Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
NORA
When they returned to the park, it was late afternoon.
The flowers had begun to close as the suns’ light faded.
Blue, green, and purple lights clicked on in the fountain, as they’d probably done dutifully for decades.
The screen images dimmed a little, so it felt as if, in this world, it really was just the three of them for a little while.
Airik set them down under the shelter. Nora lay Lucky by the railings and checked him over. Other than his leg, he was all right.
Airik stopped, his eyes moving right to left, reading whatever was on the floor.
“What is it?” Nora asked.
He paused before answering. “Nothing.”
Muttering something in his own language, he grabbed a water flask and knelt beside them. He dumped the entire bottle onto Lucky. “Do not shake,” he instructed the creature.
Lucky grumbled but stayed put as Airik rubbed healing gel into Nora’s palm and then onto Lucky’s leg. “He is already healing,” he told Nora. “Listen.”
Lucky watched them, adorably confused, a loud purr coming from his body.
Airik wrapped Lucky’s leg, then stood, again looking at the floor. “Wash,” he told her. “To be sure.”
She frowned as he placed a bowl of water and nutritional gel beside Lucky, then gave him a stroke from snout to tail tip, his hand still trembling.
When he saw she still stood behind him, he sighed and walked past her to the fountain. They both washed themselves mechanically, Nora’s heart dropping with each silent moment.
Had she said something wrong? She hadn’t uttered a word since Airik had carried them to the park. Maybe he’d had time to think about what she’d said—maybe he’d finally realized none of this was worth the trouble.
“I want to wash your hair,” she said, wading through the water to reach him.
“Wash your own hair.” He didn’t look up. “Hurry.”
She sat in the fountain and did as he’d said, hoping to God she wouldn’t cry because she was tired of it and it didn’t help a bit. Something had shifted the moment they’d returned to the shelter.
“What does it say on the floor?”
Airik gathered their empty water bottles and began filling them from the top, clean tier, where they didn’t bathe. Her stomach tightened, but she went to help him. He handed her the full bottles without looking at her.
When finished, she grabbed the bottles and rushed back to the fountain’s edge, queasy. Was he finally repulsed by her? None of this would’ve happened if she had stayed put in the park. As she bent to grab her shirt, something tugged at her hair, halting her.
Airik’s previously blank expression had twisted into agony.
Water dripped from his hair, and his breath was hard.
He pushed the bottles from her arms, uncaring that their hard work splashed back into the fountain’s pool.
Now that her arms were free, he took her burned hand and raised it to his mouth.
“It could have been you,” he said. “Broken or worse.” He dragged her to him by her braid, his brows drawn together.
“I have lived my entire life with pain. It is how I learn. How I became what I am.” His face faltered into something striking and tragic—a statue of a hero abandoned in an ancient temple, frozen in eternal torment.
“But I’ve never known anything like this. ”
He tore off his harness, throwing both it and his sword into the pool.
“This hurting in my chest. Thinking I’d lost your life. Now both of you suffer because I gave too much space—thinking it was right.” He leaned down so their noses almost touched, and she smelled nothing but raspberries. “I will give no more space between us.”
Nora swallowed, struggling to speak.
Airik didn’t deserve the punishment sure to come if he were to keep her.
And yet she could not give him up. Not even the hope of him. She’d be his if that was what he wanted, for as long as he wanted her. And then, after that, she’d have their memories and something else to grieve. She’d make room for it in her heart, willing to pay the price for both.
An arm came around her waist, and he guided her back into the plush purple grass beside the water fountain. He took her injured hand again, pressing it to his lips. “Even if I must tie you up—bind you so you can never leave me again—I won’t let you go. Even if I am alone in this—”
“You’re not alone,” she whispered.
His eyes flickered, like stars—he didn’t believe her.
“You’re not alone,” she said again, tracing the scar beneath his eye. “I swear—you’re not. From the moment I thought I was dying and you were just a dream…I think I wanted to be yours.”
He made a noise in his throat, almost a cry.
“I don’t want you to let me go. Please…don’t.”
With Airik on his hands and knees, she was entirely caged beneath him. He lowered himself slightly, letting her hear the growl in his chest. One of his hands went around her throat, his thumb stroking tenderly. Soft and careful, though she wouldn’t be able to move without his permission.
He dragged his hand down her throat, cupping her breast with a loving caress, then moved lower, spreading his fingers wide over her belly.
Balling the hem, he pulled it over her head and tossed it aside.
In one efficient move, she was completely naked.
His gaze bathed her in bright shine, and there was hope that under his brilliant regard, she might become something better. He’d help her—she knew he would.
“Airik,” she heard herself say, “I want you to give me all of you.”
“You have all of me,” he said instantly. He kissed her throat, his fangs grazing her pulse, followed by the wet velvet of his tongue. She found herself wishing he drank blood, just so she could sustain him with her body.
He moved down, pressing her breasts together, his breath coming out in a sigh of reverence.
When his mouth closed on her breast, her body answered with a liquid heat between her legs and a moan.
First licking her nipple into a peak like she were coated in honey, he turned his head, left to right, letting his fangs tease her into a maddeningly aroused state.
“Airik—”
Groaning, he bit her nipple and pulled, quickly followed by a soothing lick.
“Please…” She grabbed his hair, stopping him. “I want all of you.” She lifted her hips, rubbing against his growing bulge.
He sat up, still straddling her, looking down where their bodies touched. His breath thickened into heavy rasps. He stroked her belly, just below her navel. “I have…never done this. I—don’t want it to hurt you.”
Her eyes widened. “What…?”
The pressure from his hand simply against her stomach somehow aroused her more than his cock on her pussy.
“Untouched. My touch can only destroy, never build or make things better. Untaken. I do not bow to another unless I have died and there is no choice in it. Un…” He shut his eyes, searching for the word.
Once he found it, he opened them again. “Unconquered. No one commands me, demon eyes. I don’t fuck, but I have used fuckbots.
Built to take however hard I need to give it.
” He took her hand, pressing it over his stomach.
“I want to fuck you, be conquered by you. But…I am afraid that you won’t survive it. ”
Nora caught his hand, heat flooding her with the promise he had inadvertently just made. He looked at her with a small smile—had she ever seen him look a little shy?
Oh god, I think I love him.
She spoke carefully and slowly, so he’d understand. “You can give it to me hard. If that’s how you want to do it.” She swallowed. “I want it hard—from you.”
His abs contracted with strained breath, the bulge in his pants getting larger.
“Not just hard, but I want you to come inside—fill me up. You don’t have to worry because I have an implant. I won’t get pregnant. There won’t be a baby.”
His eyes darted to her belly, growing bright as he pressed down with his hand.
She took a breath, having never made such a bold request in her life, but if he needed a command, then she’d give it. “Fuck me, Airik. Hard. I want it to hurt,” she whispered, leaving no question about what she was asking. “If it’s you…it’s okay.”
Airik’s eyes shot up to hers. A devouring look came over his features.
“Nora,” he said, his voice low. “I’ll fuck you.
Hard.” Slowly—painfully so—his gaze traveled back down to her lower belly that quivered with her breath.
He licked his lips, stroking the soft curve of her abdomen.
“But…no baby. Part of me feels…that is a fucking shame.”
And then his mouth was on hers, kissing and moaning, giving and taking all at the same time.
Never breaking their lips apart, she heard the clang of his belt buckle and the rustle of fabric as he stripped. He pushed her knees apart, then used a finger to open her. Barely the whisper of a touch, but enough to make her suffer.
No doubt feeling how wet she already was, he gasped, then tore away.
He moved down her body, settling between her legs.
“Beautiful,” he said, wrapping his arms around her thighs.
“Like a flower.” He placed a kiss on her clit.
“I will take care of you. Give you everything you need. Make you bloom so that you can take me. All of me.” He dove in, tongue everywhere and inside her.
Nora looked at him between her legs, in disbelief as he ate her. A man who had spoken only in simple phrases days before.
He licked his fingers while watching her, then dipped three of them into her.
Driven wild by the sound of her own slickness, her mouth fell open as a climax already mounted.
He stroked himself with his other hand, gathering the blue glow of his come leaking from his cock.
A large man, he had no trouble reaching her mouth with his head still between her legs, to press the moistened fingers into her mouth.
She closed her lips and sucked, savoring his taste, needing him to invade even her mind.
He moaned as she dragged her tongue against the sensitive pad of his fingertip, encouraging him to add a second.
Curling his finger inside her pussy, he rubbed all the right spots as he came in and out.
His eyes shifted in color as his come took hold of her senses.
He pressed his face between her legs as if he wanted his next breath of air to be her.
“So hungry for me,” he said, the words devastating as they vibrated through her. “You’re sucking me in from above and below.”
Her toes curled into the cool soil, and her head fell back as electricity plowed through her. Time must have stopped because her breath and every single one of her thoughts ceased to exist.
And then he was back, his mouth crashing into hers as hard as she came, feeling his desperate groans against her lips and teeth, making her ride the wave of her release until her thighs and his hand were soaked.
“Look at you,” he said, bringing his soaked fingers up to his mouth.
Her skin buzzed like she swam in a champagne bath, and little stars burst across her vision.
“How well you came. Just for me.” He shut his eyes, licking her glistening desire from his fingers. His tongue made a slow sweep from base to tip, splitting his fingers so as not to miss a single drop.
A thrill rolled through her as another climax rose—simply by watching him savor her. “More,” she said. “Everything.”
He stroked her cheek, dazzling her with a slow smile. “I’m going to feed you everything. Little by little. Even if it hurts. Because, you said, it’s me.”
Reaching between them, Airik dragged the tip of his cock through her slick pussy, so wet and willing for him.
Notching at her center, he let out a long moan—a ripple of want and need passing from his heart to hers.
He flexed, pushing in just a little. A distinct pressure blossomed in her core.
A whimper escaped him, and he dropped his body, bracing on his hands.
Then, to Nora’s great panic, he froze.
She could see the thoughts—his worry. His doubt. An invisible force holding him back. Maybe the same one that had held her down until every ounce of want and desire had fled her body while she’d been on Earth.
Until Airik had woken her up—even if it was against her will at first.
She gripped his forearms, trying incredibly hard not to move against him. To give him the chance to decide. “I want to take you. All of you. Give it to me…please.”
He moaned, bringing his lips to hers. “You know what power you have over me, demon eyes. And I love that you use it.”
With a shaky breath, he rolled into her—just a fraction of an inch. Enough that she felt a twinge, stretched beyond what she’d ever taken before.
“Oh!” she cried, her body twisting to relieve the pressure.
Airik stopped. He lifted a finger to caress her jaw. “I’ll stay here. This is enough.”
“It’s not enough. I said all of you.”
His head dropped onto her shoulder, then surged forward, continuing this way, millimeter by millimeter, filling her body. His breath grew ragged, but he found it in himself to praise her.
“You are perfect.”
“I have never wanted anything as I want you.”
“You are mine. Your pussy. Your mouth. Your hands. Your skin. Your hair. Your words. Your breath.”
This wasn’t a penetration or entry. What Airik performed was a claiming. An invasion so complete that she knew, in the furthest corners of her mind and soul, that he’d changed her spiritual signature.
“Nora…” He sighed. “You’re gripping me so tight.” He looked between them, a primal growl reverberating in his chest. “You’ve taken almost all of me. Like…a good girl.”
She wrapped her legs around his waist and dug her nails into his back, wanting to be remolded by every vein and ridge of his solid flesh, into something of his making. “More. I said all of you.” She gave him a wicked smile. “Don’t make me ask twice.”
At that, Airik’s eyes shifted from blue to green, the glow nearly unbearable. He thrust forward in a brute display of strength.
His. She’d never be this full again in her life.
Emotions she’d long thought had been lost thundered inside of her.
“You have taken me,” he said, rolling once to pacify her. “And I am yours.”