Not gently.
Not later.
Now.
My hands dropped to his hips, clumsy and urgent. Burrowing between us, I fumbled with his ruined trousers. I brushed against something hard and straining against the fabric, making him hiss and bite my bottom lip.
I managed to get the top button undone—
Lucien wrenched backward, landing on his ass.
He came to a stop a few metres away—breathing hard, raking both hands through his hair.
My gaze fell on our surroundings.
Rocks and trees, water and darkness.
H-How did I get here?
Why were we on a riverbed, surrounded by foliage, and blanketed by moonlight?
Last I remembered, I’d fallen into a swirling pool—well,blown inwas more apt.
My heart kicked, remembering how his power had ignited—tearing through his skin and detonating the entire cave.
But then my eyes met his again and questions ceased to matter.
Nothingmattered apart from finishing what we’d started.
“Why are you over there and not here?” I asked softly, my voice almost swallowed up by the babble of the river. It seemed to snap him awake—yanking him out of the same trance I kept falling into whenever I looked at him.
This wasn’t normal. This level of awareness andneedwasn’t like anything I’d ever felt before. I swore I could sense him. Sense him buckling beneath the same craving as me.
Once again, my heart grew impatient, no longer urging but demanding me to touch him, kiss him, tear off his clothes and—
“Stop looking at me like that,” Lucien groaned, scrubbing his face with both hands.
“Like how?”
“Like you want me to fuck you right here. Outside in the dead of night. On a bed of leaves with no roof over our heads, no soft blankets, no privacy.”
“Oh, I think there’s privacy.” I waved my hand at the very dark, very empty riverbed. “It’s just us.”
“Fuck, this is crazy.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, his bare chest tight with strained muscles. The metal disc over hisheart was slightly misshapen from his internal heat. “Tell me this is crazy. Tell me there’s no way I should eventhinkabout doing to you what I’m aching to do.” He looked at the star-dotted sky. “We need to talk about what happened. Talk about how you healed me. How—”
“Ihealedyou?” I frowned. “Youhealedme.”
“See?” he groaned. “There’s so much we need to talk about.”
“But...I don’t want to talk.”
“Fuck, neither do I.” He laughed blackly. “It’s taking every shred of self-control I have not to be inside you right now.”
I suffered a full-body shiver. “Then screw self-control and screw me instead.”
“Rook...” He groaned again. “You’re not helping.”
“Neither are you,Lucien.” Slipping onto my hands and knees, I crawled toward him. The soft dampness of the leaves set my skin singing with heightened awareness. The chattering river and crashing waterfall somewhere upstream kept us trapped in our own little world.
