Her fingers dug into his shoulders, shaking against the firm muscle that flexed with each movement he made. Gods, his body was too good. He was too good, and she was going to savor every second of it.
She tilted her hips, pleasure sparking as he sank deeper. “Make me, Captain,” she breathed.
“Fuck, Brela,” Cason rasped. He swallowed, pace quickening.
She let out a moan, barely able to force the words. Barely able to keep that wave from breaking. “Earn it, Valkip.”
Cason gripped her hips, lifting as he thrust forward. “Please,” he whispered against her lips. He moved again. Deeper, harder. “Brela,please.”
When she knew that she couldn’t hold back any longer, when his thrusts threatened to make her lose sense of words, she gripped the back of his neck and purred, “Cason.”
They were breaking. Over and over again. She pulled him into her kiss of teeth and tongue as stars blinded her. Fierce and overwhelming sparks ran through her skin. It was like floating and drowning, aware of everything and nothing at once.
They dragged out each twitch of release, savoring each whimpering breath like it was the last.
Cason’s exhausted weight collapsing on top of her was yet another ripple of pleasure. Fire and lightning tingled against her skin, pulling her back into a body that didn’t feel solid.
She’d never had someone destroy her so completely, yet make her feel so alive. Gods, if she could just unravel with him, now and forever… she might. She actually might consider it.
For seconds, minutes, or hours, she didn’t let him leave her lips. Didn’t stop those last lazy kisses or twists of tongues, as if she could store up each taste of hickory smoke so she’d never taste anything else.
It still wasn’t long enough.
Brela groaned as he rolled off her, but he only tugged her back into his chest with a chuckle. “So needy,” he breathed onto her neck.
“Says the man who begged me to say his name while he was deep inside me.”
His thumb traced the planes of her stomach. “I think you rather enjoyed that, having so much power over me.”
“Mmm, it’s a dangerous game we play, fire wielder,” she sighed, wondering how Cason could possibly have any energy left to move even his fingers after what they’d done tonight. Her hips were still stiff from riding him during their first tangle, but now her limbs felt like dead weight.
After several breaths of silence, his chest rising and falling in a steady pattern and nearly lulling her to sleep, Cason finally whispered. “If all of this hadn’t happened after the auction, you never would have told me about the shard.”
Brela swallowed at the twinge of pain running through the obsidian in her collarbone. “For a second, I considered it. After talking with Serill and hearing what he said about you, I might have one day. But then… no, I wouldn’t have told you if it hadn’t been forced.”
“Because of what I said about the shadow…kindbefore you ran off.”
She could only nod, otherwise her voice would betray the surprise that he’d said shadow-kind instead of shadow-cursed. It was still forced. She could still hear the resistance in his voice, but the word choice was something to acknowledge.
“I…” His fingers stilled for a moment, resting over her hip before he pulled her closer. “Thank you, Brela, for giving me a second chance.”
Brela couldn’t help but smirk. “For not killing you every chance I got?”
“That, too,” Cason replied with a soft chuckle. “But I meant for giving me a second chance to be a better man. To help me see my chain for the weight it is. Serill is the only one who has ever seen me for something that wasn’t… burning destruction.”
“Well, it will take a lot more than fire to scare me.”
“Clearly, since you dream about celvusa and somehow whisper an ancient language instead of screaming it.”
At that reminder, a cold shiver ran through her body, and she could have sworn that Cason’s body warmed against her.
“You know, Cason”—his muscles twitched, much to her delight—“as strange as this sounds given the circumstances, and considering I’m about to return to the source of most of those nightmares, I also sleep better with you next to me.”
And after a while, she did sleep, but instead of dreaming of a celvusa speaking the ancient shadow language, she dreamed of red blood.
30
Old Wounds
