After what seemed like an eternity of these pleasurable ebbs and flows, he stopped. I shivered as his lips brushed my inner thigh, his tongue flitting across my skin.
“Beg,” he ordered, looking up at me through his dark lashes.
I hesitated, feeling suddenly exposed, vulnerable. “Please,” I breathed. “Please, Daelon.”
He started again, and this time there were no ebbs. The intensity only grew until I couldn’t hold back any longer, clutching the sheets above my head as I let go completely. I trembled all over, and Daelon reversed his trail of kisses until he reached my mouth, smiling softly as he kissed me.
“Do you still want me?” he asked, stroking the side of my face.
“Yes.” So much that it scared me.
He moved off of me to take off his boxers, and the look in his eyes was wild and primal. It sent a shiver down my spine. I marveled at his now fully naked body, my breath hitching.
Oh. My. God. Goddess? Whatever.
Daelon climbed over me, his gaze so sharp it stilled me. “Are you going to start listening to me?” he asked, catching me by surprise.
“Uh, within reason,” I said. I did promise to do something like that when I thought he was dying…
He moved slowly at first, and then in a sudden movement he thrust inside of me, making me cry out.
“You’re okay,” he whispered.
He cradled my head with one hand and held one of my wrists to the bed with the other. I dug my fingernails in his back as he continued moving his hips against mine. It felt like I’d waited for this moment for years, all of the tension between us culminating in this long-awaited release of intensity. He lowered his head so that his mouth was next to my ear, his breath warm and tickling.
“Tell me you will,” he growled. “Let me protect you.” He moved up, pulling my legs to wrap around him.
“I will—” I could hardly speak as he thrust deeper and harder, maintaining eye contact as he did. His gaze was more intense than ever. I tried not to feel self-conscious as he moved me further and further toward a disorienting pleasure—ecstasy that rendered me incapable of a single coherent thought.
I wasn’t quite sure what I was agreeing to, but my promise earned me a small smile as he reached to brush his thumb against my bottom lip. He moved his hips slower now, giving me a chance to breathe. All of his off-hand remarks, glimpses into his heart and mind he’d allowed me to feel, and all of his actions and hushed promises—they all made at least one thing perfectly clear: he wanted me to change that social contract of power between us. He wanted me to surrender some of my control to him so that he could protect me from what lurked beyond this safe bubble. He wanted to help me become who I was meant to be, and this was the way he knew how.
He wanted some kind of submission, but I didn’t know how much I could give. Half of me wanted to give Daelon everything, but the other wasn’t going to be easily convinced to give up any sort of power in this foreign, tumultuous realm. There was still so much to learn. There was still a seed of doubt that I didn’t want to think about, not when he was literally as close to me as he could possibly be.
“That’s a good girl,” he whispered. “I really do enjoy when you give in and do as you’re told.”
A comment like that would have ordinarily made me want to throat punch someone, but not when it came from Daelon’s lips. All I could do was moan in response as he clutched me tight, nipping at the sensitive skin of my neck.
He flipped me over onto my knees, and he pulled me up to position my back to his chest. He picked up his pace again, and in this position the pleasure was intensely overpowering. He held my body close to his as he moved, his grasp tight and possessive. He tilted my head to the side and went in for my neck again. He kissed my skin softly this time, contrasting this gentle touch with the harsher tangle of his hand in my hair.
I moaned at the constant and varied assault of my senses and nerve endings, my entire body completely immersed in this gratification. I didn’t think I’d ever had sex that was so overwhelming, so all-consuming, and endued with layers of meaning. It was like our desires were naturally in complement with each other’s, and it created an undeniable impression of energy throughout the bedroom. It was intoxicating, stronger than any drug. Could Daelon feel it too?
My thoughts melted into pure feeling as Daelon held me to him, his mouth now at my ear. I was no longer falling under his spell. It had already taken me, and I feared no protective magick would be strong enough to free me of its hold.
Even after we finished and collapsed onto the duvet, Daelon refused to let go of me. He held me to his chest now, one arm around my head and another coiled around my back. I rested against him as we caught our breath.
Chapter 11
“One of the many ways I knew I could effectively silence you,” he said into my hair.
I tried to struggle out of his grasp to smack him, but he easily overpowered me and wrestled me still. I giggled at my hilariously weak attempts to thwart him. I faced him now, and he watched me carefully.
“How was that?” he asked.
“Terrible. Worst sex I’ve ever had. Now that we tried and failed, we can go back to being reluctant friends.” Despite the smile I had when I said it, his jaw tensed and his hold on me slackened.
He narrowed his eyes. “That’s not funny.”
I laughed, but I couldn’t ignore that his tone gave me a bit of a chill. “Oh stop,” I said. “I just didn’t want how I truly felt about it to go to your head.”
He brushed some of my hair behind my ear. “Too late.” He smiled back, his features softening. “It certainly sounded like you enjoyed it. Or you’re a fantastic actress.”
I gawked, feigning great offense. He caught my wrist and lifted my hand to plant a kiss on my knuckles. We stared at each other for a moment, and I had the familiar desire to read him. Part of me was glad I couldn’t, though, because I knew deep down that I’d often used my gift as a crutch to avoid true intimacy. As scary as it was, this was my first real relationship with someone without all of my usual tricks. I actually had to trust that the parts Daelon showed me were genuine and that whatever he hid wouldn’t change how I felt. I had to take the plunge and hope he was going to save me from drowning.
“Can we just pretend we’re normal tonight?”
He feigned shock. “Are you calling me abnormal?”
“Well, yes. But I mean… human normal.”
“Well that just sounds boring.”
I sighed. “Fair. But you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do.”
A sadness crept into his eyes, and I somehow knew he was thinking about the dark and the cold—all of the things he so desperately wanted to shield me from. That was the sadness I wanted to avoid, at least for this one night.
“I’m in, although I don’t pretend to understand what drives humans. Especially not their preoccupation with currency and fame.”
“Kind of an oversimplification, but I guess that’s one way of putting it,” I laughed. “What are witches preoccupied with then?”
Daelon thought for a moment. “Currently, power. And pleasure.”
“That doesn’t sound much more evolved,” I scoffed. “It doesn’t sound like we’re all that different.”
He wrinkled his nose like the notion was preposterous. “We used to be much more evolved than humans, trust me. I guess not so much anymore.” Something uncertain flashed in his eyes. “Some of us still are.”
“As are some humans.”
“Touché,” he said. I could tell he was already moving back behind some of his walls, shielding me from the truths he’d decided I wasn’t ready for. “Want to take a shower?”
I wanted to probe further, but his spell was still in full swing, and I said I wanted to feign normalcy tonight. So, I found myself holding back and following Daelon, questions and doubts be damned.
We stood in a massive walk-in shower against a rustic stone wall. Showering with Daelon was someho
w more intimate than actual sex. He couldn’t keep his hands off me, for starters. It was like he thought I might disappear, at any moment, if there was any space between us. I wasn’t going to complain. Especially not after he insisted on washing my hair, lathering silky shampoo through its length and massaging my scalp more expertly than any hairstylist. He kissed my neck when he was finished and turned me back to face him.
Next, he ran soap across my skin, his fingers delicately trailing across my body’s curves and contours in a dedicated silence. His touch was an act of devotion, like he was tending to a priceless piece of art. The intensity of his gaze when he refocused back to my eyes sent my ability to speak away once more.
“I want to do you now,” I said when I finally found my voice. I reached for the soap.
“And I want to give you everything you want.”
Our eyes locked, and I couldn’t help but smile. I didn’t know what to say. So, I started to touch him instead. I moved my fingers along his body, appreciating the curve of his defined muscles, the firmness of his form. The parts of him that were smooth and the parts that were rough. There was a scar on his back, white and raised like the mark of a surgical incision.
“What happened here?” I asked, smoothing my fingers over the mark.
“Sparring accident.”
“Sparring?” I giggled. “Like with swords?” So much for normalcy. Daelon stiffened. I didn’t think he was very amused, so I dropped it and continued my admiration of his body.
After I finished, he pulled me in for a kiss under the warm water. His hands held my waist, and it almost felt like drowning as I ran out of oxygen with his lips thirstily moving against mine.
He pulled back. “Let’s go make dinner. You need to eat.”
I rolled my eyes. He was definitely abnormal. This earned me a light slap on my ass, which took me by surprise.
“So much for not hurting me,” I accused.
He wrapped white towels around me and then himself, looking mischievous. He dried his long hair with a smaller towel, shooting me a devilish grin. “That didn’t hurt.”
True. It hadn’t.
We got dressed and cooked together, still carefully avoiding any talk of evil witches, revenge plots, or reasons why we shouldn’t be doing what we were doing. Now we stood in the kitchen, and I told him more about my friends and all that he was missing out on in the human realm, though he didn’t seem all too convinced.
“Wine?” he asked, gesturing to a bottle of Bordeaux he pulled from a cabinet.
“See, now how can you talk so much shit about humans yet drink their wine?” I asked, giving him a pointed look. “And yes.”
“I didn’t say they do everything wrong.” He poured some into two wine glasses. “I’ve been to many human cities actually, and I didn’t even mind some of them.”
I shook my head. “Wait, how do you hop realms, exactly?”
He hesitated, taking a sip from his glass and handing me mine. “With a spell. There are different methods, but it requires a great deal of power. It’s not something the average person can achieve without help. It’s usually only performed as a punishment to banish witches who have committed horrible crimes.”
I took a sip, and before I could respond, Daelon spoke again.
“I’ll show you sometime.” Something in his eyes needed to reassure me, but of what, I couldn’t tell. I thought it might’ve been about seeing my friends again. Or maybe he was still concerned I would think I was a prisoner here.
I offered a smile. “This is really good. So, you’ve been to France, then?” I gestured to the Bordeaux.
“Yes. I’m a fan.”
“My friends and I studied abroad there.” I smiled, remembering my time picnicking with them along the Seine and touring art museums.
I had many fond memories of traveling, but I’d refused to venture to any part of the United Kingdom or Ireland. Steph tried to convince me to visit my home village, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t walk the earth my mothers used to walk. I couldn’t hear the accents of my former neighbors, schoolteachers, and childhood friends. I couldn’t see those sloping hills dotted with sheep—the place that held so much magick and so much fear and pain. I resolved to stick to France and surrounding countries, doing very human things and exploring with my very human friends, pushing aside thoughts of the power—no, the witches—that stole my mothers.
It was still my instinct to blame myself for their death, but ever since my experience on that beach, I stopped myself. Regardless of whether or not they were merely a construct of my subconscious, what my mothers had told me was true. I had been using my guilt and shame as a way to distract myself from feeling all of my grief. It was a way for me to avoid accepting inevitability—the understanding that sometimes bad things couldn’t be stopped. I remembered their words on fate and a grand, cosmic story, urging me to have faith through the uncertainty. I wanted to believe I’d somehow made it to the great beyond in those moments, and thus had truly connected with my mothers again.
Next time I was on Earth, I would visit our little village in Northern Ireland. I would walk where my mothers walked and cry where I cried as a child. I would actually enact a proper ritual for their deaths, which was something else robbed from me by the nature of their passing and my thrust into the unknown streets of a foreign city.
“Áine,” Daelon said, pulling me from my reminiscing. “What are you thinking about?”
“My mothers,” I answered honestly. “I can’t stop thinking about seeing them.”
“When I…” he trailed off, and he pulled me to his chest, refusing to voice whatever thought came to his head. “What all did you see?”
I pulled back from him and sipped my wine. “I was on a beach. Actually, I think I was on that beach.” I pointed to the painting that hung against the living room wall. “The one I’ve used as a metaphor for my channeling. And I was dressed in white, as were my mothers, and many other people I didn’t recognize. It felt like they were my family—the coven my mothers belonged to—who helped them escape when those dark forces came for me when I was still in the womb.”
Daelon’s face was suspiciously impassive, but I thought I saw a flash of shock in his eyes.
“They were chanting, I think for my healing and protection. My mothers told me they loved me, and that I had friends where I least expected them. They told me to stop blaming myself for their deaths, and that there was a greater purpose for that tragedy and other events, too. It’s all connected in a way I can’t see yet, but will eventually,” I finished. Something made me want to stop talking about this aloud, like it was too intimate or sacred.
“Did they say anything else?” he asked, his eyes searching mine intently.
I found his reaction slightly off-putting. “No.”
“I’m glad you had that experience,” Daelon said. “I think we all long to see our loved ones again. I know I do.”
I remembered Daelon had a similar start to life, and I immediately softened my composure. I reached for his hand. “I’m not sure normal will ever really be an option for us, will it?”
He chuckled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “No, I don’t think it will.”
By the time the moon replaced the sun in the sky, Daelon and I had retreated under his duvet to beat the cold. Our night of normal was a relative success, but we knew it was a futile effort. There was far too much subtext to ignore. Unanswered questions and suppressed truths hung over us like a dark storm cloud. I felt it even now as I lay in his arms, but I tried to focus on the sound of his heartbeat instead. Its steady, rhythmic beating beneath my ear was soothing.
“Go to sleep,” he whispered.
“How did you know I wasn’t?”
“Because you just answered me,” he laughed softly.
He kissed the top of my head, and I rolled off of him and onto my side. It was colder over here. Almost immediately Daelon shifted to lay against my back, warmth radiating off his chest like my own personal spa
ce heater. Part of me almost didn’t want to sleep. Here in this quiet, this stillness, so close to someone who made me feel things I’d never felt before, I had a familiar desire creep up.
I wanted to pause time and stay in this moment forever. I wanted to avoid the truths my mothers instilled in me: everything changes, everyone grows old, everyone dies, and not even magick can stop the natural course of fate. I wanted to fight the idea they’d planted—that sometimes terrible things had to happen for a greater good.
I closed my eyes, resigned to commit every detail of this moment to memory. I focused on Daelon’s breathing, the comforting heat from his body, his arm around my waist, the near darkness except for the faint trickle of moonlight from the far windows, and the way my body tingled and my stomach lurched every time I thought of this afternoon.
I drifted off thinking about what Daelon wanted from me, and how much a part of me wanted to give him everything.
I was back on the beach with multicolored sand. The sky was a gorgeous shade of deep blue, and the water was tranquil and waves docile. I walked around in search of my mothers and the people in white, but I was alone.
A din of whispers started to rise from higher on the beach, over the dunes in the distance. I had never ventured onto the mainland, and the slopes were too high to see anything on the other side. I began to walk toward the soft voices, but as I moved closer my feet sunk deeper and deeper into the sand. When I reached the dunes, the sand was rising to my knees with each step. I couldn’t go further without becoming completely submerged.
The whispers swirled all around, as if coming from all different directions. Then they combusted with a screech that led into an eerie silence. If that wasn’t warning enough, a sudden change in the energetic environment raised the hair on the back of my neck.
I knew immediately who the intruder was.
The Discovered Page 13