Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
At first, I struggled to understand the emotions washing over me.
There was an overwhelming sense of reverence, like one might have for a goddess, followed by a compassion that made my eyes prick and throat ache. Others came next, so quickly I struggled to quantify them until I was left reeling in the face of what I had never dared to hope for.
Eamon loved me.
“Yes, I do,” he breathed, stroking my jaw.
I surged up, covering his mouth with mine and twining my arms around his neck.
His emotions burned through the overwhelming fear that had clung to my mind like a second skin.
The last few weeks had been a blur, the memory of my mother’s hand on my throat and her words in my ears a poison I could not cleanse.
Eamon’s blood had been the antidote all along.
And I knew now my mother had not been right about her blood mates—if that was what they even were to her. Those immortals had lied about their connection, or she had. Because now feeling Eamon’s emotions, I could never imagine him leaving me behind.
Though I’d started the kiss, in less than a heartbeat he took control, fingers sliding through my hair to tilt my head just the way he needed to slip his tongue into my mouth.
I moaned, arching my back to press my breasts against his chest as he turned me in his arms. His mouth made a path down my jaw before his teeth grazed my ear.
“I know you are not yet ready to seal this bond.” His cool breath made me shiver as he drew back. “But allow me to take you to our rooms. To lay you out on our bed and worship you like Nasicya until her light spills across the sky.”
Our rooms. Our bed. How many times had he said it before? Yet for the first time I actually heard it. I nodded fervently, rising on my toes to reach his lips only for Eamon to pull away until I was chasing him.
“I need to hear you say it.” His eyes shone in the dark.
A pang of apprehension rippled through my chest and it took me a moment to realize it came from him, not me. I pushed back his hair from his face, tracing the sharp planes of his cheekbones.
“Take me to our bed,” I murmured.
In a flash he had me bundled in his arms, my head tucked beneath his chin. A windstorm blew around us only for it to fade just as fast, though he held me steady after it passed, pressing kisses to my hair. I blinked when he released me, laying me down across a velvet bedspread.
The room itself was simpler than the rest of the house.
Dark wood paneled the walls, broken by hung tapestries woven in the Kysol style and gorgeous paintings of the forests of what I assumed were his homeland.
A fire crackled and popped in the hearth, above which a gold mirror hung.
I wanted to explore the room, run my fingers across the lacquered table set against the far wall where an instrument case lay, peek through the heavy drapes to see where on the estate the windows looked over.
“Do you like it here?” The trepidation in his voice had me turning back to where he stood beside the bed. It reminded me of the first time I’d been to the house, when we’d sat in the gardens. The memory was bittersweet and my answer came out roughened by the regret for so much lost time.
“Yes, very much, I do.”
A flash of my face from that night flared through my mind and with it the desire he’d felt then, the confusion, the longing—the jealousy.
Eamon reached for me as I did him, hands sliding over my waist, thumbs tracing the curve of my breasts while I pressed my hands to the hard ridge of his stomach.
Strength radiated beneath my fingertips and I slid them lower, learning the dip of his hips, the start of his strong legs, before he grabbed my wrists.
“Not yet, my heart.” But the words were a growl and I spied the length of him pressing against his trousers.
I shifted to my knees, pressing my lips to the bulge, need slipping across my thighs at his rumbled moan.
Boldly I closed my mouth over the tip through the fabric, sucking lightly before moving down the dizzying length of him.
He allowed only one more pass before he drew me away, releasing my wrists only to grab my bodice in both hands, ripping through the fabric and corset as if it had been mere parchment.
Before I could so much as complain, he gripped the back of my head, tilting my face up. “I’ll buy you a thousand dresses, but nothing stands between me and my mate. Take it off.”
The whimper I gave heated my cheeks, but I obeyed quickly, shimmying out of the sleeves and pushing the skirts and corset off. Eamon grabbed the ruined outfit with his free hand and flung it across the room. “Let me look at you.”
This was the first time he’d seen me fully unclothed. Yet I felt no anxiety as I shifted higher onto the pillows, filled with the desire to hear that deep moan fall from his lips again. A wave of need crashed over me, pushed through the bond from him, and I pressed my thighs together tightly.
Eamon took another step forward until his shins hit the dark wood bedframe and one hand wrapped around the post beside him while the other palmed his cock through his trousers. “All of you, little bird.”
Each squeeze of his hand over his length sent a ripple of pleasure through me. I moaned while my knees fell apart and his attention dropped to the apex of my thighs, dripping for him. Another image flashed across my mind: me as I was now, splattered in a combination of our blood, glistening.
“You are so beautiful,” he breathed. “Like the dawn after an endless night.”
Eamon shrugged off his jacket first, throwing it in the same direction as my clothes, and reached behind him to draw off his tunic. His golden-brown skin was gilded by the firelight, muscles bulging and rippling as he undid the placket of his trousers and slid them down his thighs.
My mouth watered at the sight of his cock standing proudly at attention. It was thick and beautifully proportioned, the skin slightly darker than the rest of him. His hand wrapped around the shaft and he gave one slow pump, hips thrusting forward as he ran his thumb over the crown.
“Touch yourself, Adrienne.” He circled the head of his cock again, a low groan rumbling through his chest. “Show me what you do when you’re all alone and thinking of me.”
“How did you know?” The words were barely audible.
A grin pulled at the corner of his mouth and his eyes fluttered with the next pump of his hand. “Because I have done the same for the last year. Fucking my fist every night to the thought of you in my arms, in my bed, speared on my cock.”
He placed one knee on the bed, reaching out to run his hand through the blood still wet on my chest before bringing it back to his length.
His moan was louder this time, citrine eyes watching as I slid one hand down to my thighs, the urge to fill myself undeniable.
I ached for him. My cunt pulsed with each movement of his hand.
“That’s it,” he praised. “Spread yourself for me. Show me what’s mine.”
I did, using my two fingers to spread myself, clenching around nothing when he moaned at the sight. “But you said…”
“Just because I will not claim you tonight does not mean you are not mine,” he growled. “Just as it does not mean that I am not yours.”
I pulsed again around the emptiness in my core and a low chuckle skated against my skin. “Eamon.”
“Fill that pretty cunt with your fingers, sweet girl. Fuck yourself on your hand and then I’ll give you my mouth.” His palm wrapped tightly around the base of his cock as he said the last words, mouth going slack while his hips jerked and his cock bobbed. “Fuck.”
It wasn’t often that I heard him curse. This side of him sent chills across my skin, tightening my nipples into hard points until I couldn’t help but run my free hand over one breast, pinching and rolling the bud while I pressed two fingers to my clit.
My eyes rolled back in my head and my hips jumped off the bed. “I can’t…goddess.”
“Open your eyes for me. Let me see you fall apart.”
I blinked. He was kneeling on the bed between my thighs, dark hair waving over his face and skimming his collarbones.
The biceps of his arm flexed as he fucked his hand, glowing eyes flicking from my face to my cunt and back again.
I moved my hand lower, slipping two fingers easily inside and pressing the heel of my hand against my clit.
“Yes, that’s it,” he praised, sliding his free hand up my shin and pushing my leg toward my chest to open me wider.
“Need you,” I moaned, even while the pressure coiled tight in my belly and my toes curled. “Fuck, Eamon, please.”
He chuckled darkly, lowering until his lips skimmed the inside of my thigh pressed to my chest. “I can deny you nothing, my love.”
A gleam of white flashed before his teeth pierced my skin and I was coming, my body seizing and jerking with the ferocity of my release as he drank.
Tears wet my cheeks as I gasped for air, my core pulsing around my fingers while waves of pleasure rippled over me.
Eamon drew back, blood coating his lips and chin and sliding down to paint my thighs and sex.
“So fucking beautiful, my mate.”
I was lost as his mouth descended on me and he drank in my soul.