I’m saying. But I know what I want in this moment—him. Eldas’s eyes widen a fraction and that’s how I know he hears.
I tilt my head up slightly. His hand still hovers on my skin. His knuckles hook my chin.
“Kiss me again,” I demand breathlessly. “Kiss me like you did that night in the castle. Let’s give in to this waking dream, Eldas.”
“No,” he murmurs. Everything in me shudders at his denial. But then he pulls me toward him, snaring me with the lightest touch imaginable. “I will not kiss you like I did then.” My breath hitches. Through the fan of my lashes I watch him lean forward. “I will kiss you better.”
His other arm fabricates from the darkness, suddenly around my midsection. Eldas envelops me as he pulls my body to his for the first time. His lean form is long and firm against me. My hands, awkward and inexperienced, land on his hips, quivering like skittish birds about to take flight.
Everything aches in that moment. The second his breath is on my face is the longest second of my life. I was right when I realized all those months ago that wanting to kiss someone makes all the difference.
And I have never wanted to kiss someone more than Eldas. This is not drunken desire. This is not loneliness or unattended needs.
I want him to kiss me. Now. Here. Forever.
He holds my eyes until the last moment. His lips meet mine and I burn.
I let out a whimper. He pulls me closer, heeding my unspoken command, trying to smother the blazing agony in me with his cool body. His tongue runs along my lips, seeking entry, and I grant it. Eldas deepens the kiss with cruel laziness.
More, my body demands with a need that makes me blush. I want his hands to move. I want those long fingers to brush down the curve of my neck, my breast, my hip. I want to feel things I’ve only known in concept. I want him to teach and guide me down all these carnal paths I’ve yet to walk.
But, to my supreme displeasure, he pulls away. His lips have a wet shine in the darkness and they curl into an unreadable smile. Color has flooded his face, giving it a natural hue once more.
“Luella,” he whispers, husky and deep. “You’re glowing.”
I realize it’s true. A barely perceptible glow covers my skin and dances with the darkness. Our powers radiate together, mingling, wrapping around each other in a dance of opposites.
“Then,” I reply with a sultry tone I wasn’t aware I could make, “I think you should keep kissing me. So that we may properly investigate this strange phenomena.”
His smile turns into a smug smirk and Eldas leans forward once more with hooded eyes. “My queen, ever the researcher.”
My queen. The words make me weak in the knees. They no longer fill me with fear. My queen. Those two words are almost as sweet as losing myself in the taste of his mouth.
“My king,” I murmur in reply. “Eldas, my king.” I am his, and he is mine.
Eldas holds me to him with a crushing grip the moment I say his name. He presses forward and I expect us to fall to the mossy ground below. But the shadows rise around us, and we slip between worlds.
Chapter 31
My back settles into the quilted blanket that I loosely threw over my bed this morning. The mattress sighs around me, accepting my weight and Eldas’s. My arms wrap around his back, pulling him closer. I bend a knee and press my hips upward against his.
I’m clumsy, and no doubt awkward, but Eldas moves with me fluidly. He responds to my every movement with eager attention. He shifts just as I need him to and my breath hitches as he grinds against me for the first time.
Supporting himself with one hand frees the other to rove my body. I am outlined by his fingers. I am his to be molded and sculpted—his to cut from the night itself. With his index finger alone, he draws constellations into my clothing. Every point connected by a different aching need that I never knew I could feel so keenly.
His lips pull away and my eyes snap open as his teeth sink lightly into the flesh of my neck. Eldas kisses me like the creature of darkness that he is, determined to consume every last flicker of my light. Another groan slips past my lips and it fades