I felt a climax begin to build. As if he felt it, too, he backed off once more, blowing cool air across my overheated flesh.
The feather in my chest ached as he pressed his lips to it. “All along,” he whispered into my skin, his tongue tracing the edges. “You were here all along.” Then he lavished my nipples with attention, bringing me close to the edge of orgasm twice before he dropped lower.
His slow, intentional movements were driving me to madness. I whipped my head back and forth, wanting to beg him to go even lower, and opened my eyes to see Rumple staring at me. His horns glinted in the low light, and he had a hand on his long, ridged cock, pumping every bit as slowly as Gavriel was moving. His eyes were hungry, avid, as Gavriel finally reached the apex of my thighs and hummed, the vibrations traveling down into my clit.
I moved my thighs apart eagerly, and he began a maddeningly slow, circular route to reach my clit. I was pulsing with need, feeling as if I might spontaneously combust, when he finally drew it into his mouth and sucked gently.
“You’re killing me,” I managed to say, tears pricking my eyes for some reason. “Please. More, Gav.Please.”
He hummed again, moving his tongue around my clit as he sucked, like he was tasting every molecule, cataloging each particle of me.Patience, he thought, and went back to slow-motion work, his hands holding my thighs apart when I attempted to slam them shut in frustration. I found myselfholding my breath, trying to force the climax, but every time I did so, Gavriel backed off.
After what felt like an hour of torment, Gavriel stopped entirely and pulled back, smiling down at me. “Now you’re ready,” he said gently, his eyes molten blue and gold spirals that were vaguely hypnotic.
“What? Wha—” My words were cut off as he did so many things, so fast, and all at the same time, my mind couldn’t keep up.
Lifting himself up, he pressed the tip of his thick cock to my entrance, grasping my wings in his hands firmly but carefully. A spiral of energy from his center shot out, not toward my clit, but the mating feather on my chest. At the same time, he opened his mouth and sang a note I had never heard before. It was twelve tones, all at once, the sound coming from his mouth, his chest, even the air around him. There was a bubble of pure power, pure pleasure, that formed in between one heartbeat and the next.
Then it exploded.
The note he sang caused all the stored-up sensation he’d denied me to burst forth in a blaze of ecstasy. I arched up off the bed, tethered only by his hands and the strand of power that he’d flung out and into me, as an orgasm unlike anything I’d ever felt possessed my body. It spiraled up and kept building, like a whirlpool that had caught me. A hurricane, tearing me away from everything I had ever known about sexual pleasure, showing me a world where I could exist inside a climax. My body felt as if it were shredding into tiny, glittering shards of pure feeling, for so long that it didn’t feel like I’d ever existed in any other state.
He held the note as he fucked me, thrusting not only into my body with his cock, but penetrating my soul with the song he’d created.
It was bliss. Not an hour of delayed climax, but four centuries of it. He wrapped all his years of longing and all his wild-eyed, fierce joy at finally merging with his soulmate, into the song and the fucking, both of which grew more and more intense until I wasn’t sure if I was in danger of being unmade.
I wasn’t sure if I cared.
Across the room, I felt Rumple reach his peak, heard his soft laughter and cursing. Still coming, I reached up and held Gavriel’s cheek with one hand. I was beyond speech, but I sang back to him, harmonizing with his incredible voice, showing him that he was welcome in my heart. He was home.
And when his note finally softened, coming to a long, slow close, I felt the echo of that promise in his voice.My heart is yours. Your home.
You’re home.
He was my home, and had always been. And I loved him.
I opened my soul wider, and let that certainty flow into our merged bond. Gavriel’s eyes welled with tears, and he muttered in a broken voice, “I would give my wings up again and again for you.”
I love you, Gavriel.I rocked my hips gently up to meet his final thrusts. The pleasure now was deep and slow, like a distant tide rolling in. Like a sunrise appearing in increments, stretching warm fingers of light across us both, through our blended souls. And when at last he lowered himself into my arms, and pressed a fierce kiss against the feather on my chest, I knew.
This was only the beginning. I would never, ever let this end.
A short while later,Rumple met my eyes across Gavriel’s sleeping form.Are you okay?I asked.With this?
More than okay, little one.His smile echoed his tone.My heart dances with joy to see my dearest friend and my heart, complete with one another. I know you will be happy together.
And with you,I replied, a sharp bolt of anger ripping through my thoughts when he refused to answer.
Gavriel gave up his wings to make swords. We all make the sacrifices we must,he thought, then shut his mind to me.
I took a steadying breath. This was not the time to argue.We needed them to fight our way out?My eyes landed on the doors. They shuddered with the force of the pounding shadows. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d reformed the enormous snake beast and were going at it together, like a battering ram.
I will fight alongside my brother Gavriel and you, my beloved, to the Great Gate and as far beyond as we can go. But I will admit…He broke off, then squared his shoulders and continued,I do not see how we can even make it to Revel’s side.
“Do we have to fight?” I asked aloud, though I knew the answer. This shadow creature outside wasn’t like the one I’d tied up. It wasn’t malleable, willing to listen. I could sense its malevolence even through the door. It wanted nothing but to destroy us, and blot out our light.
A wry smile was all the answer Rumple gave.
I let my gaze land on all the things in the room. There was one crystal and gold feather and one small knife, no larger than a letter opener, next to it. How deeply had I been sleeping? “Where did the knife come from?”
