Raina grips the bench behind her with one hand and runs the fingers of the other through my hair, studying my face with a rumpled brow. I see her silent question, and it reminds me how much I love that I’ve learned her so well.
“I’m beginning to understand who deserves my bent knee and who does not,” I explain. “But even if you were to cast me away, I would still want this.”
She opens her legs a little wider, curves her hips upward, her dainty feet on tiptoe. It’s an encouraging invitation seeing her spread for me like this, one I would never deny. I kiss a hot trail up one leg, taking in the floral scent on her skin, the chills left behind by my stubble, until I reach that divine, pink slit, soaked and beckoning. She smells so good, a sweet musk, and she’s positioned perfectly for fucking or devouring. My mind can’t determine which my body needs most.
As much as I want my throbbing cock buried inside her, I draw out the agony a little further, pushing the crystal root-deep inside her instead. Raina gasps, her fingers tightening in my hair, just against my scalp.
Our gazes meet—her eyes are glazed with lust—and as though linked by some invisible mental connection, she tugs my head down, urging me to taste her, even as I’m already lowering my mouth to her core.
At the first touch of my tongue to her flesh, we’re both lost. If I could taste only one thing ever again, it would be her. I want to drown in her, to fall in and never come out.
I give in to the natural dance, the assault and retreat of the cock in my hand matched by the flicking of my tongue against her clit. I fasten my mouth on her, working that little bud, deciding that perhaps we will both come more than once tonight. We have to. Because Imusttaste her.Mustlap up every drop of her pleasure.
Raina falls back to her elbows, panting. She’s so beautiful, even outside of this moment. Even when she’s working in the library in her tunic and breeches, her hair pulled back in that severe bun. But here? Now? Naked and in the throes of passion?
She’s utterly resplendent.
With my mouth still latched to her clit, I give her a wink and send a command to the magick cast within the crystal, all while sending a trickle of my power through my tongue. Raina’s hand darts out and grips my shoulder.
That’s the only warning before she comes. It’s instantaneous, as though all I’ll ever need to do if I want her like this is lick her with a little magick.
Feeling like I might come myself, I watch as she writhes, her head thrown back, her hips rolling her pussy over and over the crystal as my mouth plays. But soon, she comes down off the high of orgasm, both our movements slowing, until I remove the crystal, suck her release off the tip, and cast it aside.
Her eyes darken as I gently draw patterns on her wet lips with my tongue, tasting her, dipping inside for a feast. I look up, over the softness of her belly to the mounds of her breasts, her skin illuminated by golden candlelight.
I focus on her face, all that dark hair cascading to the floor. I’m ready to carry her to bed, to sink deep into her warmth and fuck all night, to whisper all the things I’ve wanted to say for so long.
I care for you. I want to love you. Teach me how.
But the image morphs. The golden light drenching the room blurs to a dark, white world.
And I wake up.
I blinkthrough the haze of a dream.
I don’t remember much, only that the woman now lying in my arms, folded inside my cloak and blanket, was there as well.
But she was very naked. Much unlike our current situation.
Raina’s head is nestled firmly against my chest, her arms tight around my waist. I don’t recall when we met in our sleep, when she crawled into my reach, nor when our legs found their way to one another, tangling like the limbs of lovers. But I don’t mind waking like this, with her next to me. I do, however, mind that my cock is stiff as a marble hilt.
I lie still and will away my erection, but with every minuscule shift of her body against mine, it becomes a pointless fight. I can feel her heat where my thigh lies cradled between her legs, and her breasts are pressed firm to my ribs, our heartbeats so close.
The need to piss strikes, though, and my erection finally begins to soften, but not before I sense Raina waking. She goes rigid in my arms, only pressing closer to the very thing I was trying to hide.
“Good morning,” I say awkwardly, and she tenses harder, if that’s even possible. I can’t help but laugh under my breath that we’re in this predicament in the first place, and that neither of us knows how to get out of it. But I try. “Breathe, Raina. It’s all right. The world isn’t going to crumble because you touched me. A lot, I might add, but still.” I lower my head to her ear, unable to resist the urge to tease. “Also, you’re very warm, and I rather enjoyed your company if that’s not obvious, but now that you’re awake, could you please disentangle your legs from mine? If I don’t piss, we’re both going to be in trouble.”
She quickly jerks away and sits up, as if my skin is scalding. I know she’s embarrassed, but there’s little to be done for it now.
Before I head toward the wood, I fold my side of the blanket over her shoulder to save some of our heat. Again, an image strikes me, a remnant from the dream, of lowering the strap of her dressing slip over her bare shoulder.
It wasn’t real,I tell myself as I walk away from her, much as a part of me wishes it were. It was only a dream. Nothing else. In the oblivion of rest, my tired mind was granted a haven, and Raina stayed warm enough to sleep.
That’s all that matters.
But as I stare over the dark, white world beyond our camp, I’m reminded of words spoken to me many moons ago by an old friend:The universe conspires. If someone is meant to be in your life, Fate will find a way to place them there, as well as in your dreams, that you might recognize their essence when your paths finally cross. That you might understand something greater than you is saying, “Look. Listen. Pay attention. Here is your past. Your present. Your future.”
As I head back toward camp, I try to do all those things. To believe that Raina Bloodgood’s presence—even beyond the fact that she’s already saved my life—holds an even higher purpose for me.
