Chapter 54
Alaris’s mouth covers mine. One hand cradles the back of my neck and the other circles my waist, pulling me tight against him.
The kiss devours me, his lips and tongue stealing all thoughts, sucking and pulling and dancing.
My eyelids squeeze tight as I arch into him.
He supports me as he deepens the kiss. He’s exploring my mouth with such relentless devastation, my legs alone can’t keep me steady.
When we break apart, I’m breathless.
I feel his hardness against my stomach and press into it, heat pulsing through me. He inhales sharply, and his hands close on the back of my legs, lifting me high on his chest. My arms fold around his shoulders as I bend down to keep kissing him, his mouth like a spell, irresistible to mine.
He puts one knee on the bed, then the other, still kissing me as he carries me back across the sheets.
I’m not thinking as my tongue tangles with his, my fingers deep in his hair, every breath full of cloves. There’s no plan, no strategy, no distraction. This is a piece of joy, fragile, but so real I can barely breathe. It’s not about survival. And somehow it is.
This is the memory I asked for. For the first night in all my lives, I’m not just going to survive. I’m going to live.
He slides me down his front, guides me to the mattress, and kneels between my thighs. The heat in his gaze is so intense, I almost sit up to kiss him again. My swollen lips part, my chest rising and falling with quick breaths.
His eyes flash, drinking in my disheveled state.
His hands skim over my soft dress, the fabric only enhancing the touch of his fingers on my collarbone, my chest, my nipples, my stomach. And he knows exactly what he’s doing when he ghosts back up over the peaks, making me jerk.
I’m not wearing anything under this dress, and the air is cool against the wetness gathering between my thighs.
He pulls back and stares down at me, looking every inch the incarnial he is. His silk shirt does nothing to hide his powerful torso, tension in every line of his frame.
“Tell me again what you want, my Ly,” he says, sliding his hands over my hips. “Do you really want this?”
“I do,” I breathe, the thrum between my legs demanding more touch.
“How am I to know you’re not lying?” His voice is a low rumble, his fingers flexing. “You’ll have to be clearer than that.”
“I want you to touch me.”
“I am touching you.”
Technically true, and maddening.
“Not like that.”
“Then like what?”
That smirk. I know he knows what to do better than I do, and this is testing my ability to name what I need. Action is easier. I grab his hand and place it on my breast. He strokes his thumb across the peak, and I gasp.
“Hmm, you’re lucky I’m being this generous when you didn’t say it.” He circles my nipple through the fabric, lazy, like he has all the time in the world. My hips shift.
Two more circles, and I make a sound. I can’t take it.
“More,” I manage.
“More what?”
“Your mouth. I want your mouth.”
“Good,” he murmurs. “Then you’ll have it.”
He lowers his head and takes my nipple in his mouth, and the heat of his tongue through the cloth makes me grip his hair. He drags his teeth over it and I cry out.
“Like that?” he asks, breath warm against my skin.
“Yes. Like…” I break off because his hand has slid to my other breast and the dual touch is making it impossible to form sentences.
Then he replaces his tongue with his other thumb and captures my mouth in another kiss. My eyes press shut, my hips bucking as he keeps dragging his thumbs up and down.
It’s overwhelming, and it’s setting me on fire, the throb between my legs insistent.
He hooks one finger into my neckline and pulls. The fabric tears and cool air hits my skin.
“This isn’t mine!” A giggle escapes as I look at the torn lace, exposing my chest.
He looks down at me with a satisfaction that makes my cheeks burn. “Oh, Ly, that’s where you’re wrong. Everything is yours.”
His mouth closes over my bare nipple and I lose the objection.
His tongue is warm and deliberate, and each stroke sends a pulse of heat lower.
He collects both wrists in one hand, pinning them over my head, and curves the other around my thigh, gripping it high enough that he tugs at the sensitive skin near my entrance.
He licks until I’m writhing and whimpering.
I ache for him, but his hand doesn’t move any closer to where I want it. I throw my head back and whine, pulling on his grip on my wrists.
“Ugh! You are…just…just so…”
“Just what?” he asks.
“Evil!” Because he knows exactly what my body wants, and he isn’t giving it to me.
He chuckles. “Evil or not, all I’ve gotten out of you is that you want my mouth. I suppose I’ll have to work with that.”
He releases my wrists and dips lower, kissing between my breasts, my ribs, my belly button. He nips my hip, then licks the spot, and continues the trail of kisses, nudging my thighs open.
His eyes find mine as he lifts my hem. He’s so beautiful, it’s unreal, and it distracts me from my own bareness. I can hardly comprehend that Alaris is between my legs.
“Don’t worry,” he murmurs. “We’ll keep working on your vocabulary. Just maybe not right now.”
Before I can form a thought, he licks me. Straight up the middle. He does it again and I’m gasping. He does it one more time and I’m liquid. All my desire centers on his tongue passing over my clit.
He finds a rhythm. Repeated. Constant. Until I’m not sure what I’m babbling, but it’s something and his name.
Then he sucks.
My head comes off the bed, the sound I make uncontrolled, my thighs tensing.
He holds my hips steady and laves his tongue against me, giving me stronger pressure as he inserts a finger into me.
Then he works in another. He curves them on some magic spot, and I clench, crying out.
He licks as his fingers stroke, and I lose track of one pulse of sensation riding into the next.
His fingers thrust and his tongue flicks until I seize so hard my thighs shake, intense pleasure flooding me.
I fall back, gasping, my breath choppy.
He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, wearing a look of desire and satisfaction.
“I didn’t…I didn’t know it could happen that fast,” I say, voice breathy.
“Hmm.” His eyes burn into me. “Should I have taken my time with you? Let you moan and beg and get close, again and again? You named the method, not the metronome. I’d be happy to do it differently…” He dips his head, tongue out.
“No!” I block his face with my hands. If he licks me again, I don’t think I’ll ever get my wits back. And if he does what he’s threatening, I really will lose my mind.
He sits up, kneeling, my rubbery thighs draped over his. “Then, what do you want now, Ly? Sleep? A good rest before we go? Because I’ll make sure you get it, if that’s what you desire. You only have to tell me.”
That rouses me. He’s not leaving me like this again. I don’t want cloth between my skin and his. I scramble up on my elbows.
“I want all of you.” I’m too desperate to be embarrassed. I tug my dress up. “Right now.”
“As I said, Ly.” Energy pulses around him, all signs of teasing gone. “Everything is yours.”
He pulls the shirt over his head in a single motion and tosses it.
I stare at the breathtaking lines of him, his shoulders, arms, and torso carved from stone.
He unfastens his pants, freeing something I’ve only seen on statues and in paintings.
It’s strange, but beautiful. And in comparison with those artworks, or his fingers, huge.
He slides the long shaft over the sensitive parts he just worked, and I gasp. It feels amazing. Amazing. I push my hips toward him. I want it inside me.
He grips my thighs. His eyes are serious now, intensity glinting from their dark depths. “Say it again.”
“I want it. Please.”
He puts the tip against me, just a bit of pressure. “Again.”
I spread my legs. “I want it. I want…”
He slides over the outside of me instead, and my words disappear.
I refocus on him as he positions himself back at my entrance, his jaw set. His arms lock, his whole frame held still with a control that makes my breath catch.
“Tell me.” His voice is quieter. Lower. “Tell me you want this.”
“I want this,” I whisper.
His eyes search mine. Now I believe he is no longer teasing me. He really needs to hear it.
“Alaris.” I put a gentle hand on his wrist, and I feel the tremor running through him. I lift the other toward his face, even though I can’t reach it. “I want you. Please.”
He exhales. Then he presses in. Just a bit, so I feel the fullness of it. I twist my hands in the sheets and moan, eyes locked on his.
He bends down and gives me another kiss. A few shallow thrusts, and I’m desperate for more. The stretch is incredible. I want him deeper.
“Please,” I beg.
He pushes in again, and my eyes roll back. Another push, and it stings a little. I wince.
He stills completely. Then his hips contract, like he is going to pull out.
“No!” I grab him to keep him where he is. “Just wait.” I breathe through it, and it subsides, the sting disappearing into the exquisite stretch. “Keep going.”
He holds another moment, then takes the hand I have on him, and kisses it, dismissing it from duty. He presses in farther, working out then in, bit by bit. I gasp each time he hits a new spot inside. It’s incredibly tight, but pleasure and warmth build around it.
He groans, dropping his chin. I look down, and he is fully sheathed inside me. I wiggle a little, adjusting. The sensation is overwhelming in the best way. I feel so full. Little muscles flex and squeeze around his hardness, pinging pleasure through me.
“Tell me what to do, Ly,” he says through clenched teeth, drawing my eyes back up. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
All of his stony control over his expression is gone. Seeing strain on his face, seeing that uncontrolled glint in his gaze, drives me wild.
I’m burning for more. I jerk on him before I can help it.
“Please. Move.”
He pulls out ever so slightly, and pushes back in. He hits something deep that feels so good my mind whites out.
“Ah!” My hands fly out and grab him.
He gets the point, his eyes drinking in every reaction. He slides in and out, slowly, picking an agonizing pace. He starts to stroke my body. He begins with comforting areas, like my arms and waist and hips. Then he starts to play, tweaking my nipples and sliding to my clit.
“Alaris!” I cry as he rubs.
I’m so full, it’s totally unlike anything I’ve experienced before. Every pass of his fingers makes me tighten around him, so I feel everything.
Then he presses in deeper and holds. My eyes go wide, every bit of attention on his fingers as they move. I lose control of my limbs as I buck and writhe and whimper. He thrusts a few more times and I come apart, squeezing around his thickness. I moan into the sheets.
When I look up at him, bleary-eyed, his eyes are bright and silver.
He pauses for just a second, panting. One corner of his lips lifts, a slight wrinkle in his brow. “I think this night is going to haunt me forever.”
I don’t get a chance to respond before he hooks my leg up. Then he really starts to thrust.
He moves in me like everything before was just a preamble.
I’m swept away in sensation, as he drives into me with a rhythm that steals every thought.
A new feeling blossoms in me. I yelp as he hits a spot deep, deep within.
It’s more intense, and I tense harder. As it climbs, I know this time is going to be different.
I lock eyes with him. “Alaris, I’m…I’m…”
“I know,” he says, his fingers gliding back and forth over my clit. “I know. Now let go.”
I break, begging wordlessly as I come completely undone, until my legs are shaking and I’m clamping down so hard I don’t know how he’s still moving. The different pleasure points play off one another, each cresting into new pangs of bliss.
His rhythm breaks against me. He drives in as far as he’ll go, his whole body drawn tight, a low, unsteady sound catching in his throat. His eyes glow like stars, and this time he doesn’t blink it away. Cold pours off his skin, while mine burns.
I’ve never seen him like this, and the sight of it drags me into a new wave. I didn’t think I had anything left, but I clench around him again, pleasure pulsing through me. I’m lost, and I can’t tell where his shaking ends and mine begins.
I hum and grip a moment more, before falling limp.
He’s still inside me, my muscles fluttering around his bulk.
“Wow…wow,” I say.
He pulls back. I try to meet his gaze, bleary eyes struggling through blinks. He leans down and kisses me, stroking gentle fingers along my jaw as he withdraws. “I’ll be right back.”
I hear him get up. I have no idea how he’s able to stand right now. I’m in pieces. He took me apart.
It’s not fair.
Next time, I want to be the one to break him. I want to be the one to leave him flat on the bed, unable to stand.
I work to stay awake as he uses a towel to clean me off. But I must have failed, because I swim back to consciousness as he rolls me onto my side, tucking me into his chest.
“Rest, Lysandra,” he murmurs. “Rest.”
“Don’t want it to be over,” I mumble. “I want to try more things…on you.”
He chuckles. “If I do everything I want to you, you’ll never sleep. In fact, the world will probably end before I’m done.”
“Oh,” I sigh, an impossibly heavy exhaustion pulling me under. “We can’t have that.”
“No,” he whispers into my hair. “We can’t have that.”