, Little Siren.” I remember the words I said when we were in her room, that first time.
Fuck. My hands loosen the belt and my trousers, easing the pressure on my cock.
My arms are locked at my side. I know as soon as I touch her, I’ll lose it, and I’m not sure I imagined our first time together to be on the wooden floor of her bathing room.
She moves her mouth over my chest, up my neck, and pulls me down to kiss her. Our lips meet, and I let out an embarrassingly loud sigh of pleasure. But who cares? Ever has been kept from me for too long. And for the first time, we can be like this with no fear.
I pull back before the kiss grows too urgent. “This isn’t what I wanted for us. Here. No place to adequately worship you.”
“We’ve waited, Ten. We’ve paid far more than we ever should. Please.”
“Stars, Little Siren. Do you know what it’s taking for me to show any kind of restraint right now?”
“And I’m telling you, there’s no need.” She tilts my head to look at her. To stare at her. There’s heat behind those eyes that only stokes my own.
For the first time, I can be selfish and satisfy this craving for her—the yearning that’s rooted inside of me.
I bury my hands in her hair and kiss her again. There’s no holding back this time. No pretence that this isn’t going to end with anything other than me inside of her, my hand over her mouth as she screams out my name.
Fuck, slow it down, Ciro.
“Ever, I’m going fucking crazy here. It’s your first time, and I want to—”
“I need you to show me something other than the hurt we’ve shared. Show me how good we can be. Stop the ache in my chest, stop the ache between my thighs.”
“Oh, I can do that.”
I grab her hips and lift her, the bath water swooshing as she wraps her legs around my waist. I knock the water bowl out of the way and ignore it smashing to pieces, as I position Ever on the wooden unit.
Her legs remain wrapped around my waist, and I don’t pretend to hide my eyes as they drink her body in. Every fucking inch of her.
It’s my turn now, and my lips are fucking starving for her.
They devour her skin, painting a path from her collar bone, down her chest and stomach until I can bite the tendons of her inner thighs.
She purrs, a beautifully sexy sound that makes my cock twitch.
“Please, Ten. Please…”
“Shhh. I’ve waited for you, Ever. Let me tease you, just a bit, because I have a pretty picture of me holding your screams from your mouth, the way I’m going to take you.”
“Ten!”
I nudge my hips between her legs and run my fingers up her leg, past her knee and make a lazy trail to her core, slipping my finger inside her.
Her back arches, and her lips part, begging to be kissed.
“Stars, you’re hot. And so fucking slick.”
“Please… Ten… don’t leave me like this.” Her legs edge open farther, and I curl my finger inside of her, greedy to hear the little moans from her lips.
They sound so fucking sweet.
“You. I need to touch you.”
No fucking way. Not now. I shake my head and pull my fingers from her to push my trousers down. Ever watches. Her hand reaches for me, her delicate fingers wrapping around my length, and it pulses, eager to feel her.
“Are you sure, Little Siren? I will wait, but—”
She grips me tighter and pushes the head of my cock towards her entrance. Looking up at me from behind her lashes, with her cheeks glowing, she looks fucking perfect.
I press myself against her, slowly, forcing myself to take it slow.
“Breathe. Deep breath in.” I lock my eyes with hers, and she nods. And I slide in the rest of the way.
“Arghh,” she tenses her jaw, her body seizing up.
“Shhhh, here.” I press my hand between us and find the little cluster of nerves that will ease this first part. My finger rubs it in a little circle, and her purr of pleasure returns.
I move my hand and rock back and forth into her, finding a steady pace and studying her every reaction. Her eyes have slipped closed, but her mouth is open, her moans growing in volume.
She’s fucking delicious, tightening around my cock.
I slam my palm against the wall behind her to hold my stance and press deep into her as I hook her knee with my other arm.
“Oh, stars, Ten, yes!”
Calm… calm… just fucking breathe.
I keep rocking, in and out. In and out. I can feel her release building, as mine is rocketing up my spine.
There is no world in which I won’t be at her side, no future we can’t face together. She was part of my heart before this; now she’s part of my soul–in my blood. I love her with everything I have, and she will be the one to bring me back to life, to banish the pain.
We’ll do it together.
Sweat tracks down my spine as I pump harder, desperate now to hear her cries and push her to her climax.
“Ten!” My hand moves to cover her mouth to conceal her cry, and I love it.
Her body squeezes around mine, and I clench my jaw and can’t stop the moan of pleasure as my own release barrels through me.
My eyes blink a few times, and I look down at Ever, my hand still over her mouth in an attempt to conceal her screams. She kisses my palm as she holds my gaze.
Her eyes aren’t sparkling, they’re warm, filled with the same hazy satisfaction that’s creeping over me, and I think these are the eyes that I want to wake up to every morning.
“Okay?” I pant.
She nods.
I right myself and drop her knee back before looking around the bathing room.
A stack of towels and linens occupies the bottom shelf of a wooden unit in the corner, and I take them all and dump them onto the floor.
“What are you doing?”
“We don’t have a bed. So, I’m improvising.” I pick her up and set her amongst the fabric.
My heart still races, but there’s a deep sense of satisfaction—of contentment—infusing through me that has everything to do with Ever.
I fucking love her. She deserves so much more than what she’s endured the last few months, and I want to be the one to grant her anything she wants.
She snuggles next to me, looking up at me as I prop my head on my arm.
And for the first time since she woke up, I feel like I’ve got her back.
“Does it hurt?” I ask as my eyes drop to her throat.
“What?”
“This?” I run my finger over the edge of the burn at her throat, careful not to touch the angry red mark that dares to mar her skin.
“No.” I watch as she spins the ring on her forefinger.
She catches me watching and offers a quick smile.
“This was my mother’s. It was right there, staring at me for years.
I used to keep this, together with a few other items I always deemed precious, on the window ledge in my room, even bringing them to Kirrasia with me.
So far, one has turned out to be my mother’s stone.
One is the Naturals’ Shepherd brooch that Kalan gave to me, and the Maker has an identical cup to the other item I have.
The only thing that’s mine, truly mine, is the piece of quartz I found the day I wandered too far as a child.
” She huffs at that. “My reward. And turns out, it’s the only thing that is mine, and truly mine alone.
If anyone tells me that it was magically put in just the right place for me to find, I might crack.
” A bitterness stalks her words at the admission.
“What got you so spooked earlier?” I venture. “And don’t think you can avoid this for long. I know you, Little Siren. Magic or not, I can read you. I’ve seen that look on your face too often to be able to forget it.”
She takes a deep breath and snuggles closer.
“Don’t hide from me. We’re in this together. Or at least I thought we were.”
“Hey, we are. How can we not be?”
“Then stop keeping me in the dark. There was so much of that in Nehandun, and I hate that it lingers. You’ve shielded me. I blocked you. We couldn’t talk, so you couldn’t tell me what was happening, but you can now.”
“I… don’t think my power is completely gone.”
“What do you mean?” I pick up her hand as if to prove my point, raising her palm to my lips, and planting a kiss in the centre. There’s no heat or rush at our connection, just touch.
“Earlier. As I looked into the flames, I had a vision. It started just like the others. One minute I was here, the next, I wasn’t. And I saw that same scattering of images before my eyes.”
I don’t answer right away, taking in what this might mean.
“I saw Fenix. Coming here. Killing… everyone.”
“Hey, okay.” I tilt her head to look at me. “We don’t believe in your visions, do we?”
She raises her eyes, lifting them to look at me.
They’re filled with tears, ready to fall, and I smile in defiance of them.
“I have said this before, but I don’t believe that your visions show you the firm future.
We can’t have seen your death. I refuse to believe that is what’s to come.
And just like that, this is just a possibility, okay? ”
She sits up, as if not ready to hear this from me. My eyes trace every rise and fall of her spine, running down the centre of her back, the beauty of her clear in every part of her.
“I mean it, Ever. Don’t believe it.”
“You were dead, Ten. Lying broken on the floor. Kyra, Lyle, Calix. All of you. You got in his way, and he tore through you all. He’s coming for me.”
“We don’t even know if he’s alive.”
“Kalan does.”
“And you believe him? Trust him?”
“I do. For the first time since I woke up on the floor in the front room, the world around me broken, I trust him and what he’s told me. There is no reason for his lie, not after what he’s already hidden from me or endured to see us safe.”
“I’ve seen the vision we shared, of you on the ground, in the ice and snow, bleeding out.
I remember how tangible they can feel.” I’ve spent a long time trying to forget that very thing.
“But that doesn’t mean we believe it, you hear me?
” I turn her and grab her face, holding her gaze so she has no room to hide.
Not from this. “We do not give in. We are in this together, and I refuse to believe that is your fate. So, we go back, you can speak to the Maker, and we warn The Court and my father. But we do it because it’s the right thing to do.
Not because you’re afraid that Fenix will rise from the dead and come after you here. Deal?”