Chapter 42

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

H e gives me a lazy smile. "Okay, then."

His fingertips stroke the side of my neck, the skin above my breasts, my shoulders, then my back, following the shape of my spine.

I lower my head to his, my lips exploring his jaw, his neck, his shoulders—as far as I can while he's dressed.

Both of us learning the shape of each other's bodies.

He wraps his arms around me so that he can sit up beneath me and I can slip his tunic off his head. When he rests back down, I undo the sash keeping my dress in place and let it fall to the sides, exposing the space between my breasts and my pelvis.

I'm not wearing a bra or underpants. I cut through them in the Underworld and this dress is all I took from the closet there.

His palm glides all the way up the center of my chest from my stomach to my jaw.

I notice the calluses on his palms. Hands that possibly worked hard before he became the keeper. Or maybe would have worked hard if he'd had the time he deserved.

I welcome their rough texture. Welcome the heat they bring to my body as he explores the curve at my waist, tugging the material aside so that it cups my breasts, still not exposing them.

I trace the muscles of his chest, my fingers flexing against his skin as I memorize his form. This form . The one that might be truest to who he would have been.

Then I shrug off the dress.

He's seen me fully naked before, but his lips part as if he's seeing all of me for the first time, his gray-blue eyes drinking me in.

I drop my mouth to his, inhaling the scent of snow and apples, filling my head with a fragrance that might once have existed, but I'm certain it doesn't anymore.

We've proceeded slowly, almost cautiously, but the way I lean forward presses his hard cock against my clit, and I can't stop my moan.

He's still dressed in pants, a layer of unwanted material between us, but it doesn't stop the pleasure from striking through me.

Every feathery brush of his hands has built my anticipation, and I can't deny the rush of sensation now.

Neither, it seems, can he.

He rears up beneath me, once again into a sitting position, his hold on me becoming firm as he supports my back with one arm, encloses my right breast in his other hand, and closes his mouth around my other nipple.

I gasp at the sudden influx of pleasure, the hot rush of need as he strokes and licks my breasts while grinding upward against my core.

I nearly scream at him when he breaks contact.

He growls against my breast, his gray-blue eyes seeking mine. "Talk to me, Caera. I can't spare any magic to tell me what you want or when you're ready. You have to tell me."

I'm torn between wanting more of exactly what he was giving me and needing him fully naked beneath me.

"I want you naked," I say.

My declaration brings a new heat to his eyes and a smile to his lips. He quickly tips us to my right, rolling us over so that our positions are reversed. At which, he promptly slips to the side of the bed and stands to remove his pants, stepping out of them while facing away from me.

I'm not about to waste the opportunity to explore his body, sliding to the floor behind him, my palms pressing to his back, tracing the shape of the muscles across his shoulders and down his sides.

Every part of him speaks to a rough existence, the kind where wood is hewn by hand, and food is grown or hunted, an existence far simpler, but much harsher, than must exist in the glittering city outside these walls.

For an unwanted second, I see again the cuts and slashes across his body that are tearing him apart. The image of them is so clear that I can't stop the sob that rises to my lips.

He turns immediately, having made it out of his pants, catching me in his arms.

"Ignore the pain," he says, a firm command. "Focus only on these moments."

His lips crash against mine as he gathers me up against him. The way his lips fit mine, the way he claims every part of my mouth, drives my fears from me.

I drop back onto the bed, my legs dangling over the edge of it as I reach for him.

"Like this," I say. "With you standing."

Gravity will be easier on me like this. Far easier to take it slow if I need it slow this first time.

I meet the heat in his eyes, the way he takes all of me in with his gaze, before he gathers my legs up around his hips, leaning forward to kiss my breasts and take his time fitting his body to mine.

It's a slow thrust, drawn out as I brace against him, testing my body by pushing against him until he fills me completely.

Every sensation that spikes through me is intense, but all of it matches my needs. Deep pleasure, needier than I ever expected, radiates from my core, bringing a heady moan to my lips.

He could have been made for me.

I could have been made for him.

I move first, rocking against him, riding the waves of pleasure as he withdraws and thrusts again, slowly at first and then faster. And then again and again.

Intense need builds within me as the rhythm takes over. Power. Pleasure. A pure abandonment of control.

Every stroke takes me higher, but also deeper, like diving into the ocean again, submerging myself beneath the waves and experiencing nothing but an intense desire that drives me on.

Even as it builds, it's splintering me, cracking apart the already shattered pieces of me, and I know there's no coming back from this.

No returning to who I was. There is only the ferocity of my moans and the fury of his eyes.

I reach the pinnacle and anticipate the crash.

But I'm not prepared for what it does to me.

The orgasm strikes through me and with it comes a wrenching pain, a rush of sensation up through my back.

My eyes fly wide as my wings threaten to extend.

"Up!" I gasp. "Pick me up!"

His arms scoop around me just in time, lifting me off the bed and up into his arms.

My wings release from my back, as black as shadows and as heavy as iron.

I sense the strength in his arms, stomach, and back as he swings me toward the empty wall behind him and pushes me up against it.

My feathers gouge the wall on either side of me before my wings fold neatly at my sides, settling into constrained folds for what might be the first time ever.

All of this, I register, even as pure pleasure rides my body.

Somehow, we've stayed connected, and I fight not to extend my claws as my back arches, my breasts grazing his chest.

I'm not done and neither is he. The hardness of his cock inside me tells me that.

I bite my lip as the corners of his mouth rise.

He's holding me in place, and gravity has driven me further onto him.

"I need more," I gasp in case he had any doubt.

His mouth claims mine and he groans against my lips, answering me with a thrust that's far more savage than before, but I gasp with relief.

Pleasure reignites within my core, intensifying beyond anything I've ever experienced as he keeps me against the wall, every hard thrust, a claim on my body.

Heat and need send my body into overdrive. Pleasure thrums through me. I grip his shoulders and meet his furious movements, my breathing heavy, my mouth hungry against his.

I give as much as I'm taking, kissing him as he's kissing me, rocking against him.

Nothing else matters but this.

The crash tears through me with a ferocity that fills my mind with oblivion, a dark, night sky, the crash of lightning over a churning sea, the scream of tearing feathers and metal on metal.

Energy crashes through me, streams of it whirling within my mind and body until I can't place myself in space and time, can't orient myself.

We hit the bed, and I don't know how we got there.

I don't fucking care.

I'm shivering with pleasure, holding on to every remnant second of being connected to his body. Somehow, I've ended up on top of him, straddling him, my wings still tucked neatly in at my sides, but they're so long that they're cutting through the mattress.

My chest is heaving. So is his.

I'm covered in sweat, and so is he.

He strokes every part of me he can reach, his hands finding my back, my stomach, my breasts, my arms, and my neck before gliding down to my clit again.

There's a question in his eyes and a surprising insistence in his callused thumb.

I gasp at the delicious fire his touch brings.

Then, I adjust my position a little. Test my body by sliding a short way along his length as he hardens within me again.

As he starts to move, slowly this time, I meet his eyes.

I can't stop my heated smile.

I will never get enough of him.