Page 24 of The Coveted
I felt his lips against my neck, nipping at my skin softly as I moaned. “I want to see you,” I said softly. “Please.”
He unzipped my dress and flipped me over. “Of course, baby.” We smiled into each other as our lips met again, and soon I was out of my dress, and he was out of his pants. “You’re beautiful. Every. Single. Inch.” He kissed different parts of me after each word, like he was imprinting the message into my skin to live there forever. From the thin white stretch marks on my hips to the constellation of freckles on my left arm, from the parts of my body I celebrated to the parts I often wanted to hide, he worshipped it all.
Just as I worshipped his. He growled, soft and guttural in my ear, as my hand trailed from the taut muscles along his chest and stomach to down below, where I made it clear just how badly I wanted him.Now.
He wasted no time acquiescing. He eased into me slowly, a hand cupping the side of my face. His soft touches soon juxtaposed harshly with his thrusts. Each movement lay claim to my body, and I couldn’t help but cry out at his intensity. He smirked, putting a finger to my lips as he leaned down.
“Hush,” he commanded, and soon I was at war with myself as I fought to obey. He liked seeing me struggle.
“I can’t,” I whispered, barely aware I was even saying it. As he went deeper, more forcefully, sensation took over, and all I could do was think of him. His voice sounded like gospel to me now, and it was hard to believe that he didn’t put me under an actual spell. I’m not sure I would’ve cared if he had.
“I told you I was going to make you scream my name for flirting with someone else while wearing my gift.” He applied the softest of pressure to the vulnerable, sensitive sides of my neck, just enough to send me over the edge—just enough to make me feel like I was helpless to his desire. “You’re mine, Áine. Mine to protect, mine to love, and mine to give every ounce of the pleasure that you deserve.”
Normally, I might’ve felt self-conscious as our eyes locked while he spoke to me this way, but not with him. I couldn’t look away; I was utterly captivated. I felt waves of pleasure move through every nerve ending as I clung to the low tenor of his voice.
“You can’t come unless you scream my name,” he said, and I was lost. He leaned down, his hands now back beside my face. I was barely aware of my fingernails digging into his back as I didexactly as I was told.
Daelon came with me, both of us swallowed up by a shared moment of absolute ecstasy. We tangled ourselves in each other, holding on as if each of us was all the other had. Because that was how it felt now—us against the world. He lifted his head and planted a delicate kiss on my lips as we both gasped for air. He shifted with me in his arms so that I lay on his chest, our hands intertwined as our hearts had a chance to slow.
Chapter8
“Are you okay?” he asked, and I had not a single idea of how to answer. It felt like I was floating, my limbs like jelly, and my mind completely wiped of anything useful. Daelon peered down at me, swiping my hair behind my ear. He chuckled, and I felt the rumble of it beneath my ear.
“Sorry, um, yes.”Nope, still no idea how to speak. Check back in later.
He kissed my hand. “You’re adorable.Especiallywhen you’re screaming my name.”
I could only imagine the shade of red my cheeks were right now. That part felt like a hazy dream to me now, even if it was only moments ago. In this headspace, if Daelon said to jump, then I sure as hell was going to jump.
“I think you could get me to do just about anything,” I murmured.
“That could not be further from the truth, but oh how I wish,” Daelon sighed. “You’d be a lot more manageable if that were the case. But I love you exactly as you are, even when you are impossibly frustrating and defiant.”
I smiled. I didn’t think I’d ever get used to him saying those words. But reality had started to creep back into my thoughts despite my best intentions to pretend it didn’t exist. “Do I have to leave?”
Daelon sighed. “You can stay for now. Lucius should be preoccupied well into the morning given what he’s told me.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Ew.”
“Indeed, but at least his attention is away from you.”
Today’s insanity began to reemerge from the corners of my mind where I’d shoved it. “He wants me dead. I feel like my days here are numbered.”
“No, they aren’t,” he snapped. “That was just his jealousy talking when he saw the girl bow down to you. It was his greatest fears about your existence playing out for him. He knows you’re more useful alive than dead if there’s a deeper plot at play, which there obviously is. At this point, we are in a delicate race—him to find out who you are and you to find out who he is. But in order to do that, neither of you can make rash decisions.”
“It’s mutually ensured destruction,” I muttered. “Like the Cold War. Both sides in a convoluted, hidden race to gain the upper-hand.”
“Something like that. I must admit I wasn’t fully paying attention to that human history lesson.”
“The witches here act so superior to humans,” I remarked. “As if they don’t operate under the same motivation, vying for power and domination, just in different forms.”
“True, but it didn’t used to be that way, not for most of us. We used to be organized into mostly egalitarian communities, living as one with the land and finding ways to solve problems and depend on each other without centralized governing structures. There were bigger cities where things got more complicated, with some people losing their way and becoming seduced by greed and ego. But we were a mostly peaceful realm for almost all of our history. It made us pity humans, with their endless wars, slavery, bigotry, and division. We thought it was our ability to see the magick of the world that made us peaceful, but now I’m not so sure. Something changed and violence became a common tongue. A darkness took root, and now here we are, condemning the ways that sustained us for millennia and pretending that this kingdom was all there ever was and all there will ever be.”
“Do you think that darkness was some kind of evil?” I asked. It didn’t make sense to me how an entire realm could go from peace and harmony to destruction and ignorance in mere decades. There had to be something more at play.
“Amos says the concept of evil lets witches and humans off the hook for their own actions and complacency. But I don’t know, maybe evil is simply the power that arises from cruelty. From taking and stealing for the benefit of the individual rather than living in reciprocity and community.”
I thought about that for several minutes as I listened to his heart beat in his chest. I found myself recalling the story Daelon told me earlier to explain why energy stealing was against the law. “That parable… do people here really not see the obvious parallel between what happened when the man stole the painter’s gift and what is happening to this realm now?”
