by MJ Prince
It doesn’t stop Raph from burning a hole into me all the way through class, though, as those impossibly blue eyes turn to study my profile more than just a few times. I can sense him trying to read me, but that’s the last thing I want.
When the bell rings, I grab my things hurriedly and head for the door without a second look back. I’m halfway down the hallway when I feel Raph’s hand closing around my arm. Dammit.
I school my face into a neutral expression as I turn slowly to face him. But his expression is nowhere near as calm. He looks confused and there’s something else mixed in there, too … hurt? But that doesn’t make sense because I can’t let myself believe that he’d actually be hurt by anything that I could do to him, regardless of all that he’s said to me.
“Is … is something wrong, Jaz?” he asks tentatively, searching my face.
I work to keep him from seeing anything in it which might give me away.
“No, no—of course not,” I reply. “I’ve just got a really busy day today,” I add quickly.
He searches my face for another moment and he looks like he might try to push the subject, but nods slightly instead.
“Okay,” he says finally.
“You coming to lunch?” he asks, looking at me expectantly.
“No—I have to drop some books off at the library, then see my art professor before next period,” I lie again.
I don’t give Raph a chance to object, as I turn on my heel and walk away, practically running from him.
I avoid him for the rest of the day. I ignore his confused looks, which turn into concern and then finally anger. I ignore the impulse to throw myself into his arms and kiss him in front of the entire class, so that everyone here knows that he’s mine. I tell myself that the impulse is a crazy one, because of course, he’s not mine and nor will he ever be mine. I need to accept that and forget everything that happened this weekend and I need to do it fast.
27
Sovereign Hall is as still as a tomb when I get in after class. I know that Raph usually has soccer practice on Monday afternoons, so I’m safe for another few hours. I don’t want to think about what’s going to happen when he gets home, when he knocks on my door tonight.
Needing to work off the agitation that has been building inside me all day, I dig around in my wardrobe for my swimwear, feeling like a few laps in the pool should do the trick. Unfortunately, other than my now replaced Regency issued black one piece, my swimwear consists only of bikinis. I grab the first pair that I see—red and nicely cut. Not that it matters, because there’s no one home to see anyway.
The water in the heated pool feels amazing against my tense muscles and I feel the tension slipping away with each lap. I’m probably on my fifth lap when I notice someone standing over the far edge of the pool.
My stomach sinks when I realize it’s Raph, and at the same time, my heart speeds up, as I take in the sight of him. The soft pool lights reflect against his golden skin and every inch of him is ripped like a dream. My mind plays unwanted images in my head of the sight of that powerfully muscled body above mine, the feel of his rock hard chest crushed against my breasts and I’m glad I’m submerged in water, otherwise I think my skin will burst into flames.
The look in Raph’s eyes makes me still completely. Those midnight blue eyes are clouded over and pissed, very pissed.
“Hi,” I say lamely.
“Care to explain why you’ve been avoiding me all day?” he asks, crossing his arms over his ridiculously chiseled chest in a way that makes his arm muscles bulge.
For a moment, I consider trying to deny it. But then I realize it’s no use. One, because he’s clearly not going to believe me and two, because it’s probably better for us to get this out of the way now, so that we can go back to, well whatever it was we were before all that happened between us this past weekend.
“I don’t think this is such a good idea,” I say finally, still feeling totally lame because the words are a total understatement. Raph had been right that day in the forest when he said this was a mistake. He’d been right to try to stop it. It was my fault for pushing him, for making him tell me what he was wise enough to know could never matter.
But his face just tells me that he doesn’t agree with that at all.
He doesn’t say anything, though, diving cleanly into the pool instead. He surfaces after a moment and I can feel my body tensing as he swims towards me.
He stops a few inches in front of me and the closeness is not doing great things for my self-control.
“Is that so?” he ask finally, quirking an eyebrow.
I force myself to swallow.
“Yeah, it is. I mean—I think you had the right idea about this being a mistake. Because—you know nothing can ever come of this. So, maybe we should just stop now before things get—”
He cuts me off then as his head dips and his lips make contact with the side of my throat. I think I let out a moan as he trails those open mouthed kisses along my neck which drive me insane with need and make my skin come alive at the same time.
My hands grab onto his shoulders instinctively, my fingers digging into his skin as he licks and sucks at the sensitive spot where my pulse is hammering beneath the surface.
“The only mistake was not doing this the first moment I saw you on that damned beach.” He speaks the words against my skin and I shiver at the sensation it causes.
When he pulls away, his eyes blaze into mine and the hunger inside me is reflected in them.
Still, I try to hold onto the resolve that’s fast slipping away.
“Raph … I’ve never … I don’t do this …” My words are as incoherent as my thoughts. But Raph hears them.
He cups my cheek with his hand and the hunger blazing in his eyes turns into something deeper, a different type of fire, with the ability to incinerate my entire universe, if I let it.
“I know, Jaz.”
I let out a long breath then.
“You can have any girl you want and I know what you’re used to … I can’t measure up to that and I can’t let myself do this, when I know there are other—”
He cuts me off. “You have no idea, Jaz. I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you. I’ve been with other girls, yes. But none of them ever meant anything to me. I don’t even think I really wanted them. I just wanted to distract myself, I was just trying to find something to fill the void. But none of them ever could.”
He drops his gaze and shakes his head almost ruefully.
“I guess I was just searching for something, although I had no idea what until you came along.”
His words leave me breathless and when his impossibly blue eyes lock onto mine again, I think I stop breathing altogether.
“I don’t know how I know this, but I’m certain that I’ll never want anyone the way I want you. No other girl can even come close, Jaz. Not one.”
Those words floor me and I can feel the last of my resistance being burned away under the intensity of his gaze.
“We can’t,” I say again in a last attempt to hold onto reason, but I hear the weakness in my own words.
“This—it’s wrong. You were right—we can’t want each other like this.”
“We can’t,” he replies, drawing even closer, until his bare chest is pressed up against my breasts, with only the thin material of my bikini top separating us.
“But we do.”
I back away from him in an attempt to distance myself from that all-consuming fire, but he follows me until my back hits the tile of the pool wall and there’s nowhere else for me to go.
“Do you want me, Jaz?” he whispers, as he trails featherlight kisses along the outer shell of my ear, along my jaw line.
I clamp my lips shut to stop myself from answering, because I know the answer won’t be the right one.
Beneath the waterline, I feel his hands move from my waist, down to my hip and further still until he’s cupping the most intimate part of me, the part that he and he alone no
w knows only too well. His free hand closes around one of my thighs and I think I stop breathing when he hitches that thigh higher so that my leg curls around his waist.
All thoughts sweep out of my mind and I feel like I’m coming out of my skin as those skillful fingers draw aside my bikini and thrust inside me. My back arches against the tiled wall at the sensation and I cry out his name at the same time as he groans into my neck.
He repeats the question again, this time with his fingers buried deep inside me.
“Do you want me, Jaz?”
“Yes,” I gasp out before I can stop myself, because who the hell am I fooling. I do want him, I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my entire life. More than could possibly be right, more than could ever make sense.
I feel his lips curve against the corner of my lips and he nips my bottom lip with his teeth before his mouth crashes into mine. There’s not a single protest left in me as his fingers move inside me at the same rhythm as his tongue moves against mine. Distantly, I’m aware that we’re in the glass-walled natatorium; anyone could walk in and see us. Hell, they don’t even have to walk in because the show would be visible through the glass walls. But I’m too far gone to care. Way too far gone. And there’s something wickedly thrilling about the prospect. I’m surprised at myself for the thrill, but then again, Raph awakens parts of me that I hadn’t even known existed. He told me once that I had turned his world upside down, but he was wrong—it’s he who has turned mine, making it come alive in a way that makes me sure I wasn’t really living before I met him. The thought is a frightening one, because I don’t know how I can ever give that up, how I can ever give him up.
“God, Jaz, you feel so good, it’s almost unreal.” He groans against the skin at the base of my throat. He lifts his head and locks his gaze onto mine. The heat in those eyes, the hunger burning in them as he watches me slipping closer and closer to the edge, undoes me and when I finally fall off it, he devours the sound of his name coming from my lips. My inner muscles, my whole universe contracts around him and Raph lets out a tortured groan. He curses and a shudder rolls through his body as mine shakes with release. “Fuck, baby, that feels so hot. You’re as tight as a dream.”
Like the other times before, he holds me to him as I piece myself back together. But this time, I want him to come apart, too.
I move so that his back is to the tiled wall now and a few inches to the left, so that he’s up against the tiled bench just above the waterline.
“Do you want me?” I ask him the same question, and the responding hunger in his kiss should be answer enough. But I want more.
“Do you?” I ask again.
He presses his forehead against mine and his breathless answer takes my own breath away.
“I want you so much, Jaz, I think I’m losing my mind. I want you more than I want my next breath.”
“Then show me how much you want me,” I say, feeling brazen and reckless because the way that he just made me come apart, just seems to have stripped away the last of my inhibition.
He understands what I mean and the answering heat in his gaze makes it difficult for me to remember that I’m trying to make him come apart and not the other way around.
With one swift motion, he lifts himself onto the tiled bench and guides my hand beneath the waistband of his swim shorts to find him all too ready for me.
My fingers close around his hard length, and as he eases his swim shorts down, I hear my own breath hitch at the sight of him. My mouth goes dry for a second because I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing is real. He smirks at my expression and that spurs me into action.
I have no experience in this whatsoever. But Raph knows that, too, so he guides my hand along his length, once, twice. His hips twitch with each pass and the pleasure in his face, along with the groan that rumbles from somewhere deep in the back of his throat, is the hottest thing I think I’ve ever seen.
He doesn’t have to guide me when I lower my lips to the tip of him, as my hand closes around the base.
He curses as my lips make contact, and I can feel the shudder rolling through his body as my head dips lower, until the tip of him hits the back of my throat. He’s too big for me to take the full length, but the sounds he makes with each pass of my mouth along his length tells me that it doesn’t matter.
His hand cups my cheek for a second in a tender gesture which makes my chest tighten, and when his fingers touch the edges of my lips which are curled around him, his eyes darken with an emotion that steals my breath.
“You’re so goddamn beautiful like this, Jaz.” His voice is hoarse, husky in a way that sends delicious shivers down my spine.
His hand finds its way into my hair then, gripping onto the wet strands as he guides my head over his length. The tugging sensation against my scalp causes shivers to race through my spine and when his hips begin to thrust upwards to meet my strokes, I think I lose all coherent thought.
I look up at his face as I work him closer to the edge and what I find is a look of pure male ecstasy. His head is thrown back against the tile wall, his lips parted as he watches me taking him deeper into my mouth. Our gazes lock and I don’t think I’ve been more turned on in my entire life. The pure need in Raph’s gaze, the sounds he’s making and the way that his powerful body trembles under my touch, makes me feel undeniably powerful, like I could get him to do just about anything right now, every inch of him at my mercy.
I let out a moan which vibrates against him, and his eyes cloud over with an even deeper desire. He thrusts even deeper and he lets out another groan. His skin is glowing in the dim light and it feels like he’s going to burst into flame at any minute.
“Jaz, I’m close … god, baby—” His voice is so guttural, that I barely recognize it just then.
He tries to move my head away but I don’t let him. I want to feel him come apart inside me, and a second later, he does. His large body shudders and quakes as the release hits him, and the feeling of his hand gripping tighter against my scalp as he pulses in my mouth is intoxicating.
He lifts me clean out of the water then and positions me so that I’m straddling him. He surprises me when he pulls my head down to his, his lips claiming mine, even though I still have the taste of him in my mouth. He doesn’t seem to care, though, as his tongue spears into me and he kisses me until we’re both breathless, until neither of us can ever again deny how much we want each other.
28
“Where are we going?” I ask Raph, a few days later, as we walk out of last period physics.
It’s late afternoon, but overhead, the sun is already sinking low in the horizon. The shorter days signal the shift from autumn to winter and I can’t quite believe that I’ve managed to survive an entire season at Regency.
Raph takes my hand in his and as we walk hand in hand through the campus grounds, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, it hits me how surreal all of this is. If someone had told me at the beginning of the semester that this is how we’d end up, I would’ve laughed my ass off. After telling them to screw off, that is.
“I was thinking that we should start up your elements training again,” he replies, as we head further away from the main campus buildings and towards the training fields.
After that almost kiss in the forest and everything that happened since, needless to say, elements training with Raph had been out of the question.
I nod in agreement as we finally reach the vast training field.
Raph drops his backpack down on the grass at the edge of the field and I follow suit. He turns to me with a thoughtful expression, as if debating something in his mind.
“I’m thinking that maybe we should try something different,” he says finally.
“Okay …” I reply, although I’m not sure what he means.
I follow him to the center of the field and I expect him to run through the usual routine of talking me through how to connect with the elements. Instead, he stands facing me, as if we�
�re about to duel.
His next words confirm that’s exactly what he’s proposing and I can feel my body bristling in alarm. It’s one thing to face off against Layla but dueling with Raph is an entirely different ball game.
“I’m not so sure this is such a good idea …” I begin to say.
He flashes me that arrogant smile in response, which never fails to irritate the life out of me, even now.
“You scared, Jaz?” he asks.
Bastard. The challenge in his tone is clear and he knows me well enough to know that I’m not one to back down from a challenge. Especially not one from him.
“No,” I reply curtly. “I just don’t think it would be a fair match.”
His gaze softens then.
“The power that you unleashed in that duel with Layla? I’ve never seen anything like it, Jaz. I told you as much that day. You don’t need to be taught how to connect with the elements anymore; even I can see how deep that connection runs inside you. What you need now is to learn how to duel with it.”
I let out a long sigh then.
“What for? It’s not like I’ll ever have to fight in an actual duel. Unless you count the training duels in elements class,” I reply with a shrug.
In truth, I have no idea why students here even learn how to duel. I get why they need to learn how to use their elemental powers, but even then, as Raph has told me before, the elements usually run just fine on their own, unless there’s some kind of imbalance which requires the Seraph to step in. This dueling thing seems to be a hangover from a previous age. An odd tradition referred to in the pages of my Eden history textbook.
But something in Raph’s expression makes me wonder.
“You never know when it might come in useful,” is his only reply. His eyes are unreadable, but I feel a slither of discomfort nonetheless.
I don’t get the opportunity to respond, though, as he turns and heads to his end of the field.
I guess that means we’re dueling then.