CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 38

AUREN

“Rip.”

That’s the first word out of my mouth when he finishes speaking. Because now, I know what it means. Now, I know how much it signifies. All this time, his greatest secrets have been carried by his most common nickname.

I’m not sure when I sat down, but I think my legs gave out somewhere around the time when Slade told me the story of how his power first manifested as a little boy, and I’ve stayed planted here all the way up to that fateful fight between him and his father. The fight that led him here.

I didn’t speak even once. His words are dredged up like an excavation, something that’s been buried for years, too painful to be unearthed. But he told me. He dragged up all of those moments from his past and laid it bare. Now I have answers to questions I hadn’t even thought to ask.

When he finishes, silence fills in the hollowed out air. For several long seconds, my mind whirls, my thighs shifting over the rock beneath me. It’s a lot to take in, so I don’t think I even can right away. There are so many more layers that this tomb of memories has unearthed, and I think only time will truly help me to comprehend the magnitude of it.

I clear my throat, gaze shifting to the giant slash in the air before I glance back to him. “So that’s how you got to Orea.”

He nods slowly, staring at the stormy rip. “Yes.”

“Do you think…do you think that’s how I got here? Someone else made a rip in the world?” I ask.

Heavy eyes lift to mine. “I don’t know. I’ve thought of that a lot, ever since you told me you were smuggled here. It makes me wonder if any other fae have been living in Orea all this time, hiding in plain sight.”

“But do you think that I…” I trail off, head motioning toward the rip.

Slade shakes his head. “No. When I’m not here, this is always guarded, and not a single person has come through since that day. If anyone had, I would’ve felt it, because my power force is tied to it.”

All of this information brings up thousands of more questions, like dust pluming in the air after something huge just dropped. But one look at Slade’s face makes my questions settle back down. His face is drawn tight, eyes carrying more shadows than can be blamed on the cave.

He looks exhausted, more vulnerable than I have ever seen him, like the raw edges of a rock that’s been chiseled, left with a bared surface he’s not used to showing.

“I know what you went through was horrible, but for what it’s worth, I am glad that you’re here in this world with me,” I say quietly.

His eyes soften. “Oh, Goldfinch. I would’ve found you in whatever world you were in. In whatever life.”

My lips tip up in a soft smile, because I believe him. “You would’ve found me in them all.”

When he nods, I slowly get to my feet, taking careful steps over to him. Instead of saying anything, I place my hand over his curled fist. He immediately relaxes his fingers, allowing me to slip my palm against his, to thread our fingers together. A tremor of a breath quakes from his chest.

I gently tug on his hand, and there’s only a moment’s hesitation before he lets me lead him away. We make our way back through the dim cave, past his mother’s house, through the little notch in the mountain and back into the snow.

Our fingers stay laced together as I lead him down the slope, all the way back to the comforting glow of the Grotto. But instead of going to the house, I keep leading him on. He gives me a confused look, but as soon as we pass the entrance of the Teeth, he knows exactly where I’m leading him.

It’s not until the smell of sulfur clogs my nose and the cold air is replaced with steam and warmth that I finally let go of his hand.

Slade watches me with a frown snagging his brows together. “What are—”

His words cut off when I toe off my boots and shove off my leggings. I see the knot in his throat bob up and down as I shrug off my coat, placing my clothes on a rock beside us.

In only my borrowed shirt that skims my bare thighs, I then walk around to his back and gently slip off his coat, placing it with mine. When I face him again, the confusion has been replaced with hooks of rapt attention that pierce straight into me.

My heart might be racing, but I shove aside my nervousness as I look up at him. “You bared yourself to me. It’s time I do the same.”

He sucks in a breath as I turn around and look at him expectantly over my shoulder. Only hesitating for a moment, he then steps against me until the heat of his body seems to permeate into mine.

I feel his hands at the top of my shirt, his fingers skimming over the collar. He pauses, as if he’s giving me a chance to change my mind, but I won’t.

When he undoes the first button, I shiver in both anticipation and worry.

One by one, he bares my back, until the last button is unclasped. He gently pushes the shirt down, slipping it off my arms and laying it on the rock with our coats. And now I’m exposed completely. The sight of my ruined back on full display, my own vulnerability and painful memory exposed to him.

My body trembles. My stomach is tight. And my eyes—my eyes burn with the memories of being held up against a wall while I was severed two dozen times.

But then, Slade’s lips are there at the nape of my neck. A soft press of his mouth before he starts to pepper feather-light kisses down my back in painstaking inches. I realize, with tears springing to my eyes, that he’s placing his lips between each pair of cut ribbons. There are still some ends hanging on, like hangnails I’ve refused to yank off. The bruising is all healed, and I know that when these last pieces fall off, my back will be smooth and empty, with no sign of what was there before.

In perfect increments, his kisses go down, down, down.

I tremble even harder, my eyes filling with so much emotion that the cave blurs in front of me. His hands come up next, the barest brush of his fingertips soothing the frayed pieces of me I can no longer feel.

His finger skims over the length of my spine, leaving trails of chills in their wake. And as he continues to place tender touches of adoration against my skin, all the shame melts off of me like snow in the sun.

Without saying a word, he’s comforting me. Healing me. Until he’s on his knees, placing the very last kiss against the ruined ribbons at the base of my back, his grip on my hips grounding me to his touch.

When he stands up and turns me around, he lifts his hands to swipe away the tears on my cheeks. “I see you, Goldfinch,” he murmurs, his eyes so full of tenderness that I still can’t believe I’m on the receiving end.

“I see you too, Rip,” I whisper.

My hands drop to the ties of his pants, and unlike the time in the cave when I first woke up, my movements are gentle, slow. Because I want to relish in this moment. I want to take my time.

The outside world—anything outside of the Grotto’s cave—it doesn’t exist.

When the ties are loose enough, Slade toes off his boots and helps me shove down his pants, and then he’s just as nude as I am, but both of us have revealed so much more than just our bodies.

I drag my eyes up his thick muscled thighs to his cock that’s already begun to harden, hanging thick and heavy. With my eyes still locked on it, I slowly lower myself to my knees before him, just as he did for me.

He sucks in a harsh breath as I grip his length in my hand. I take him in my fist, fingertips skating over the softness of his skin even as he hardens beneath my touch. Then I lean in, licking a line up the crown of the head, and his entire body goes rigid.

“Auren—”

Whatever else he was going to say in that mangled tone is cut off as I take him in my mouth. His hands instantly go to my head, fingers threading into my hair. I keep my mouth exploratory for a few seconds, taking him in, licking around the size of him, savoring the way he tastes and the stretch of my lips.

“You’re teasing me,” he rumbles, and I try to smile around him, eyes flicking up. “Suck me, baby. I want to see those cheeks hollow out.”

A flutter sets off in my stomach, and I immediately do exactly what he wants. I suck him, bobbing my head up and down, and the groan that he makes shoots heat right between my thighs.

“Fuck, Auren,” he grits out. “That mouth.”

The thrill I get from the way he comes apart makes me bolder, and I start to suck him down until he reaches the back of my throat. I gag, but Slade’s hands pull my head back slightly. I look up, and his eyes are burning into me with pure carnal hunger. Just like he did with the unbuttoning, he waits, watching me closely, checking on me, making sure I’m okay. The pure trust in that makes me even more eager to make him lose control.

With the right person, there is power when you kneel. There is adoration with submission. There is balance with control.

Which is why I look up at him and say, “Fuck my mouth, Slade.”

His eyes flash with carnal hunger. “Put your hands on my thighs,” he tells me. “Good. I want you to tap me if I get too rough or you need a break.”

I nod, letting him know I understand, and he starts to direct my movements, sliding me back and forth over his cock. He lets me get used to him calling the shots for a few moments, and then he starts to move faster, harder, fucking my mouth as though he craves it fiercely, his movements bold and rough and deliciously erotic as he pumps his hips.

“Yes,” he growls. “This dirty fucking mouth taking my cock so perfectly.” He sweeps my hair up, fisting it in his hand, tugging just enough to keep my head firm, but not enough to hurt. “That’s what you are, you know that? Fucking perfect.”

His hard length bumps the back of my throat again and again, making me gag, making saliva spill from the corners of my lips.

“That’s right, drool all over my cock, baby. Get it nice and wet and sloppy, because I’m going to fuck you with it soon, and I want you dripping.”

He may have called my mouth dirty, but his is positively filthy, and I can’t get enough of it.

Slade pulls me off, and I gasp in lungfuls of air, my eyes watering slightly. “You are gorgeous, and I want nothing more than to watch my cum flood your mouth, but I want to sink myself inside your pussy even more.”

With a smile, I wipe my chin and rise to my feet, and then I start to walk backwards toward the hot springs. He watches me without moving, the lines on his skin twisting and curling around his pecs, as if they want to reach for me.

When my heels hit the edge of the hot water and I start backing into it, legs embraced in the heat, I raise my hand and curl my finger toward him. “Then come on, King Ravinger. Because that’s exactly what I want, and I’m healed enough for a nice, long soak.”

He’s on me before my lower half can disappear beneath the surface, his fingers digging into my ass as he lifts me up. He wades us further in, and the water feels so good the deeper we sink into it—the deeper we sink into each other.

Slade stops at the side of the pool and puts me down, and I notice the incline here is sharp, lifting me several inches higher than him.

“Turn around, baby,” he tells me. “Brace your hands on the rim of the pool.”

Swallowing hard, I turn, my fingers curling around the smoothed rock as I grip it. “Good girl,” he purrs as his hands come around me, one curling possessively around my pussy, while the other goes to my breasts.

“Goddess...” I breathe as he circles my clit with two fingers, moving over me like a master musician plucking the perfect strings. My body sings for him in all the right notes.

When he sinks a finger into me, still keeping the other curled to caress my clit, we both groan. His mouth comes down to nibble at the side of my neck, while his other hand squeezes and caresses my breasts, twisting my nipples and making the peaks stiffen.

“Slade, I want you,” I moan out, my head tipping back against his.

“And you’ll have me,” he replies, kissing the back of my neck. “There’s a short shelf just in front of you—I want one knee propped up on it.”

Out of my mind with thrumming need, I quickly raise my knee, finding the smooth rock exactly where he said it would be.

“Perfect,” he tells me as his hand on my breasts falls away. Then, his finger leaves my pussy, the crown of his cock taking its place.

I’m instantly being stretched, my breath catching as he pushes in with agonizing slowness. Inch by inch he sinks into me, and somehow, him going slow just makes me feel fuller. The hot water surrounding us makes everything slicker.

When his pelvis hits my ass, he gives it a squeeze, while a groan travels through his chest. “So fucking good. So tight and ready.”

I feel his lips on my back again, and I realize that this positioning he put me in was entirely purposeful. But then, everything Slade does is for a purpose, so I shouldn’t be surprised. He doesn’t keep us face-to-face, he has me like this with my back still bared to him, and when he places kisses there again, it’s like he’s replacing the violence and marking me with tenderness instead. Reminding me that I’m not ruined. That despite it all, we’re here, together, and that sometimes, our worlds have to rip in order for us to end up where we’re meant to be.

“Slade, I need you to move,” I tell him, all while he strokes, caresses, makes my body melt and all my reservations thaw into draining rivulets.

His hand comes back to my clit with almost reprimanding quickness, and a garbled breath gets stuck in my throat as his fingers start to rub me in rapid, determined circles.

At the same time, he drags himself out and then thrusts back into me. Again. And again. And again. His pace is steady and hard, and when he uses his other hand to grip my thigh and tilt me up just a little bit more, a jolt of heat slams through me.

My back arches as an embarrassing mewling sound escapes me, though the bubbling sound of the water drowns some of it out.

“Yes, yes,” I chant, feeling his touch on my clit like a thousand different lightning bolts coursing down my limbs, up my stomach, even heating the soles of my feet. Feeling him hit that spot inside of me that makes me want to crash into a crescendo.

“Faster, Slade. I want to come. I want to come with you.”

“I’ll give you what you want,” he says, voice heated and hungry, dominant and protective. “Hold on.”

I straighten my arms, bracing myself, and Slade starts fucking me hard and fast, making the water splash around us. The slapping water is somehow the perfect addition to the erotic noises that accompany his groans and my own.

“Your pussy is clamping down on my dick like it wants to milk me dry,” he hisses in my ear, sharp teeth skating over the curve. “You’re close, aren’t you, baby?”

“Yes! Please!”

His fingers strum my clit, harder and faster and harder and—

I combust. In the heat of the water with the waves of it crashing against my arms and chest, I catch fire from my feet to my chest, tingling with release.

Slade lets out the sexiest sound against my ear as he jolts, his cock pulsing cum into my body, and I melt against him as my own waves slowly ebb.

Panting against each other, Slade gives me one last kiss against my back before he turns me around and sits me sideways on his lap. He holds me there with my head tucked against his chest, with the steam curling around us like a curtain meant to keep us hidden from everything else.

After a while, after the silence has become a comfort, the bubbling water nothing but a humming background noise, I look up at him, making him tilt his head down to look at me. “This is it, isn’t it?” I ask quietly, feeling so soft and secure in his arms. “This is real love.” That word. That huge, momentous, meaningful word just falls out of me, rippling the waters between us, but I know it’s true.

Before, when I thought I had that, it was nothing like this. It was nothing like him. After tonight, I see with such clarity. I see what’s right in front of me.

Slade’s arms tighten around me, and then he places a kiss on my forehead. “Yes, Auren. This is love.”