33
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We remained there for a few minutes, the world around us utterly silent other than the slow waking of the meadow around us.
The songbirds chirped in the distance, numbed out by the thundering of our hearts against one another.
The crickets sang somewhere around us, but we could not hear them above the heaviness of our breathing.
Raegan cracked first.
Our kiss had been tender and gentle, soft and promising, just as it had been on the balcony.
But what woke in Raegan, the movement that he made and the kiss that followed, it was the other side of him, the type of guarantee that I had wanted from him.
And just like I had imagined not so long ago, it did devour me whole.
His hand gripped my neck. It was a firm yet gentle grip, enough to allow me to move but not so much that I couldn’t feel the devotion and the security in the pressing of his calloused hands against my soft skin.
He used that grip around my neck to haul us towards one another, where we met in a damning and destructive rush.
When his mouth found mine this time, it was everything.
It was claiming and possessive, promising and eager.
He brushed the tenderness of his lips against mine, leaving me no option but to gasp against his contrasting movements.
The noise I made only encouraged him, pushing him to crave more, to find new angles, to slide his tongue against me in a silent question of pursuing his every touch.
I melted into him. Truly, melted. There was not an ounce of strength or willpower left as he moved against me.
I knew then what I had thought all along – Raegan was everything.
His wretched heart, his tortured mind, his damning masks, his agonized soul.
All of him was in front of me and he was everything and more.
His presence was more powerful than the richest of sunsets and his being was more radiant than the sharpest of stars, and I feared I would never get enough of him.
An approving growl slipped through his lips and onto mine as he hoisted at me, one hand slipping to the back of my neck where he set a gentle pressure at the nape of my neck, the other gripping to my lower back to balance me against him.
I was alight with craving and throbbing with desire for him, forcing me to rock against his waist and generate another one of those guttural noises as I found the hardened length of him ready for me.
But Raegan seemed hell-bent on dragging out my aching for him because he gripped me tighter, moving against my mouth quicker, and did not drop us to the ground where he could properly claim me.
Instead, he moved us across the meadow, the sun haloing his outline as it always did, until it was blocked.
I pulled away from him to see why that was, only to see he had moved us towards one of the flowers.
“What are you – oh!”
He hoisted me, as if I weighed nothing more than a feather, and placed my back against the nearest stretch of stem.
The sensation of the texture against my back forced me to rebound back against him, only increasing the way his gaze darkened even further and he drank in the sight of me.
I was completely at his mercy where he had me perched in front of him, half of my weight taken by the stem he had me braced against, the other half absorbed into his body where he wrapped my legs around him.
“I am sorry for this,” he murmured, giving me only half of a blink to appreciate what he was about to do. He grabbed onto my shirt, the light, near-translucent material of Cluaineach, and tore it in one easy tear.
Cold air rushed over me, encouraging my already peaked nipples. His eyes fell from mine as I shivered, his pupils widening as his tongue slipped between his lips and he admired me.
Yet again I had no warning before he dove into me, his mouth finding one nipple while the other was quickly met with the pinching of his fingers.
Between the hot moisture and lapping of his tongue on one, and the cold air and tight twists of the other, I had little control over the moan that tore from me.
Not only could I feel his arousal stronger and more demanding beneath me, but he approved of my noises and also could do nothing about the growl that came from him and vibrated the nipple he had between his teeth.
Allowing my head to roll back, I sank my weight against the stem and refused to stop the noises that came from me while staring up at the petals above us.
He moved masterfully, careful to pay equal attention to my breasts as he switched.
The heat that had previously been placed against one by his breath and mouth was taken to the other, leaving an even more violent chill to rush over me before his fingers clamped down.
While he worked, his free hand moved for my trousers.
“Wait, wait! No, no don’t rip–” My trousers tore just as quickly. “I liked those!”
His chuckle was dark and promising as it scattered along my revealed chest. “I’ll get you more.”
My stomach fluttered as he finally pulled away from me, placing both hands over my breasts not to knead them like I desperately needed him to, but to block them from the cold as he stared up at me.
I wasn’t sure what was happening at that moment, but I couldn’t help but to stare at him, too.
He was so beautiful. Not just that ragged, pixie appearance of his. Not the Kingly aura that sometimes pulsed from him with such intensity that it knocked me off-kilt. No, just his wide eyes that blinked up at me, at all that he held within them, all that he held within him.
I moved my hands from where they had been gripping his shoulders and set them onto either of his cheeks.
He leant towards one, then the other, nuzzling into my palm as that gentled look on his face consumed me.
His eyes never left mine as he turned his mouth into my arm, kissing at the base of my wrist while he sank into the same trance I was in.
I just wanted to feel him. Every inch of him.
Until I knew his skin like it was my own, until I could map it in the dark, until I knew every line and every scar.
One hand moved from his cheek to his hair, the long strands that had been properly brushed now that he resided in Cluaineach.
I let my fingers drag through his hair, watching as the golden threads melted away from my touch and settled back against his neck.
He watched me as I watched him. His eyes only left mine to see my brows bunch, or to note the twitch beneath one of my eyes, or to the curve of my smile as I touched him.
His intrigue and gentle curiosity was enthralling, and I wanted to keep that look of openness on his face for as long as I could.
“Let me know when you are done,” he murmured, his voice somewhat silken.
“Done what?” I whispered back, my fingers still tracing idle patterns on his face, his neck, his shoulders. Each time I retracted my touch and placed it back on him, his eyes would flutter shut and he would move into the contact, urging me to continue.
“Let me know when you are done touching me.”
“I don’t want to be done,” I admitted.
His smile was soft as he watched me prove that. “Neither do I want you to stop. But I would very much like to taste you, soon.”
My hands fell away from his face just as my cheeks flooded with warmth. His smile twisted into something more Raegan-like, slightly crooked and full of his slyness.
I knew I shouldn’t goad Raegan, but I couldn’t help it. It was just so fun. “Then what are you waiting for, Your Majesty?”
He snarled, though instead of it being a threat, it was a promise as he finally discarded the tattered trousers that I loved so dearly.
Revealed to him, I watched his face shift into something else as he dropped his gaze to the apex of my thighs.
My whole body was shaking, the cold encouraging the anticipation that was racing through me.
He had me so wound up, so desperate for his every touch and even his briefest glances, that I feared all he would need to do was stare at me for a moment longer and he would have me coming without even touching me.
He hissed out a word that sounded like a curse, only because it was said the same way I wanted to say fuck and pull him against me.
Long gone was patience and trying-to-kill-me-with-suspense Raegan.
He affirmed the grip around me and pulled us both down to the ground, making sure to set me upon a patch of softened earth.
Once I was balanced, he set himself over top of me, pressing his body between my legs until I was spread out for him.
He shot me one more roguish, mischievous grin before his face disappeared.
I hoisted myself up onto my elbows to watch him slide down my body, his tongue dragging along my bare skin and leaving a long path of evidence he had been there.
I needed to watch him, every small movement, every shift of his muscles over his back, as he met my core.
He lowered his head to me and just as I contemplated quickening his movements by lifting my hips to meet him halfway, Raegan pivoted and instead kissed the inside of my thigh.
It sent a rush of something across my body, pebbling my skin and making me suck in a sharp breath.
Then he moved to the other side, another kiss on the innards of my thigh.
And a kiss turned into a lick, which grew into a suck. His lips met my skin with urgency and for a moment I swore I felt a prick of a fang against them, until he retreated and looked up at me through my legs.
I knew what I looked like. I was undone.
My hair was a mess, my eyes were wide and unblinking, my cheeks were so flushed that the heat of them was warming my entire body.
I was a mess, because he had turned me into a mess.
But instead of shying away from my unkempt appearance, he lowered his face and grinned at me through his brows.
Then his tongue met me.
His name toppled from my mouth as the surprise of him ripped through my body and made my muscles spasm.
Hearing his name moaned made him lay a possessive grip on either of my hips as he dragged his tongue along me again.
And again. Slow, planned, and torturous, each swipe of his tongue split me in half and halted right on that bundle of nerves.
After a few of those, my body bucking against him and kept still only by the grip he held on to me with, Raegan focused his attention and flicked several times, the heat of his breath and the strength of his focus sending me right towards an edge.
I was right there, standing on it, thrilled to feel the fall, when he pulled away from me. My head tipped back, my body writhing, I fell still to look at him.
His mouth was still so close to me that the push of breath with every word made me whimper. “How does that feel?”
I was incapable of speech, only feverish moans, which I offered several of.
That wicked smile of his took to new heights as he lowered himself once more.
This time, though, one of his hands reached for mine.
He took my wrist with a gentle grip as his tongue swiped, and he placed my hand on the back of his head.
He released me to tempt my entrance with his fingers. Just as he slipped two in at once, curling them immediately, he whispered against me, “Use me how you wish.”
I didn’t need telling twice. I gripped his hair in my hand and rocked against him, dragging my hips over and over as the heat within me built. He chuckled against me, the vibrations sending me to new heights while he worked with his hand, pumping with precision that met the rhythm I pushed him at.
“That’s it,” he murmured as oblivion approached, my muscles all seizing and my body tightening around him.
“Let go, Olivia,” he commanded. My body had always been prepared to bend to his every suggestion, and all I needed were those three words to allow my orgasm to tear through me with a power I had never felt before.
I gripped his head to me while my body convulsed, and he continued to move in and out of me as I fell from that edge and finally landed in his palms.
The world was blurring and spasming around me as he shifted his weight off of me, rocking onto his knees. I blinked several times just to bring his full outline into focus, only to see him grinning at me and watching me with that intense curiosity that I swore he knew undid me.
He made me watch as he licked his lips, pulling them between his fangs and savouring what was left there, and his smirk grew to something monstrous. “We should really be getting back.”
If I had any energy left in me, I would have protested. But what he had done to me, the place that he had sent me, it took everything from me. I was convinced he was going to need to carry me back to the castle.
He stood up in one easy push, offering me his hand. As he hauled me up to my feet, I was caught with the fresh reminder that I was overly naked.
He peeled his surcoat from his body with ease before he placed it around me. Slowly, he fastened the buttons along my chest before hooking my chin with his finger to make me look up at his smile.
His shirt was far too large for me, hanging far past my waist, where I supposed I didn’t really need trousers.
He guided us towards the pack he had set against one of the flower-stems and retrieved a pair of trousers. My exact size. A true copy of what he had destroyed.
Bastard. He knew that look on my face and laughed as he handed them over.
“You knew we would need an extra pair of trousers before you brought me out here?”
I really wanted to wipe that look off of his face. That look that I hated that I loved. “A male can hope.” With another devilish grin, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “I take a spare pair with me everywhere, these days.”
“You’re a shit,” I hissed as I shoved at his shoulder, the two of us laughing as I pulled them over my body.
“That, I am.” But then the humour melted away and I was left with the raw, vulnerable Raegan once more. “But no, I have carried a spare pair of clothes for you since your last visit, when you seemed adamant on destroying them regularly.”
He was right. I had torn my clothes from my body an impressive number of times.
“So I’m supposed to believe you’re a gentleman?”
“Not at all. Actually, I’d rather you didn’t.
” Raegan's chuckle was dark before his face shifted into something far more serious. "I’d love to claim that it is solely your dignity that I wish to protect. But it is the safety of my people, too. I fear what shall become of them if a single one gets to see you so revealed. No, I wish only I had that honour.”
All I could do was gulp.