Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

My hands are on his shoulders in an instant, gliding around the back of his neck for a better grip. Evander wastes no time in deepening the kiss. He drops both hands to my hips and pulls me toward him with breathless force. His palms skate around to my rear, groping and kneading. When he shifts, our mouths part just enough for a soft moan to escape me.

"Quiet now, no one can hear us," he rasps against my lips, even as I am still trying to kiss him. "I don't want there to be any suspicion. That way, I can take my time with you."

Without warning, he leans forward slightly, takes a firm grip of my rear, and pulls up. His strong muscles contract, bulging from the shoulders that I hold on to fiercely for balance as my legs wrap around his hips on instinct. A soft yelp of surprise escapes me, both from the sudden movement and from the hot firmness that presses into my heat.

"I said quiet," he growls, kissing me again. Evander sucks my lower lip between his teeth, biting and nibbling on it almost to the point of pain, almost . I fight moans as he releases and returns to kissing me, tongue in my mouth.

I am putty underneath his hands. He is the sculptor, and I am the clay. I want him to make me, mold me into an entity that was made for him and him alone. My weightlessness in his strong arms is a surrender of all my better sense. The muscles of my back relax. Pent-up tension is unraveled, pooling into my lower abdomen. Kissing him is both relief and frustration. I have had the bare minimum of satisfaction and now I want it all.

Evander drops to his knees, one at a time. My ankles are locked behind him. One hand releases me and fumbles off to the side. I'm too distracted with kissing him to pay attention to what he's reaching for. But the question is answered when, without breaking the kiss, my back meets the ground, hastily covered by his bedroll.

He lays me down, freeing his hands from underneath me. We move with desperate haste. His shirt is off. The ties on his trousers are no match for my skilled fingers. I've untangled too many threads that knotted from storage to be thwarted by a few finger-lengths of leather cord.

"May I?" he whispers huskily against my throat, right under my jaw. One hand is positioned at the clasp of my cape.

Somehow, it didn't occur to me that for him to take me, he would have to remove my greatest source of magical protection. Foolish, really. But lust is so rarely logical. When I don't immediately respond, he shifts, dipping his chin to meet my eyes.

The world stills, holding its breath in unison with me. I study his expression. Ablaze within the molten mercury of his irises is unbridled passion, yet, at the center of that fiery tempest is a sanctuary of unspoken gentleness. The atmosphere surrounding us shivers, filling with tension, tightening with every second that slips by where we do nothing but study each other, wondering if we have the strength to cross the line and finish what we started.

"Will you hurt me?" I whisper.

A tired, slightly unhinged smirk crosses his lips. There's an almost wicked shine to his eyes brought on by the ghosts that dance through his gaze. Specters that I don't understand. Perhaps these are the phantoms that relentlessly hound him, chaining him to the belief that he's only a burden to those he loves.

Not that I need this to be love …

"I warned you that my touch is like a mark of hardship." He leans forward once more, brushing his lips with mine.

"I can't believe it," I murmur.

"No? Then why do you hesitate? Your body knows to fear me, even if your mind says otherwise." Even as he warns me against him, his hand moves down my side, catching on my breast. Thumb flicking over its peak that has my back arching off the ground. "Perhaps it is the danger of me that excites your desire."

"You wouldn't hurt me." I settle on that truth, surprisingly confident. Those words resound in me with perfect clarity, not a trace of doubt, cutting through the heady haze of my immense need.

"No?" He growls as he leans forward to kiss me again. This time fiercer. Almost angry. His tongue has turned bitter. "I have killed the heart of a witch before."

My heartbeats slow, every one resounding in my ears, echoing the words ominously. Yes, there's a danger to his movements. Yet I find myself more intrigued by it than afraid.

"Are you sure you want to bed a man such as me?"

I study him, searching those haunted eyes for an explanation I know I will not find. It's too closely guarded. The facts have been muddled to obscure the picture.

"You are what I want." Even with all the unknowns that surround him, even with fear and doubt trying to cut through my resolve, those words ring true. "When you are near, thoughts of you eclipse all others. Only you can make the world melt away to nothingness. I want you to ravage my body until I can't think. There will be nothing for Conri to claim if I allow you to destroy it."

His smirk turns into a grin. Satisfied and triumphant. I wonder if he is gloating to himself that he will take the woman Conri claimed. Let him, if it ends the talking.

"Good. For I have dreamed of feeling you under me since the first moment I laid eyes on you." He kisses me again and unfastens the clasp of my cape with a single hand. That hand moves from my collarbones to my chest, grazing over my breasts, to the bottom of my shirt, where it slips underneath the hem and reaches back up. He grabs my bare breast, gently, caressing and grazing over every sensitive spot. Then, firmer.

Evander lets out a low growl into my ear. "But I should warn you, Faelyn. I might not be the monster that Conri is, but I cannot promise I am a gentle lover. If you tell me to ravage your body, then that is what I shall do."

"I don't need you to be gentle." I surprise even myself by saying so. But it's true. I've been so twisted and bent and strung to the point of near breaking by the endless teasing and tempting that I want nothing more than raw and simple satisfaction. "And I meant what I told you."

He takes me at my word.

Releasing me, his hand leaves my shirt and grabs my hips and yanks me to him. Evander's lips seek out mine, claiming them in a kiss that threatens to break me. I moan into the kiss, it escapes as a gasp as his hands explore the curves of my body once more, pushing away fabric and pulling off my clothes.

Quivering against the night air, my own hands are pushing down his pants. They have a mind of their own, moving with a need that I've never had before. Never have I needed release so badly. Never have I ached for a man's touch upon me with every trembling fiber of my being.

Coming up for air, we pant against each other. His shining eyes threaten to consume me and, as they do, I'm aware of how naked I am even though his own pants are still clinging loosely on his lower hips, hanging in a frustratingly modest manner. Evander grabs my face, thumb under my chin.

"Tell me what you want," he growls against my mouth.

"You," I say instantly.

"You know that's not good enough. Be specific."

"I want to taste you." My voice is not my own. It's deep with desire and heavy with need. "I want to feel you against me. I want to have you fill me to the point that I can't worry about anything else." Make the world fade away.

"I will give you all that and more." Evander places a kiss on my mouth that's almost so sweet it could be called love. It's contrasted as he leans away and I get my first look at all of him. He shifted just enough to shed the last of his clothes while kissing me.

He's as stunning as all my imaginings. My attention follows the dark line of hair from his chest down his stomach, framed by the divots of his upper hips, all the way down to the object of my focus. Two words cross my mind and manage to escape my lips as a breath.

"Yes please."

With a chuckle, Evander pushes me back. I shiver as his lips kiss a trail down my neck, nibbling and licking all over the swell of my breasts. My body goes as rigid as him in response. He returns to my face, clearly savoring every aching, smothered moan and hitching breath.

"Are you ready for me?" he whispers into my ear.

"More than."

Evander's body presses against mine, his arousal pulsing against me. His hands and tongue continue to explore my body greedily. Right when I'm about ready to scream for him, he grabs my hips and adjusts our positioning. Without another warning, he pushes into me. Slowly and purposefully. All the while, eyes locked with mine.

The moment all the space between us has collapsed, he sets a rhythm. His fingers dig into me, lips never leaving mine as the pace works nearly into a frenzy.

This , every ragged breath seems to say. This! every beat of my heart screams. At long last I have him. I feel him. And it is better than my imaginings. Every wave of bliss that crashes over me, leaving trembles in its wake, is better than the last.

As the passion builds in my body, I find myself trying to hold back. I'm not ready for it to be over. But Evander knows me, somehow, as well as I know myself. He knows just where to bite on my throat, just where to push, and pull, and pinch.

"Give yourself to me," he commands, looming over me.

"Everything." The word is little more than a gasp as pleasure crashes over me. It's enough that my mind goes blank. That all doubt and fear is erased—if only for a few blissful seconds. But even as the rush fades, there's still him there and I find I don't want to push him away.

When he finally leaves my body, I expect him to dress without word. To act as if what we just did didn't happen at all. Wetness drips between my thighs. I hope Conri never comes in this tent because I imagine our scent has soaked into the canvas. At the very least, Evander's bedroll.

But, despite my expectations, Evander stretches out on the bedroll beside me. He lies slightly on his side; one arm beckons. The other reaches up toward me.

"May I hold you?" he asks. "Not for long…but I think we have time. I doubt Conri has even noticed your absence yet."

"You want to hold me?" A slight smile curls my tired lips. All the muscles in my face, so recently twisted in pleasure, in the pain of keeping in my moans, relax. "I didn't think this was that type of relationship?"

"If I am completely honest with you, Faelyn, the warmth of a woman next to me is more satisfaction than the act of having her," Evander says. "But to answer you directly, yes, I want to hold you. I want to know a different kind of intimacy with you."

After searching his face for any hint of deceit and finding none, I lie down next to him, shifting until I am settled within the crook of his arm. He is against my back—it seems to be the most natural position for us to fall into—and that thought causes me to wear a satisfied smirk as my eyes flutter closed, mind already filling with ideas for the next time. Evander is pure heat and it soothes my delightfully aching muscles. His left arm wraps around my waist, pulling me closer. My legs curl and tangle with his. I use his right arm like a pillow.

For being a man who threatened to break my heart an hour ago, he is nothing but sincerity and tenderness now.

Evander's soft, steady breaths on the nape of my neck cause my own breathing to slow. And, in turn, my heart. All that muscle behind me is like a wall that is strong enough to block out and hold back the horrors of the world…if only for a little while.

A sigh escapes from me, taking with it my consciousness as I slip into an unintentional, but complete and dreamless slumber.