Chapter 11 #3
Neither can I. The confession hovers on my lips, but I’m terrified to speak it. Because once I do, there’s no going back.
“Sylas—”
“I want you.” The words are torn from him, raw and desperate.
“I want you so much I can barely think. I want you when you’re arguing with me about feeding schedules.
I want you when you’re singing to her in that terrible voice you think I can’t hear.
I want you when you fall asleep on the couch with formula stains on your shirt.
” He takes a step toward me. “I want you right now so badly it’s killing me. ”
The coffee mug slips from my nerveless fingers and shatters on the floor.
“Shit.” I drop to my knees, reaching for the pieces, but his hands catch my wrists.
“Leave it.”
I look up at him from the floor, and the hunger in his silver eyes steals my breath. His bioluminescent markings are pulsing faster now, casting shifting patterns of light across his sharp features.
“I want you too,” I whisper. The confession feels like stepping off a cliff. “I’ve wanted you for months. Since that night when you did the calming ritual and I realized you weren’t the enemy anymore.”
His grip on my wrists tightens. “Then why—”
“Because I was terrified.” The words spill out of me. “Because wanting you felt like losing myself. Because I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you, and it scares the hell out of me.”
He pulls me to my feet, and suddenly we’re standing so close I can feel the heat radiating from his skin. His naturally cool body temperature runs warm now, flushed with desire.
“I’m scared too,” he admits. His thumb traces across my pulse point, and I shiver. “I’ve spent my entire life in control. But with you—” He shakes his head. “You unravel me.”
I reach up and touch his face, feeling the slight texture difference where his markings trace delicate patterns across his cheekbones. They pulse brighter under my fingertips.
“Then let’s be unraveled together.”
The last word is lost against his mouth as he kisses me.
This isn’t the tender, reverent kiss from the other night.
This is months of suppressed hunger exploding between us.
His hands fist in my hair, and I press myself against him, desperate to get closer.
His lips are soft but demanding, and when I open for him, he tastes like spiced tea and something uniquely alien—something that makes my head spin.
My shirt hits the floor, and I don’t remember him removing it. His follows, and I run my hands over the expanse of his chest, marveling at the way his markings trace intricate patterns across his pale skin. They’re glowing brighter now, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.
“Beautiful,” I breathe, tracing one of the glowing lines with my finger.
He shudders under my touch. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
I can feel what I do to him. The hard length of him pressing against my hip tells me exactly how much he wants this. Wants me.
His hands span my waist, lift me easily onto the kitchen counter. I wrap my legs around him, pulling him closer, and we both groan at the contact.
“Too many clothes,” I gasp against his neck.
“Far too many.”
The rest of our clothing disappears in a frenzy of desperate hands and breathless kisses. When his fingers find the clasp of my bra, his hands are shaking.
“Are you sure?” he asks, his forehead pressed against mine. “Because once we do this—”
“Once we do this, what?” I challenge, nipping at his lower lip. “You’ll want me even more? Because I don’t think that’s possible.”
A laugh rumbles through his chest. “You have no idea.”
He kisses me again, slower this time but no less intense. His hands map my body like he’s memorizing every curve, every scar. When his thumbs brush across my nipples, I arch into him with a soft cry.
“So responsive,” he murmurs against my throat. “So perfect.”
His mouth follows the path his hands have traced, and when he takes one sensitive peak between his lips, the sensation shoots straight through me. I dig my fingers into his shoulders, feeling the lean muscle beneath his alien skin.
“Sylas,” I gasp. “Please.”
“Please what?” His silver eyes are molten when he looks up at me. “Tell me what you want.”
“You,” I breathe. “All of you. Now.”
Something snaps in his control. His markings flare brilliant white-blue, and suddenly I can feel what he’s feeling—the desperate hunger, the overwhelming need, the ache of months of wanting. The empathic connection hits me like a physical blow, doubling the intensity of every sensation.
“Oh god,” I moan, my head falling back. “I can feel—”
“My control is slipping,” he admits, his voice strained. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Don’t you dare stop.” I pull his mouth back to mine. “I want to feel everything.”
The feedback loop of shared sensation makes every touch electric. When he slides his fingers between my legs, I feel his amazement at how ready I am for him, and my own pleasure reflected back through his mind. It’s overwhelming and perfect and not nearly enough.
“I need you inside me,” I whisper against his ear. “Now.”
He lifts me from the counter, and I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries me to the couch. The Christmas lights cast shifting shadows across our skin as he lays me down among the cushions.
For a moment, he just looks at me—sprawled beneath him, hair spread across the pillows, skin flushed with desire. His markings pulse in slow, hypnotic waves.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says, his voice reverent. “I’ve dreamed of this.”
“Show me.” I reach up and pull him down to me. “Show me how you’ve dreamed of me.”
He settles between my thighs, and the first touch of him against me makes us both groan. He’s larger than human men—longer, thicker—and the stretch as he slowly pushes into me is exquisite.
“Hada,” he breathes, his control hanging by a thread. “You feel—”
“Move,” I demand, rolling my hips up to take him deeper. “Please move.”
He pulls back and thrusts forward, and the sensation explodes through both of us via the empathic link. I cry out, my nails digging into his back, and he responds with a low growl that sounds more animal than civilized priest.
The rhythm we find is desperate, primal. Months of careful control shattered in the face of overwhelming need. His markings blaze like stars as he moves in me, and through the connection I can feel his wonder at being inside me, his amazement at how perfectly we fit together.
“Harder,” I gasp, and he complies, driving into me with a force that makes the couch creak. “Yes, like that. Don’t stop.”
“Never,” he promises, his mouth hot against my throat. “Never stopping. Never letting you go.”
The intensity builds between us, amplified by the shared sensation until I can barely tell where I end and he begins. When he changes angle and hits that perfect spot inside me, I see stars.
“There,” I cry out. “Right there.”
He pounds into me relentlessly, chasing my pleasure like it’s his own—and through the link, it is. The feedback loop of sensation builds and builds until I’m trembling on the edge of something massive.
“Come for me,” he commands, his voice rough with his own approaching climax. “Let me feel you come apart.”
His thumb finds my clit, and the combination of penetration and pressure sends me flying. I shatter around him, my release tearing a scream from my throat that would wake Aniska if not for the soundproofing we installed last month.
Through the empathic connection, he feels every pulse of my orgasm, and it triggers his own.
He buries himself deep and comes with a roar, his markings blazing so bright they temporarily blind me.
I feel his release as if it’s my own—the overwhelming pleasure, the sense of completion, the pure rightness of being joined like this.
We collapse together, gasping and shaking. His weight settles over me, and I wrap my arms around him, holding him close as the aftershocks roll through us both.
“Did we—” I try to catch my breath. “Did we just—”
“Share a neural link during climax?” He lifts his head to look at me, his eyes still glowing faintly. “Yes. That’s not supposed to happen with non-telepaths.”
“Maybe I’m not as non-telepathic as we thought.” I trace one of his slowly fading markings with my finger. “Or maybe you just scrambled my brain with your alien superpowers.”
He laughs, the sound rumbling through his chest where it’s pressed against mine. “Are you complaining?”
“Hell no.” I pull his mouth down for a kiss. “That was… incredible doesn’t even begin to cover it.”
“No,” he agrees, nuzzling my neck. “It doesn’t.”
We lie there in the glow of the Christmas lights, still joined, still breathing hard. The empathic connection has faded to a gentle hum, but I can still sense his contentment, his wonder at what we’ve shared.
“The baby’s still asleep,” I murmur, listening to the steady sound of her breathing through the monitor.
“She’s happy,” he says. “Can you feel it? The peace in the air?”
I can. For the first time since we’ve been caring for her together, Aniska’s empathic field is completely calm. No storms, no emotional chaos—just pure, sleeping contentment.
“She knows,” I realize. “She knows we’re finally together.”
“She’s been waiting for this as much as we have.” He kisses my shoulder. “Smart child.”
I run my hands through his midnight hair, still amazed that I’m allowed to touch him like this. That this beautiful, impossible man is mine.
“What happens now?” I ask.
He lifts his head to meet my eyes. “Now we stop pretending we’re just co-parents. Now we become what we’ve been fighting for months.”
“And what’s that?”
“A family.” He kisses me softly. “A real family.”
The simple words hit me harder than any passionate declaration. A family. Something I never thought I’d have, never thought I deserved.
“I love you,” I whisper, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
His markings pulse once, bright and warm. “And I love you. More than duty, more than tradition, more than my own life.”
He pulls out of me slowly, and we both shiver at the loss of connection. But when he gathers me in his arms and pulls me against his chest, I feel complete in a different way.
“Merry Christmas Eve,” I murmur against his skin.
“Merry Christmas, Hada.” His fingers trace lazy patterns on my back. “Our first Christmas as a family.”
Through the baby monitor, Aniska sighs in her sleep. Content. Happy. Loved.
Just like her parents.