I embrace him, and he shifts us so that my back is no longer touching the wall. Instead, his hands cradle my ass as he holds me upright on his cock and carries me into a beam of silver moonlight.
We stand in the middle of the garden, joined as intimately as two people can be joined. I look down upon his beautiful face, and though I say nothing, he somehow knows my thoughts.
“I would walk into the Shadow World for you,” he says. “I would fight armies and gods all alone and set fire to their world for you. Don’t you ever forget that.”
His words rattle something deep inside me, sending a shiver rippling down my spine. The devotion and promise that drenches each syllable is so real and true that it almost hurts my heart. Because I know he would do all those things, and I’m not sure the world would ever recover if he did.
With that, I kiss him once more, letting the delicious taste of him saturate my senses, and we begin moving in a rhythm all our own. He thrusts, delving deep as I ride, pleasure skittering over my skin like a breeze.
But then I feel it, the throbbing orgasm rising inside him, filling the long, thick column of his cock, threatening to erupt. He buries his head in the crook of my shoulder with a groan, his fingers digging into my flesh, his mouth latching onto my throat as I dig my fingernails into the bunched muscles of his wide back.
I’m ready to shatter as well, my breaths coming in pants as Alexus scrapes his teeth across my skin, as though he could devour me whole.
“Mine,” he groans again, taking me in long, hard thrusts. “Have you any idea what I feel for you?”
Tears prick my eyes as my release builds in time with his. The earth trembles and the wind off the sea rises over the garden wall as though summoned, rushing like a howling gale. It catches Alexus’s cries and the roar of my name and swiftly carries them away across Malgros.
We both fracture and careen through darkness like stars falling from the night sky. Whatever this power is—our magick and our bond together—it envelops us and fills us with the most genuine and pure pleasure, so genuine and pure that I know he feels it too. It’s all-consuming, stilling time itself, chasing away everything except what we feel for one another.
At some point, we return to ourselves, ever so slowly, and I find that we’re now lying in a naked heap on the grass, limbs tangled and shaking, lungs gasping, hands clutching.
Alexus takes my face in his hand, his eyes soft. “You are where I belong, Raina Bloodgood. Every bit of me. My body. My heart. My soul. I’m yours. Forever. Until the mountains crumble into the sea.”
Before he gathers our clothes and sweeps me up to carry me to the lighthouse for a long night together, he kisses me. A lingering kiss. One that has no care for time or place, no worry that someone might happen upon us. No worry for anything.
And I let him. I return that kiss with passion, trying with all that I am to show him that I feel the same.
Because if I’m not mistaken, I think Alexus Thibault just told me that he loves me.
The Jade River
From City of Ruin
Helena & Rhonin’s First Time
1
HELENA
“Of all the things I imagined happening tonight,” Rhonin says, “seeing you without a single stitch of clothing wasn’t anywhere on the list.”
I can’t help but smile. “Not even in your dreams?”
He’s still waist deep in the water I warmed near the riverbank, his eyes locked on me as I stand in a clearing between two stretches of thick scrub, squeezing water from my hair. It’s fuckingcoldin the desert at night, my pebbled skin and nipples proof of that.
Thanks to a little fire magick, we built three fires before we cleaned up, placing them in the shape of a triangle, creating enough heat to surround us after bathing so we could dry out in comfort. The flames burn warm at my back, illuminating the small beach.
And me.
“Oh, I wasn’t sure if dreams counted,” he says. “You are always unclothed in my dreams.Always. But seeing the real thing… Well. It is, by far, superior.”
Still smiling, I bend over, reaching for the pack I managed to bring with us through Raina’s abyss and retrieve a blanket. Warmth envelopes me as I wrap the wool around my body before facing Rhonin once again.
I should probably feel embarrassed—he’s just seen every last inch of me. I’ve never been one for modesty, though, unlike a certain red-haired gentleman.
Darkness shadows his face too much for me to discern his expression, but if I were a betting woman, I’d say his cheeks just burned through seven shades of red. He’d blushed so brightly when I kissed him at the inn in Itunnan. We’d had a room to ourselves, and I suppose I thought things between us might go further than a first kiss. He was so gentle with me. Almost timid. His touches and kisses had been the tenderest explorations that left me wanting and needing so much more. But when I’d slid my hands downward, he’d stopped me and held me close instead, making me wonder if he really wanted me at all. I swore he did, but I decided he just wasn’t ready.
We drifted to sleep that night in one another’s arms, overtaken by exhaustion by all that had happened in the city. Though being close like that was nice, and I’d take sleeping anytime over nothing when it comes to Rhonin, I hope tonight doesn’t end the same way.
