CHAPTER 145: ONE HUNDRED & FORTY FIVE

Valka

My hand unfurls from the desk’s edge and drive into his hair. It’s still short. He’s been keeping it short. It’s set a trend amongst the people and everyone’s cutting their hair in tapers that fade on the sides.

My nails scrape against the curls on the back of his scalp and he groans, pressing his lips to my folds and at the flattening of his tongue against the head of my clitoris, my lips part around a wretched sigh.

His nails dig into my hipbone and he crushes me closer into his face, kissing me fold to fold, licking slit to entrance and my inner walls clench around nothing, my legs trembling where they dangle off his broad shoulders.

Pleasure, sharp and blinding, coils tight in my belly. The mirror is slick with my sweat, my breath fogging the glass beside my head. I look down, watching him. Watching the most beautiful man I know come utterly apart because of me, for me. His eyes are screwed shut, his brow furrowed in concentration and bliss as he devours me, groaning against me like a man who had found water after a lifetime in the desert.

"Don’t stop," I say hoarsely. "Luke, please. Faster."

He redoubles his efforts, his tongue a wicked, knowing pressure. Already, I’m close, so close, the world narrowing to the slick wetness pushing up against my entrance and retreating in an almost teasing manner. The storm builds, he douses it. I come close, eyes shut, spine arching, nipples tightening with need for more attention, and he retreats.

I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to make me forget that we really should be listening to the physician’s orders. He’s toying around with my need, trying to shatter my restraint.

So much for being good.

I suck in my bottom lip furiously, trying to think of all the many reasons why it wouldn’t be a very good idea to go against Lucien’s grandmother, save for the fact that she’ll kill us both. Probably.

He pushes two fingers inside me and my pussy is a filthy suction hole, sucking them in easily. My mind whites out. Lucien chuckles darkly and sucks hard on my clitoris.

"Alright," I groan. "You win."

I’ve never seen him move so fast. I’m off the dressing table... Or maybe he kicks the heavy wood to the side with startling ease.

Then his hands were on my waist, turning me around to face the mirror. My reflection is flushed, my hair a wild mess, my eyes dark and hungry, my fangs kissing my bottom lip. He stands behind me, his hard length pressing insistently against the cleft of my ass--didn’t even notice when he discarded his pants. His hands slide up my sides, over my ribs, to cup my breasts, his thumbs circling my nipples until they pebble again under his touch.

My knees shake and I don’t bother trying to lean on my own strength anymore.

He meets my gaze in the glass, his expression fierce, possessive. He murmurs something I don’t catch, but his voice a low thrum that goes straight to my core. An arm bands under my breasts.

My feet leaves the floor.

He is hot and smooth as he wedges his cock between my ass cheeks and I gasp when my eyes lower and I see his tip brush against my clit before exiting through the apex between my thighs, glistening.

Precum falls onto the ground and my mouth dries, wishing I’d caught it on my tongue.

Lucien grunts, "Look at you."

I do. Over the weeks, my body has grown healthier again, fuller. Color has returned to my skin and if I wanted to, I could pretend Silvermoor never happened.

His hand slides down my stomach, past the thatch of curls, his fingers finding me still swollen and sensitive. He parts my folds with two fingers and we watch together as he repeats the motion of teasing me with his tip, then deciding otherwise as he smears my wetness between my thighs.

My breath stutters.

He brings those two fingers to mouth, pushes them inside, and on instinct, my tongue darts between them.

His mouth curves to the side, pleased, and he retracts his fingers from my mouth and slides them between my legs. And inside of me. My breath hitches and I reach behind him to grab a fistful of his hair as the heat in my core flares to life with vengeance.

The seducing thrusts of him against my thighs is clipped off, controlled, and my lips part as his tip nudges against ass. My eyes widen at the pull and push playing along the rim of my ass hole. When I clench, I clench there, too, and I realize with such staggering awe that I want him everywhere he can possibly stuff himself into.

The thought makes me laugh myself breathless.

Lucien’s breath huffs against the strands of my hair and he pulls his finger out of me. "This amuses you?" His arm under my breast is all I am held up against his chest by and my laughter chokes off as he lifts me slightly--angles me, really--and lines himself up with my pussy. "I’d really like to hear you laugh now."

I don’t.

It’s the contrary, actually. When he seats himself inside me, my eyes water.

Each withdrawal is a sweet agony, each thrust a homecoming. He shifts his angle slightly, and on the next forward push, he hits a spot so deep and so electric that I cry out, needing to grab a hold of something.

He pulls out of me and moves us then.

My back hits the bed, but he shifts me onto my left side. He lifts my right leg, brings my instep to the curve of his mouth before supporting it against his chest at it stretches high to the ceiling. I feel like I’m being splintered in half as he splays a large hand on my stomach, bracing, and pushes into me again, slowly.

My chest rises and falls quickly as his skin smacks against mine. Initially, the rhythm is gentle because the position is not, but then, I begin moving, despite his soft warning to *stay still*, to which I respond that he could respectfully go fuck himself in the bathroom...

It is over as quickly as it started.

Because I am unable to control myself and grab him as tightly as a glove as climax takes me, the rhythm breaks, and it becomes something reckless and crazy, and I hear the crack in the furniture mingle with the deeply seated growl that sets fire to my skin.

He fills me, twitching and spurting inside me and my insides clench tightly, greedily accepting all of it.

My body shudders and jerks, my legs uncurling from his torso. Lucien cups my neck, raising my face to his as he pulls out of me, still throbbing hard. A shudder wracks my body at the sensation, a fresh, warm trickle following the path of his withdrawal. His hand cradles my face, his gaze soft, but the wildness hasn’t entirely left them.

He leans in to kiss me, slow and deep, and I can taste the salt of my skin and the faint, musky hint of us on his tongue. My hands came up to grip his biceps, holding on as the last aftershocks of my climax whispered through my nerves.

The kiss breaks, and he rests his forehead against mine. "You undo me," he murmurs, breath warm on my lips. "Say you understand that. Say you know I love you so much it ruins me."

Our breaths mingle. "I do."

He doesn’t ask me to say it back. He never does. At first, I thought it was because he was frightened I didn’t feel the same way. But I knew better. Many months ago, he’d said ’that isn’t our relationship’ in a different yet similar context.

Sometimes I wonder if a part of him always knew that. A person could tell you a million different times that they cared about you and loved you. But words were nothing beside the act of it. Love was nothing without the very act of worship.

And perhaps we didn’t say it as often as we should’ve. But we didn’t need to. Because our relationship has always been carved around expressing with actions what our words cannot describe.

Because "I love you" has always felt too small to describe what we feel for each other.

Somehow, "You undo me", is a more appropriate expression for us. And we prefer it that way.

***

Evadne

The shuffle near the door starts me awake and I sit up swiftly, squinting through the darkened room, the wick of the candle long burned out.

"Where are you going?"

Astrea stills.

It is a stupid question, in truth. Her cloak is fastened around her shoulders and over her head and she has my little bag of supplies hunched across her back, as well as my sword. My pouch of coins is attached to her hip.

I knew she was going to leave. I expected it. I’ve lived far too long to expect more.

She turns slowly and her brown eyes are filled with guilt. "If I set out now, I can get on the first ship to Averis."

My fingers curl on the sheets. "Alright." I turn around and draw the too-thin covers over my shoulders and shut my eyes. "Good-bye."

My heart beats uselessly fast with dread and fear and hope that she might stay back with me. That maybe if I asked her to, she might. But she was going to leave again. Run off at dusk and leave me. And I’ve never been someone who pleads with people to stay in her life.

So I silence my heart and bite into the inside of my cheek until blood coats my tongue as I listen to her unlock the door.

Then her foot stomps across the floorboards and I feel her soft hands grab at my ponytail, yank my head up and slam my mouth to hers.

Her lips are soft and tongue tastes like berries. I reach up to cup her cheek, but she pulls away from me. "It’s not me," she whispers.

"W-what?" I stutter.

Her thumb caresses my lower lip. "I really like you, Eva. But we both do not know what we want. And that’s not a bad thing, if we weren’t using each other to get over something we’re both suffering from innately." Her smile is sad. "I will not be just another woman you try to use to heal. And you deserve better than being a rebound, just because it feels good to be touched."

Her words hit like a slap across my face and I tip my chin out of her grasp. "I don’t need to heal. Maybe you do. I’m not the one pining after a crazy, dead man."

Hurt shines in her eyes. And then, anger. "Maybe, but I’m not the one who’s covering her fear of being touched by men by pretending to be into women."

My teeth hurt from clenching hard. "Get out."

She does. And she doesn’t come back.

Naturally, the next morning, as I’m bargaining my freezing ass off to get a horse to cart my sorry ass back home, the idiot finds me.

Idiot being Sebastian.