Crush (Elemental Hearts, #3)

by Morgan, Jayelle

  He’d sought solitude for so long. Still did, sometimes. But this was what he’d been looking for, something even solitude couldn’t give him.

  Peace.

  Even with the war and fighting and tragedies and the world still gradually falling to Chaos... he could find peace with Jade in his arms. And though he still hurt over Tokoni's death, the deaths of others in the decades since... he could be happy at the same time. It was a marvel, a gift.

  Companionship was more healing than seclusion.

  That went for the other Warriors and their families, too. He enjoyed spending time with them, getting to know them better. He considered them his family, his tribe. The new Warriors, not so much. But Levi and Brooke and baby Seraphina, Ajax and Emory and baby Jackson. Even Walker, though they’d had a shift in roles between them. Now it seemed like Walker was the one withdrawing. But he understood why; the time and circumstances had to be just right for him to find healing. Walker’s time would come.

  Micah didn’t know how he knew that, but he did.

  In the meantime, he was getting his chance at happiness, and he wouldn’t waste it. As recent events had taught him to do, he was going to share it.

  Micah leaned forward to murmur to Jade. “I have a gift for you.”

  “You do?”

  Jade looked back at him with a smile while she rubbed her hands together. “What is it?”

  “Turn around. Don’t look.”

  She gave him a puzzled smile but did what he asked.

  Micah slowly took the pendant out of his pocket, concealed in his wide palm. He allowed it to drop from his hand, the cord keeping it from falling to the ground.

  He pressed himself closer to her back and moved her hair to the side off her neck. Lips at her ear, he said, “No peeking.”

  Jade’s shiver at his words was satisfying and she huffed, but she closed her eyes like he knew she would. She liked surprises.

  He reached around her with both hands and drew the necklace up her neck, tying it. He would have put it on a fine chain, but it wouldn’t have been practical when she was mining. That’s why she never wore jewelry, she’d told him once. Impractical, too easy to break or lose. But he wanted her to wear this, always.

  “You can look now,” he said, Jade still facing away from him.

  She looked down and inhaled sharply. “Oh my god, it’s beautiful.” Crystal in her hand, eyes wide, she swiveled to face him. She held the crystal up to the light, gasping when she saw the rainbows dancing over it, inside it. “What is it? I don’t recognize the mineral.”

  “No, you wouldn’t recognize it.” He smiled.

  She raised her brows at him, waiting, glancing between him and the pendant.

  “I made it,” he said simply.

  “You—” Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened in understanding. “You made it.”

  He nodded. It was born of his Earth powers and his love for her, carefully crafted over many weeks this winter, deep in the bowels of the earth in a nursery of heat and pressure.

  She put a hand to her chest, awe all over her face. “That’s the most amazing thing in the universe.”

  Micah shrugged, but he was pleased with her obvious joy and wonderment. When she looked at him again, her green eyes were glimmering, shiny. Full of all that same awe and delight.

  She threw herself at him and he caught her, pulled her into his lap as she kissed his face, interjecting words between them.

  “Thank you. It’s beautiful, amazing. You’re amazing. It’s the most beautiful thing in the entire world. I love it. I love you.”

  She kissed him again.

  He still wasn’t great with words. It was easier with her than it was with any of the others, but sometimes he still stayed silent when he should speak. He pulled back from her mouth. “This is so you know I love you even if I don’t say the words enough.”

  Her expression melted into another smile. Hand to the side of his face, she said, “I do love hearing it. But I know it, even if you don’t say it.”

  He would never stop telling her, in every way he could. So he pressed his lips to hers until she opened and let him in, their tongues stroking against each other as he rubbed his hands over her back.

  That quick, his hunger for her returned with stunning force. But when he pushed his hands under her jacket, seeking her skin, she yelped and pulled back.

  “It’s too cold here for that!” But she smiled and kissed him again, lips skimming over to his ear. “Let’s go back to base, where it’s warm enough to get naked,” she said, grinning.

  He rose quickly, wordlessly, Jade still in one arm, bending down to grab their packs in the other. He started walking down the trail, her legs dangling above the ground, her laughter echoing over the mountainside. She finally tapped his chest with her fist. “Put me down, you brute,” she said, humor in her voice. “It’ll be faster.”

  He grinned and lowered her to her feet with a quick kiss, and grabbed her hand. He led her down the trail, smoothed and evened out by his powers, to his SUV.

  They drove to base in comfortable silence, Jade’s hand in his, nothing but warm smiles and hot looks between them.

  When they made it to his suite without interruption, he shut the door and dropped the packs at his feet, pulling Jade into his arms. Their lips met and her hands lifted to grip his hair as his now-warm hand dove under her clothes. As they kissed, he undid the buttons of her flannel. He swept her shirt off her shoulders and then stepped back and pulled his own over his head. She’d been busy undoing his belt and his fly while they kissed, but his boots had to come off before his pants could. Same with her. So he backed them up to the bed and they sat together, undoing laces and pulling off clothes.

  He finished before she did, so he grabbed her feet as he stood, tipping her back onto the bed. He finished unlacing the last boot and tossed it to the floor, and then slowly drew off her jeans, stroking her legs as he revealed each inch of lovely skin.

  She lay on his bed, hair splayed on the sheets, eyes dark and languorous, lips swollen. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, the most beautiful thing he’d ever touched. He crawled on the bed and lay at her side.

  Jade’s eyes were curious, but she was patient. Starting at her cheek, he stroked over the soft skin of her face, her lips, her neck. And then down, across her shoulders, her breasts, her ribs, caressing each inch. Her stomach clenched as his fingers went lower, across her abdomen, to her hips, down her thighs, and up again.

  Her eyes shut and her mouth opened on a breath when he stroked across the delicate, damp cloth between her legs. He drew the scrap off cloth off of her and then his lips took the journey his fingers had made, Jade grabbing the sheets and arching her back when he got to the end and stayed there. Her breaths turned to gasps and then to moans, and then to cries, as he showed her he loved her with his mouth. But not with words. He’d always been best at things he could do without speaking.

  ‘I love you’ was by far the easiest thing for him to say to her, but he still didn’t say it enough. Couldn’t say it enough, and the words weren’t sufficient. So he would tell her every way he could, every chance he got. He’d tell her with words, and gifts, and smiles, and with his body.

  When Jade was limp in his hands, he pulled himself up over her. He wrapped his arms around her and pushed into her, losing himself in the almost painful pleasure of touching and kissing her. Of loving her, and being loved by her.

  He was glad he’d waited for Jade. No other woman along the way compared to her. No physical union could come close to what they had; a merging of bodies and souls. She was perfect, and she was his. He could feel the vibration of every one of her crystals in the room around them, the gem he’d placed around her neck, but none more so than the woman in his arms.

  Thank you, he whispered in his mind to the Earth as he kissed down her shoulder, the two of them moving together.

  A feeling of joy was whispered back to him. Not just his joy, but reflections of it; t
he joy of Jade, her happiness, and love. And the joy of the Earth.

  When she came apart in his arms, her body shook from the pleasure, and the feeling of it, the sounds of it, sent him over the edge, too. When he came, it was with a groan into her neck and pleasure so intense, his body quaked.

  With his first calm breath, he noticed that Jade was still trebling. So too was their bed, their room. Seemingly the whole base vibrated around them.

  “Oh no,” she said as the shaking slowly subsided.

  Jade’s shocked face was right below his, and she brought her hand up to cover her mouth, mirth in her eyes though her cheeks were reddening with embarrassment. “That was us,” she said from behind her hand.

  Micah felt a smile starting. It had been them. Her power leaking from the force of her emotions, added to his, had combined to make the ground beneath the base shake. Which meant probably everyone there knew what had just happened. Ajax would likely mention it the next chance he got, but he didn’t care.

  Not one bit.

  His life was full of happiness and laughter and kissing and love, now. What a change from how it had been. He didn’t mind if everyone knew how deliriously happy he was with Jade from the two of them shaking the earth. It was kind of funny, actually. He laughed and kissed her on the forehead.

  And then he laughed some more, Jade’s embarrassed giggles making him laugh harder, louder, until the halls of the base were echoing with a sound none of the other occupants there had ever heard.

  Micah, laughing with joy.

  If you enjoyed CRUSH, please consider leaving a review and letting other readers know!

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  Other books in this series:

  BURN: Book 1

  RISE: Book 2

  CRUSH: Book 3 (what you just read!)

  BLOOM: Book 4 - Coming soon!

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  Turn the page for an exclusive look at Book 4, BLOOM, Rowan’s story!

  COMING SOON: BLOOM, Book 4 in the Elemental Hearts Series!

  UNTIL NOW, FIRE ELEMENTAL Tansy has only known a life of servitude in the kitchens. Her abilities are weak, too weak to be any use in the war against Chaos, but she can sure make a mean spaghetti. If only she could get handsome, aloof warrior Rowan to taste her... cooking.

  Rowan is a Botanical Elemental, which sounds great, except he doesn’t feel very powerful, or useful. When disaster befalls the lovely cook and he can’t save her, he begins to seriously doubt his place among the other warriors. If only he could use his powers all the time, but it seems the only way to do that is to... fall in love.

  Rowan must learn whose acceptance matters most, while Tansy learns that her powers can be used for more than just kitchen magic.

  BLOOM

  TANSY UNPACKED HER farmer’s market haul on the wide island in the kitchen. So many colors and textures and scents. She picked a tomato and pressed her nose to the soft red flesh, inhaling the spicy, sweet grass scent. The smell of ripe tomatoes represented the big change her life had gone through. An Auxiliary Elemental, her powers were weak, her body weaker. She and others of her kind were the working class here on Earth to support the Warriors, the ones who fought the universal war against Chaos. Her assigned duties were in the kitchen at the training base, cooking and creating the energy bars the Warriors ate to sustain the caloric needs of their powers.

  Doing the same steps, every day. Using the same ingredients. Endless days of monotony and sweating and stirring pots and dying inside.

  Until Walker came. Delicately, diplomatically, he’d offered her a job. Keeping the secret of the humans living here from the Premiers was a small price to pay for freedom, for deliverance. For creativity and joy and contentment. For fresh tomatoes.

  She had a little bit of hero worship toward him for that, but getting the position was mostly a fluke of timing. She’d needed to escape the Silverthorne base and Walker needed a head cook here in Topaz Ridge. Head cook would never have been a possibility in her own base, and her roommate and best friend, and her new Warrior lover needed some space.

  She missed her friend Shaye, but they talked often and it sounded like she was deliriously happy now. And Tansy was pretty darn happy herself. Walker gave her money to buy anything she needed to get the kitchen ready, plus a weekly stipend for supplies and food. Plus a salary for herself, which was unheard of for Auxiliaries. They were just supposed to accept food and shelter and necessities in exchange for the honor of serving the Warriors. And Tansy had, for a while. But it hadn’t been long before there’d been a yearning inside for something more.

  And now she had everything ‘more’ she’d wanted.

  Tansy smiled as she stirred the pot of pasta sauce on the huge gas range. Her own recipe, and it smelled great. She sat the plastic spoon down on the stove-top as her timer dinged for her to drain the pasta. She hummed as she took two pot holders and grabbed the large pot by the handles, pouring the noodles into the colander in the sink to drain them.

  As she shook out the last few clinging to the bottom, a new scent tickled her nose over the smell of tomatoes and herbs and pasta. A sharp, scorched smell that made her wrinkle her nose.

  Burning plastic.

  What the—

  She slammed the pot down and flashed over to the stove, moving the plastic spoon she’d placed on it, too close to the burner where the sauce was cooking.

  Well, that was a loss. The big plastic utensil looked like something had taken a bite of it, the rest stuck to the side of the pan with a thin, black thread of smoke coming off it.

  Stupid. She should have used a wooden spoon. Or simply not sat the spoon there by the burner. She should’ve been paying better attention. As much as she loved cooking, sometimes she still wasn’t very good at it.

  But she would get better.

  With a deep breath, she turned off the flame and grabbed a clean pan. As she was about to pour the sauce into the it to continue simmering, someone ran in behind her yelling, “Where are they? How did they get inside?”

  She looked behind her and there was Rowan, the Botanical Warrior, small ornate hatchets in each hand. Soaking wet... and wearing nothing but a towel.

  Tansy slopped a little sauce on the stove and sat everything down to try again in a minute when she could concentrate.

  “Where are who?”, she asked, turning to him, forcing her eyes to stay above his chest. His defined, muscular, glistening wet chest. “How did who... what?”

  Concentrate, Tansy.

  “The Chaolt,” Rowan said, turning and backing toward her, hunched and wielding his hatchets in a protective pose. Well, at least it was easier to keep her eyes off his chest. But the white towel clung damply to a firm set of butt-cheeks shaped like two small hams, below a long back rippling with tensed muscles.

  “Um. What?”

  A bright pair of green-hazel eyes flashed back her way. “The Chaolt,” Rowan growled, his accent thicker with exasperation. “Where are they? Don’t you smell them?”

  Oh.

  Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. The damn spoon.

  “Um, Rowan, there’s no Chaolt.” She stepped toward the stove and held up the decimated plastic spoon. “I was cooking and I accidentally set this too close to the flame. It burned.”

  He dropped his hatchets to his side and stood, facing her, looking from her to the poor spoon.

  “No Chaolt,” she repeated, cheeks heating. Just her incompetence.

  He stared at her as he lifted his chin and sniffed the air. The odor was already fading behind the scent of rosemary and basil and garlic. “I thought it was odd that I couldn’t sense them. Didn’t have the buzz.”

  The buzz was a kind of clanging, blending, buzzing sensation in the brain of Elementals when
the enemy, the Chaolt, were close. All Elementals felt it, but it was supposedly stronger for the Warriors.

  She sat the spoon behind her on the counter and leaned against it avoiding his eyes, suddenly self-conscious. “Nope. Just a kitchen mishap.”

  What if there had been a fight? Rowan would have fought the Chaolt in a towel?

  She smiled a little bit. Only a Warrior would jump out of the shower to attack the enemy, to protect the innocent, unclothed. Because the towel truly couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds.

  “What it is you’re doing here?”

  He’d turned to look at the island covered with fruits and vegetables, all in various stages of preparation.

  “I’m cooking.”

  “Your food is made with this?” he asked with a side-eye in her direction, motioning to the island.

  “Yes.” She was prepping all the food for the week, peeling and chopping and packaging it to use quickly later on. She picked up a cucumber. “Are you hungry? Would you like something?”

  She’d been cooking for the humans and their Warrior mates for a couple of months, but some of the Warriors were still hold-outs and ate only the energy bars. She tried not to take it personally. They literally didn’t know what they were missing. Rowan was one of them.

  But Rowan shook his head and took a step back from the island. Then another.

  Why?

  She licked her lips, trying to think of something to say. “I’d be happy to make you something. Anything you want to try,” she said, gesturing with the cucumber.

  “No,” he said with what looked like a tight swallow and a direct stare. “I’m good.”

  He backed away another step, apparently now aware he was only wearing a towel, because he was struggling to hold the knot with a hatchet in each hand.

  “Are you sure? I’ve got—”

  “No.” He shook his head again, a few water droplets falling to his shoulders. “No. I have to go,” he said, turning away.