And he still doesn’t flinch or pull away.
“Grandmera,” he says. “We talked for quite a while this afternoon about how you struggle to just exist. Well”—he presses his lips to the dip at the base of her throat—“she talked. I mostly listened.” He trails more kisses along her shoulder, pulling aside the sodden strap of her gown.
He’s so solid in such a human way. Her threads of water magic follow every contour of his frame, giving rise to the heat flowing from her into the water surrounding them.
He feels so perfect. So right. Every part of him begging her to touch him. To experience him in every way. To learn what makes his own heat build.
“Grandmera said you can feel with your water magic,” he says through halting breaths. “Is that what you’re doing to me now?” He hisses and buries his face against her shoulder. “Stars above, Elowyn.”
She pulls back on her magic, and they crash to the smooth pebbles below as he lifts his eyes to stare at her.
“I didn’t want you to stop,” he says softly.
“Oh.”
“But, love”—he traces a finger along her collarbone with just enough pressure that the touch awakens her desire rather than tickling her—“maybe slow down a bit.” Then he leans near her ear. “I’m only human.”
His words draw out her smile, and he kisses her again as he lies in a sodden heap half-draped over her, his weight pressing her into the smooth pebbles beneath them.
“Just exist,” he whispers against her lips as the notes of his piano continue to serenade them.
She lets go of her magic again, and the swell of heated water wraps around them once more. Rominy’s hand on her leg sends shivers racing to her toes, and when he gently pulls her soaked gown up and over her head, her heart pounds to match his. He could have wished it away, but he didn’t. Something about the physical act of him helping her out of it awakens a burning fire deep within, and her aching need for him grows.
But she doesn’t hurry him as he runs his hands and lips over every part of her.
Memories of their twilight swim fill her, but this is so much more.
Because he’s seen her heart so much more clearly since those first heated moments together. He’s seen her fears. Her weaknesses. Her vulnerabilities.
And he exists with her there, in the hard moments when her world feels so small. So stifling.
And somehow it doesn’t matter. None of it matters as he pushes her to simply be here in this moment with him.
To just exist.
To make this moment last forever.
They were unhurried in their pool in the twilight, but not like this. Not with Rominy intent on sending fire shooting through every inch of her flesh.
She reaches for the hem of his own shirt, and he shrugs out of it for her before whispering, “I want to feel your magic washing over me.”
He looks into her eyes, and she frames his face with her hands, brushing his wet hair off his forehead.
And she lets threads of her water magic slide over his flesh once more. His breath hitches, but he doesn’t look away, and she doesn’t pull back.
Then he kisses her with a heat that scatters her thoughts, and she lets go of everything holding her back as her magic slides across his skin. The way he whimpers and groans and hisses whispered words she can’t make out feeds her own fire.
As natural as breathing. More like gulping for air while barely treading water. Her need for him is as consuming as her need for oxygen. Her water magic is out of control, fed by her fire in a swirling, heated wall of seawater surrounding them on every side.
“Don’t pull back,” he whispers. “Trust your magic the way I trust you.”
Her heart races along with his, and she takes a series of shallow breaths as she nods.
“There’s nothing but you and me, love. Let everything else fade away.” His voice catches a few times as he murmurs the words.
And they just exist in this never-ending moment, the passion between them chasing away thoughts ofeverything else. His hands on her. Threads of her magic on him. Nothing exists beyond his touch. His whispered words. His kisses and the way his body reacts to her magic and her hands trailing across his skin.
And as their bodies entwine, it becomes so much more.
