32. Veyka

The heat built in my body slowly. So deliciously slowly. Hands that were not my own stroked, reverently tracing every inch. They cupped my full breasts, teasing the nipples with fluttering touches until my breasts were heavy and aching. But then they moved away, tracing the midline of my body, pausing to circle my belly button and the soft rise of flesh above my navel.

Then the calloused fingertips disappeared, replaced by impossibly soft lips. Stubble scraped across the tender plane of my belly, just a little too rough, pushing me a little too close to the edge. Much more and I would lose control.

Control… an illusion. I was not in control of this. Had never been, since that first moment. This was destiny. This was a joining preordained by Ancestors and gods and whatever forces governed the endless realms of existence—human, fae, faerie… all bowed before our union.

Those soft lips kissed down my body, hands pinning my legs down and apart. A long lick of that sensitive seam where my body met my legs. Down, down, down towards my center. Until that was being licked, too. A long, luxurious lick up my slit, then back down again. This time, his tongue slid between my folds, tasting the desire that was already flowing hot and fragrant.

I could smell my desire as he tasted me, hear his groan in my ears as he savored and nibbled at my flesh. It was so impossibly decadent, no hurry at all to those long strokes. We had all the time in the world for these touches. Unending minutes and hours and days to discover one another, to worship at the altar of our love.

I arched my hips. More. Fingers slid inside of me. Two thick, strong fingers at the command of a male so powerful, I trembled. Trembled with need, but also with awe. This male loved me. He had chosen me above all others, not because of duty or a bond but because he loved me. This male was mine.

Those two fingers worked inside of me, curling until they found that spot that I was never able to reach on my own. Only he had the power to draw this sort of pleasure from me. Only he had ever discovered the depths of pleasure that my body could know, and coaxed them from me with loving demand.

He stroked again and again over that spot. I heard my own sobs, begging him to go faster. But there was no answer, not in words. Only the silent, constant demand of his fingers. Then his mouth, back on my stomach, sucking me hard enough I knew I would bear the marks.

I was going to die of this pleasure. Fall into the void and lose myself, willingly, so that I might stay in this spiral of perfection forever. This was not sex, it was so much more. It was my body honoring what my soul knew, what my heart felt with every beat of that golden thread that tethered us.

Please, please, please, I chanted. Aloud or in my mind, through the bond, to the beast—it did not matter. I needed him to go faster, to push me over that edge.

But he refused with every punishing stroke of his fingers inside of me. Until I could not argue anymore. I could not think. I usually came in a gush, an explosion of liquid pleasure that coated our skin and the bed around us. But this was so much more intense. My climax came in waves, undulating with each scrape of his fingertips inside my pussy. It dragged out over minutes, a wave of pleasure that dripped down around his wrist; another a few seconds later, drenching my thighs. So much, so sweet, that his mouth left my stomach, desperate to capture every drop of me.

I was no longer in my body. I obviously could not be alive. No one survived coming like that. I had no fluids left in my body, I was reduced to a heartbeat and a gasp.

But a hand touched my waist, applied slight pressure. An invitation.

One I would never, ever refuse.

I rolled over—

I jolted awake. My fingers curled into the silk bedsheets, trying to find purchase, searching for something that was not there. Someone.

"Arran?" I whispered into the darkness, my voice pitifully small and broken.

No answer.

No rasp of breath or huff of beastly warmth.

It had been a dream.

I closed my eyes again. And even though I didn't believe in the Ancestors' ability to help me, even though I'd cursed them to hell and beyond, the prayer still flitted across my consciousness. Unspoken, but no less real.

Let me dream of him again. Please, oh please, oh Ancestors. Let me see him in my dreams.

Because I knew that when I woke again, I would be alone. Living in my nightmares.