Page 58 of The Discovered
I longed to reach out and touch his chest. He met my gaze, his lips curving into a slow smile.
“You give up power so well for someone with so much,” he said nonchalantly, trailing kisses along my throat, past my collarbone, and to my breasts.
His next destination challenged my ability to keep still, my hips struggling not to move upward. He grasped my thighs in either hand, spreading them apart. His grip tight, teetering on the edge of pleasure and pain—as usual.
I dug my fingernails into the sheets above my head, feeling the pleasure build. There was no teasing this time, no stopping or slowing. I let go, falling deeper into Daelon’s pervasive hold over every part of me as I did. My body tensed all at once as the pleasure overtook me, and then I stilled.
Daelon stopped, moving back up to hover over me.
“Did I give you permission for that?” he asked, a hard edge in his voice that didn’t match his grin.
I shook my head, knowing full well that he had set me up. This game was unwinnable.
“You can move and speak now. Not that you’ll be able to do much of either.” He entered me, grasping my wrists and holding me in place.
I wasn’t sure how much more I could take, understanding now that this was just as much of a punishment as it was a reward. Everything was more intense this time, and Daelon was relentless.
He moved one hand to my cheek as the other trailed down my torso. “Whose body is this?”
“Yours.”
Chapter17
Ilay facing Daelon, my hair still wet from our shower—where he had insisted again on delicately washing my hair and running soap over my skin. Just as before, he seemed unable to keep his hands off me for too long, preferring me close to him. I wasn’t about to complain.
“Just so you know,” I said, my heartrate picking up. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone either.”
He didn’t say anything at first, letting my words hang in the air between us.
No relationship I’d ever had could match this—not that I’d ever made it past a couple months with someone on Earth. It just wasn’t something I thought was possible, at least not with the men I’d met. I had too much baggage, too much I couldn’t say, too much they could never understand. The trauma from my mothers’ deaths and multiple placements in foster care sure didn’t help, nor did the negative beliefs about myself and the haunting inevitability of loss, change, and impermanence. I wore intimacy issues like adornments, and aside from my three best friends, it was hard for me to ever relate to anyone at all.
Basically, I wasn’t relationship material. And no amount of therapy could help with that. The whole my-mothers-told-me-I-would-someday-return-to-the-witch-realm part of my trauma couldn’t even be discussed without being stuck with a psychosis label.
I’d spent a decade in a realm that made me feel hollow, misunderstood, and forgotten. But Daelon understood me completely, more than any of my human friends were even capable of.
“Lucky me,” Daelon said, pulling me back from my reflection. His smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“What is it?”
He shook his head slightly, moving his hand over mine where it rested on his heart.
“It’s okay. I’ve accepted that we can’t pretend that we’re normal for very long,” I said, forcing a smile. I wasn’t sure if it was convincing.
“I just don’t like the feeling of running out of time. Especially with you.”
“Are you sure you’re not dying?”
He rolled his eyes. “Yes.”
“It’s him, isn’t it? You think he’s going to find me soon?” I asked.
It was the only explanation that made sense. Daelon’s mysterious spell in the clearing had channeled power that matched Lucius’s, so I assumed that meant the spell was an attack against him.
We were far too intimate for secrets now. I willed him to finally give me just this one straight answer.
He hesitated. “Stop,” he said, pained. “I can’t.”
My mood soured instantly. I couldn’t make sense of his off-limits topics or keep track of all of them. I had already met Lucius, after all. What more could there possibly be to hide? It was hard to believe that he still feared I would run off without him on a revenge path.
