He looked for it but couldn’t see the damned thing now that he needed something to get her eyes off his aching length.
He caught her cheek instead, his hand dripping water all down her, and brought her face up so her eyes met his. The water rolled down her chest, to the swell of her breasts, and he struggled not to look at them, painfully aware he could see her nipples clearly just below the surface.
“Father gave the word to me, because he wanted me to see and remember that even in the darkest times, light can still shine through.” Relief went through him when that had her focus settling firmly on his face and his words, not his body. “Tycho is that light to me, because I have such a strong connection to the moon, and I’ve spent centuries reinforcing my bond with it, and that crater, making the power the word has over me stronger. It still only works when I’m partly conscious, when the other me isn’t fully in control.”
Which was the reason Daimon apparently hadn’t bothered to spring it on him when the wraith had injured him.
Esher couldn’t remember much about it, because his other side had been firmly in control. He only knew he had lashed out at his brothers and threatened their females.
Gods, if he had wanted to hurt them, could he honestly say he wouldn’t hurt Aiko if his other side seized control?
He shook that thought away, because contemplating it would only allow fear to take root and shake his faith that he would never hurt her.
“Tycho?” she murmured the word, and he instantly felt calmer, the way she said it more soothing to him than when Daimon uttered it. “I will use it if I have to.”
But she didn’t want to.
“It doesn’t hurt me.” He needed her to know that. “It just… calms me.”
She half-smiled and moved onto her knees beside him, so her breasts crested out of the water and he had a damned hard time not looking at them.
“Tycho.” She leaned towards him, pressed her right hand to his chest and scalded him, branding him with her touch as she brought her mouth close to his.
“That is not going to calm me. Just inflame me.” He snaked his arm around her waist and hauled her onto his lap as his other hand seized the back of her neck, tangling in her wet black hair.
He meant to kiss her, but as he looked at her, all clean now, the dirt of the blast scrubbed from her pale skin, he froze and another need overcame him.
He crushed her against him, trembling with the force of it as he held her, clutching her nape and squeezing her tightly.
She was fine.
Rather than trying to break free of him, she leaned into him, wrapped her arms around his neck and held him.
Just held him.
It hit him that she needed comfort too, that he wasn’t the only one who had been rattled tonight and she was struggling to cope with the things she had seen—things she had probably never witnessed before.
Minutes ticked past and neither of them moved. He absorbed the comfort she gave him, memorised the way she held him and how he could feel her love in that embrace, how much she cared about him. How much she wanted to help him.
How much she wanted to be with him.
Finally, as the sun broke the horizon, he convinced his grip on her to ease. She drew back, her brown eyes warm and bright, a mixture of love and passion shining in them as she gazed into his, the negative emotions he had felt in her gone now, erased by him holding her, giving her the comfort she needed.
He lowered his eyes to her lips, his pulse picking up pace as he stared at their soft curves and felt her body beneath his hands, pressed against him.
He could feel her nerves as she trembled slightly in his embrace, could sense her desire as her breath came in shorter, sharper bursts, and her hands settled against his shoulders, and need built in her dark gaze.
Need he was going to satisfy for both of them.
CHAPTER 16
Her kiss seared him as fiercely as her touch as he claimed her mouth, trying to keep it tender and gentle, but finding it impossible as she leaned into the kiss and her tongue brushed his lips. Her moan was his undoing, unravelling the ties that bound his passion, so it flooded through him, washing away all of his restraint.
Esher gathered her closer, crushing her to his chest, needing to feel every inch of her pressed against him. Water rippled around them as he skimmed his hands down her sides, claimed her waist and moved her. As her knees parted, allowing his thighs to press between them, and her backside settled on his knees, her kiss grew tense.
He could feel the nerves in her.
Was he rushing her?
He didn’t want to rush her, wanted everything to happen at a pace that she set. He would wait forever if she asked it of him.
And when she finally gave herself to him, he would be gentle, tender, everything that she deserved. He would hold back his own need, the searing passion that consumed him, and be careful with her.
He would never hurt her.
It echoed in his head, a soft chant that filled the silence that stretched between the sound of water lapping at their bodies, her delicate moans, and his own ragged breathing.
When Aiko shuffled closer, her knees coming to press against his hips, he groaned and resisted pulling her closer still, until she brushed his heavy shaft. It throbbed, so hard that it hurt, so sensitive that each time the hot water swept over the crown, he had to grit his teeth.
As if sensing his need for relief, Aiko lowered her hand, running her fingers over his chest in a maddening way that only made him even more sensitive, had sparks skittering over his flesh and pebbled his nipples. He groaned and tipped his head back as she brushed the head of his cock, damn near wept as she stroked and teased it, sending waves of heat rolling down it, tingles that swept through him and had him verging on begging her for more.
“Aiko,” he breathed, swallowed hard and managed to open his eyes and lift his head and look at her.
Her brown eyes were dark, pupils dilated in a way that called to him, but it was her beaded nipples that stole his focus. He wrapped his arms around her, hauled her up onto her knees and latched onto her right one, her moan music to his ears as her hands instantly came down on his shoulders. She gripped him hard as he suckled and teased her with sweeps of his tongue, tasting the water on her.
Her small hands shifted to his hair, tangled in it as she clung to him, clutching him to her.
The need to turn up the heat, to tear another passion-drenched sigh from her, had him dropping his left hand and snaking it around her bottom. She tensed and then melted into him, her moan loud in the early morning air, as he found her core and stroked along it towards her bead. It tightened as he brushed it, and gods, he answered her moan with one of his own as she arched her back, raising her bottom, allowing him easier access.
He shook with the need, the hunger building inside him as he explored her with his fingers, stroked them up and down, back and forth between her nub and her entrance, his heart pounding each time he neared it. A desire to press into her had him lingering a little longer each time, judging her reaction as he suckled her nipple.
She moaned again as he tugged it a little harder, rolled it in his teeth, and he found the courage he had been missing.
He pressed the tip of his finger into her damp core.
Gods, it was hot, deliciously warm and wet, tight around his digit as he sank as deep as his first knuckle.
She bucked and moaned, gripped his hair so tightly he feared she might pull some out as he withdrew, lowered his hand to her nub and teased it again, his cock fit to burst as a need to be inside her crashed over him. He needed to feel her around him, tight and wet. Needed to fill her and make love with her, and make her belong to him.
He needed to mark her as his female.
Needed to make her want only him, forever.
That need consumed him, a dark desire that was powerful, overwhelming him and driving out all other thought, until only that primal urge to claim her remained.
He sank his fin
ger back into her, lifted his head and swallowed her moan in a kiss. He angled his head, pushed past her lips and tangled his tongue with hers, feasting on her moans as she clung to him, her body trembling with each gentle press of his finger and each withdraw.
Esher couldn’t stop himself from adding a second finger and probing her a little deeper, as deep as he could go in the position she was in. It was hard at first, but as he kissed her, touched her, she grew wetter, allowing him to easily slide his fingers in and out.
And then she started writhing her hips and seized command of the kiss, her tongue invading his mouth as she drove him back against the side of the bath.
Her need flooded him.
Mingled with his own and made it impossible to deny.
On a low growl, he withdrew from her, grabbed her backside in both hands and pulled her to him. She moaned and rocked against his cock as she made contact, sliding up and down it, filling the air with the sound of water splashing as she frantically rode his length.
He lifted her, not breaking the kiss, and angled his hips so he could reach his cock. He shuddered as he pushed the head through her folds, groaned in time with her as he inched into her tight sheath.
Tensed with her when he hit a barrier.
“Aiko,” he whispered, clutching her hips, torn between continuing and stopping.
Stopping won.
Because he didn’t deserve this.
She finally opened her eyes and looked at him, the hunger he could feel in her still shining in them. No flicker of shame lit her features. No embarrassed little blush.
There was only the barest hint of anger directed at him.
“Don’t stop,” she murmured and wriggled, and gods, he had to bite down on his tongue to stop himself from doing as she wanted, focusing on the pain rather than the pleasure she unwittingly caused by rotating her hips around the head of his cock.
She was making this hard on him.
“I want this.” Her low soft voice curled around him, banished the doubts that were creeping in at the edges of his mind to darken it with thoughts that she would regret what they were doing if he took her virginity, that she would hate him for it, because he was a monster. Her eyes met his, no trace of hate in them, no sign that she would come to despise him either, or that she thought him unworthy. “I want this with you, Esher.”
He wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
It was too much for him.
The darker part hissed that this was a trick, that the human meant to lure him to his doom with her body, pull him into her snare so she could hurt him.
Esher shut out the damned voice, because his heart screamed that Aiko wasn’t like that. There wasn’t a bad bone in her body, and he loved her for it. He loved her for being the one human on this wretched plane who looked at him as if it would kill her to hurt him, as if she would sooner hurt herself than another.
As if she loved him.
The thought that she was untouched, an innocent, had the darker side born of his heritage rising to the fore, flooding him with a need to make her belong to him, because she would be his and his alone, and that it was further proof that she was meant to be his.
Light to his darkness.
Innocence to his wickedness.
But perhaps not too innocent.
Because she took the decision out of his hands, pressing her body down on his, a look of sheer concentration on her face as she inched him deeper inside her. He groaned and gave up the fight, struggled to focus so he could make it feel good for her, even when he knew it had to hurt. She was tight, small compared with him.
It didn’t stop her.
When she flinched, he gathered her to him, stopping her, and kissed her, distracting her with it as he held her with one hand and teased her nipple with his other one. She was tense for a moment, and then she moaned, and he felt her relaxing, loosening around him as desire built again. He kept kissing and teasing her, dropped his hand to fondle her bundle of nerves, drinking her moans as they grew louder.
His own joined them as she moved again, sinking onto him, and he gritted his teeth when she took a sharp breath and pushed down hard, and the tip of his shaft struck as deep as she could take him.
He kept kissing her, aware of her pain, and rubbed his thumb across her pert bead, stroking it to ease her and replace the pain with pleasure.
Gods, he wanted to move, wanted to lift her off him and sink back into her, but somehow he found the strength to stay where he was, still as a statue.
Inside her.
That sank in, and he drew back and looked at her, found no trace of pain in her eyes, only desire and excitement, and affection. He couldn’t breathe as he thought about the fact they were one. He was inside her, and she was his now.
His forever if he had his way.
His little butterfly.
He only hoped she didn’t fly away from him.
He lifted his hand and cupped her cheek, held her gaze as she leaned into his touch, and felt the weight of that thought press down on him, a fear that wasn’t welcome but one he couldn’t shut out. She tilted her head, pressed a kiss to his palm that lingered, and then did the one thing guaranteed to make him forget his fears.
She moved.
Her hands clutched his biceps and she rocked her hips, nothing more than a swirl at first, but then she grew bolder, and gods, he could only watch her as she bloomed before his eyes.
He sank against the side of the bath as she began to rock on him, small strokes that barely pulled him an inch out of her, and then two, and three, and sweet fucking gods, he wasn’t sure he could take it. His breathing turned as ragged as hers as she began to ride him in earnest, making the water lap against his chest as she rose off him almost all the way and then sank back down again.
She needed to go higher.
He wanted her to feel heaven in his arms, bliss in this moment.
Esher caught her hips and she leaned towards him and captured his lips as he started to move her on him, so she almost pulled free of his cock on each stroke. She gasped and shivered, moaned louder as he drove back into her, long slow thrusts that had her breath and his coming quicker.
Her arms looped around his neck and she kissed him harder, and he felt the need rising inside her as she began to move again, fighting his control. He pumped his hips each time she sank down on him, driving his cock into her, quickening their tempo as his own need built towards a crescendo.
She groaned as he slid lower on the seat, the angle allowing her body to brush his as she came down, and he tore another from her as he sank his hand beneath the water and stroked his thumb across her nub, teasing her in time with his deep strokes of his cock.
A soft, startled cry left her lips as she arched backwards, her hands clutching his shoulders, and breasts thrusting into the air.
Gods, she was beautiful as she came undone, her body quivering violently around his length, each jerk and flex of it pushing him closer to the edge.
He deepened his thrusts, drank his fill of her as her heat scalded him and she moaned with each plunge of his cock into her, each stroke that drew out her climax and added to it. She leaned back, the angle making her tighter still, and release surged through him.
He tipped his head back, his entire body quaking with the force of it as he loosed a hoarse shout, his fingers pressing into her soft flesh and pinning her on his cock as it throbbed, pulsing so hard every inch of him kicked with it.
He fought for air as he held her there, every muscle tensed as heat and a thousand stars exploded inside him, and the world drifted away.
Aiko sank against his chest, her heart thundering in time with his as she trembled.
Gods.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her to him, clutched her as she murmured something and settled on him, their bodies still intimately entwined.
Time drifted past, the sun rising to bathe the world in gold hues, and when he looked down at Aiko to mention they should leave the bath, he fro
ze.
She was sleeping.
He carefully scooped her up into his arms, trying not to wake her, and stepped out of the tub. He stared at her as he carried her towards his room, watching over her as she slept.
Protecting her.
He lifted his head and looked off to his left, to Tokyo where it flickered between the present and the future that would happen if he and his brothers failed, a city broken and blazing against the blackened sky, filled with the terrified shrieks of humans and the wretched snarls of daemons.
His gaze drifted back down to Aiko.
She was dangerous. He knew that. She was a weakness now, one his enemy might exploit to get to him, as they had with Eva for Valen.
Valen would have turned to their side for her, just as his brother had said, Esher believed that.
He gazed down at Aiko.
What would he do for her?
He would destroy the world.
CHAPTER 17
Aiko slowed as she placed her clothes back in her backpack, drawing out the process because she didn’t want to leave yet, even when she knew it was necessary.
When she felt Esher’s gaze on her, she paused and looked over her shoulder at him, finding him stood in the doorway of his room, the pretty courtyard garden and the other wing of the house a beautiful backdrop for the god who was stealing her heart.
Or might have already stolen it.
That heart felt heavy as she looked at him, catching her feelings echoed in his sombre blue eyes. He didn’t want her to leave either, even when he knew it was necessary.
The original plan had been to part from him yesterday, but when he had taken her home, he had held her so tightly, had been so reluctant to let her go, and when he had finally released her, it had been to tell her to get some things because he wanted her to stay another night.
He was pushing himself. The fight that had happened with his white-haired brother, Daimon, when he had returned to the mansion with her in tow was testament to that. He had been vicious, darker than she had ever seen him as he had warred with his brother, arguing against Daimon’s orders to take her home.
Esher (Guardians of Hades Romance Series Book 3) Page 17
