Page 104 of Apex of the Curve

Chapter Twenty-Five

Aspen…

Maybe it was foolish of me, I don’t know… maybe it was impulsive. Crazy. A bad idea… but I went home with him. I didn’t even take my car. I rode with him to his place, frozen to the bone after the chilly ride and shivering even despite the warm leather jacket.

He took it from me, inside the back door, and hung it on the line of pegs in the mudroom before shucking out of his own.

“Upstairs, babe. Let’s get you warm,” he murmured, and I nodded.

We went up the stairs and I paused, unsure which direction. Bathroom or bedroom? He touched my shoulder gently and went past me to the bedroom, taking my hand to pull me after him, closing the door behind us.

Wordlessly, he went and lit the candles and put on the deeply primitive yet healing Nordic music that he preferred and that I was growing to adore.

He came back to me, reaching past me, clasping a hand on my hip and pulling me tight against his body, his mouth finding mine. I melted into the safe and familiar place of solitude that his kiss brought to me. The storm in my mind of mixed emotions falling silent. The surety that this is where I belonged, in the circle of his arms, crashing into me, sweeping over and through me, twisting me around and showing me that all my doubts were utter bullshit.

God, I was like a trained damned monkey. Constantly trying to live up to the shifting expectations of a woman who was dead and my ex-husband who had very likely never even cared for me from the beginning… only for what he thought I could do for him.

With Fenris, everything was different. All pretenses stripped away, no nonsense. No expectations, no more bullshit.

Just, this is me and how I live my life and I hope you can accept me.

Which wasn’t that what I wanted? To be loved, to be wanted, to be allowed to exist as I was?

I held onto Fenris tightly and kissed him back fervently and with passion. His grip on me tightened, his other arm joining the first to wrap around me, and I had to think, his notion of warming me up was right on target. The fire of my desire stoked, the low burning coals sparking, flame licking up from low in my belly and tickling me just beneath my breastbone. Nipples tightening with my arousal, my breath stolen, my body responding to his touch like a night-blooming flower whose petals had been touched by the moon, unfurling and perfuming the air sweetly.

Our hands worked without conscious thought, plucking at buttons, lifting fabric, and lowering zippers. Cold hands against warm skin, teeth nipping, tongues licking, fingers grasping and through it all the panting. The feral little grunts of need and frustration as we both tried to meet one solitary need – to be fitted to one another as intimately as possible in as short amount of time as possible.

He picked me up, once we were both nude, and I put my arms around him. He laid me back on the bed and crawled up behind me, fitting himself between my legs, his mouth back to mine, his arms tenderly around me as we made out, ravenous for one another.

He thrust his cock against me, rubbing against my pussy lips, not penetrating, not yet, but the sensation of his velvet length against my clit was amazing, driving me wild. I grasped his face between my hands, his beard rough against my palms

He felt so good against me. Strong, capable, and fiercely protective. I gave in. I wanted to. I needed to. To feel this kind of savage love felt like a once in a lifetime opportunity and I didn’t want to cast that aside. Not when I had been desperate to feel this loved for so long.

I wrapped myself around him like ivy. Holding onto him as fiercely as he held onto me. Crying out into his mouth when he found purchase and sank into me. I wasn’t quite ready, but my body quickly adjusted.

He thrust deep inside me, and I clung to him. Both of us moving against each other in perfect synchronicity. I don’t know how long we were like that. How many songs passed through the shuffle of his playlist, or how far the candles burned down. I didn’t care. He didn’t care. It was just us. Both he and I existing, breathing hot and heavy the same air, the dew of sweat cooling our skins, his gods watching for all I cared as we loved each other deep into the night.

I don’t know how many times I came – a gentle rolling ebb and flow of wave after wave of pleasure crashing onto my shore.

Likewise, I didn’t know how many position changes he took us through. Always careful of me, that nothing grew too tired.

My back, my knees, my stomach, on top of him. Each transition fluid and at the perfect time. Gazing down at him in the firelight from all those flickering candles… I didn’t know who was worshipped or who was doing the worshipping. Perhaps it was both of us. Perhaps neither. Perhaps, the old gods he sometimes spoke of watched.

I had no doubt in my mind of their approval.

* * *

We layin the candle lit twilight. Close; me nestled into his side a leg over his and my head on his shoulder. He traced spirals on my back, his other hand a warm weight on my thigh as I stared unseeing and vacant, my mind barely lucid as I drifted in the calm waters of afterglow. He kissed the top of my head suddenly, as though he’d just woken from a dream himself and asked, “You doing alright?”

“I’m good,” I said dreamily, and he chuckled and kissed my hair again, his hand trailing fingertips up my spine and burying in the back of my hair, massaging the base of my skull, causing me to groan in a completely different pleasure.

“You ever think about what kind of life you want to live?” he asked.

“A simple one,” I answered immediately. “One where I can make my pottery and glaze it. I wish I could go back to selling it at markets… I don’t want to close down my shop, but I do at the same time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It feels like my old life. It’s not making money, and I really just want my divorce finalized. I hate giving Charles what he wants, but I just can’t do this anymore. I’m… I’m tired.”

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