17. Lorraine

Chapter Seventeen

Lorraine

“ Y ou’re here,” I breathed, getting up from the couch when Ash opened the front door. “I thought you’d forgotten about me.”

“I wouldn’t forget about you,” Ash said and wrapped his arms around me. His body was warm, his heat bleeding into me, defrosting me. I’d been cold and lost without him. “I just had a couple of things to take care of.”

“Everything’s okay?” I asked as we both sat down. Ash nodded. His blue eyes were deep, the color of the ocean, and I could drown in them. “Tell me about it,” I said, pulling Ash toward the couch. “There’s not much to tell,” he said. He was quiet, reserved. Was he hiding something from me? I didn’t really care. I’d missed him—he’d only been away for a day or two, but with time being so weird here in the vale, it felt like he’d been gone for weeks. “What have you been up to?” Ash asked. “Artemis came to see me,” I said. Ash frowned. “What? What did she want?”

“I don’t actually know,” I admitted. “She asked me a lot about you, but she was weird. Hostile. Is she always like that?”

Ash shook his head. “I don’t know what she’s like anymore.”

“What does that mean?” I asked. “Are you close with her?”

“No, to her great concern. She loves being close to the druses and dryads around here, but I don’t really share my life with a lot of people, and I think that pisses her off.”

“Well, pissed off is right,” I said. “When she left, she seemed satisfied with whatever she’d found out, though.”

Ash looked worried. “What did she ask you?”

“She wanted to know how I feel about you.”

“And how do you feel about me?” Ash asked. I smiled and sidled up against him. “You know how I feel about you.” I slid my hand into his and put my head on his shoulder. Ash’s large frame was thick and muscular next to me. I’d become so accustomed to him; I knew every inch of his body, the feel of him, the taste of him. Ash tilted his head, leaning it against mine.

When I glanced up at him, it put our faces close to each other, his lips millimeters away. I brushed my lips against his. I wanted him—I’d wanted him since the moment he’d left, and I’d ached for him every second he’d been away. “I missed you,” I whispered, my lips almost against his. “I missed you, too,” he mumbled. I pressed my lips against his again and kissed him. The tension between us grew thick, as if someone had flipped on a switch. Ash slid his tongue into my mouth, and I moaned softly at the back of my throat. I slid my hand onto his lap, my fingers finding his thick cock, and he was already hard for me. I ran my hand up and down, and he growled into my mouth. He grabbed me around the waist, and with ease, he flipped me over onto my back. His large body pinned me down on the couch, and he ground himself against me, his cock hard against my crotch. I gasped, and we kissed hungrily. I turned into a puddle of need underneath him as our tongues danced together, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, running my hand over the muscles of his broad back. Ash ran his hand down my side, and I shivered at his touch. He cupped my breast, and my nipple hardened against my bra. With ease, Ash lifted my torso and peeled my shirt off me. “These modern clothes get in the way,” he muttered when I still wore my bra. I unhooked it when he struggled with the clasp and threw my bra to the side. Ash stared at my breasts. When he reached for them, his touch sent jolts of electricity through my veins, shivers running down my spine. When Ash dipped his head, he sucked the taut peak of my nipple into his mouth, sucking and gently biting me until I moaned loudly. I tangled my fingers in his dark hair, tugged at it while he worshipped one breast, and then the other. His large body writhed on mine, grinding himself against me, his back round as he consumed me even before we did anything. I reached between us and into his pants. His cock was searing hot when I wrapped my fingers around his shaft, and I pumped my hand up and down. Ash groaned with my nipple in his mouth, and the animalistic sound of his need for me turned me on more, making me wet. Ash abandoned my breasts as he kissed and nibbled his way down my body. He roughly tugged my pants down, getting rid of my underwear at the same time, and I was naked. Before I could do anything, he grabbed his shirt behind his neck and pulled it over his head. His naked torso was delicious—I would never get enough of his stacked muscles and the way they rippled under his skin. I could stare at Ash forever. He smiled at me, a cocky smile that suggested he knew I liked what I saw, before he dove between my legs. He planted kisses on my thighs, setting my skin on fire before he closed his mouth over my pussy. I cried out when he flicked his tongue over my clit, and pleasure rippled through my body. I trembled and squirmed on the couch as his attention to my clit sent waves of pleasure through my body. My toes curled, and my muscles contracted involuntarily as I crept closer and closer to orgasm. I wanted Ash to make me come, badly. He didn’t. Instead, he teased me, bringing me to the edge again and again, but just before I toppled over, he slowed down or changed his angle or onslaught so that I didn’t orgasm yet. I moaned my protest. Ash stood suddenly and picked me up. He threw me over his shoulder, and I yelped. He carried me to the bedroom and flipped me onto the mattress roughly.

It was delicious the way he handled me, the way he took what he wanted. When he kicked off his pants, his cock was thick and hard, standing at attention, and the tip was slick with lust. I wanted nothing more than for him to plunge into me, but I sat up and wrapped my fingers around his shaft again. I sucked his head into my mouth, and Ash gritted his teeth and sucked in a sharp breath. “Fuck,” he cursed as I bobbed my head faster and faster, sucking as much of him into my mouth as I could manage. The magic that oozed out of Ash’s pores filled the room, growing hot and thick. It echoed the heat I felt inside of me, and what he felt inside of him, no doubt. He held onto my head, fingers in my hair, and bucked his hips, pumping his cock into my mouth while I sucked him off. He went deeper and deeper, and I held my breath when he pushed into my throat. He bucked his hips a couple of times, stroking in and out of my throat, and my eyes teared up. When he pulled back, Ash was breathing hard. “Fuck,” he bit out again. He grabbed me and flipped me over so that I lay on my stomach. His hands on my hips pulled me up so I stood on all fours, and I arched my back, pushing my ass out to him. Ash gripped my hips, and his cock found my entrance with ease. When he plunged into me, I cried out, my body trembling with pure pleasure. He filled me to the brim when he was buried inside of me, and I shivered, my pussy tight around his shaft. He slid back and pumped into me again, fucking me harder and harder. I cried out loudly as his balls slapped against my pussy and his cock drove into me deeper and deeper. My arms went numb, and I collapsed my chest to the mattress. Ash rocked my body back and forth on the bed, which knocked against the wall again and again. The sounds of our sex were accentuated by my moans and cries, the knocking of the bed against the wall creating the bass to our symphony, and it was hot as fuck that Ash was pounding into me, taking out all his lust on me. I loved it when we had rough sex like this, fucking like we had when we’d just met. Still, there was emotion, too. I couldn’t think about that before the orgasm Ash had been building inside me erupted and rocked through my body. I cried out as the pleasure crashed into me again and again, like waves on the sand, and my whole body went numb until the orgasm took my breath away. When the orgasm slowly faded—Ash had slowed down at some point—he pulled out of me and crawled onto the bed. I rolled over, and he crawled over me, his large body covering mine. He planted a kiss on my lips, his tongue sliding into my mouth, tasting and probing. My thighs fell open for him, and Ash positioned himself between them. His cock pressed against my entrance again, and this time, he slid slowly into me. I moaned softly as he slid into the hilt and stayed buried there while I trembled around him. Ash kissed me, slowly and sensually, barely moving as he lay on top of me. He covered me with his body, and his intensity consumed me. Slowly, he started moving inside of me, and I moaned as he stroked, sensually, in and out of me. He coaxed a flame of passion into being, and as he bucked his hips harder and harder, that flame grew into a raging furnace of pure need. Ash’s power filled the room, spilling onto the bed, the floor, pushing into the corners until he and his power were all I could breathe. Our lips locked when he kissed me again, and he moved on top of me, bucking his hips faster and faster.

We broke the kiss as our gasping and cries became louder and more erratic, and he braced thick arms on either side of my head. He pounded into me, and my breasts jiggled as he brought me closer and closer to another orgasm. Pleasure grew at my core until I felt like I would explode. Ash’s strokes shortened, and when he gritted his teeth, his brows knitted together, I knew he was close, too. When the orgasm overthrew me, pulsing through my body with renewed intensity, Ash pushed into me as deep as he could go, and I felt his body contract and pulsate with pleasure. The orgasm rolled through him, and his body stiffened, his muscles bulging as his body jerked and his cock pulsed inside of me. I shivered as we came together, our bodies melded together and our souls seemingly merged as one. When Ash and I were together like this, our bodies tightly against each other, where my pleasure became his and his became mine, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. I couldn’t imagine ever being apart from Ash, and all that mattered in this world or any other was Ash and me being as close as we were. Finally, the orgasms faded, and we came down from our sexual high. Ash collapsed his large body on mine but only for a second before he rolled off me so that I could breathe. He pulled me tightly against him on the bed, and I felt his heart hammering against me as I lay on his chest. When we’d first met, he’d always walked away after we’d slept together. It was only recently that he’d started staying the night, cuddling after we’d slept together. I loved the way things had changed between us, the way we’d become more than just the sum of our passion. “What’s on your mind?” I asked Ash, looking up at him. “Oh, nothing important,” he said. I wasn’t sure that was true. Lately, he’d been a lot more withdrawn and, in his head, than before. Then again, as much as I felt like I’d known him a lifetime, I barely knew him at all. I ran my fingers up and down his arm. “You know you can talk to me about everything,” I said. Ash nodded. “Yeah.” After a moment, he added, “That goes for you, too.”

I smiled at him, and he kissed me before he pulled me tighter against him. We could talk about a lot of things, and we had, but we could also be silent together, and sometimes, that meant so much more. I loved being with Ash. I loved what we had, although I couldn’t explain it, and technically, what we had, where we were—none of it was supposed to exist. That was the thing, though. The good stuff always seemed too good to be true. I just hoped that when this fantasy finally ended, whatever came after wouldn’t be jarring or a letdown. I’d become quite accustomed to living in this world of magic, and leaving it all behind was almost impossible to imagine. Just like imagining a life without Ash had become almost impossible too.