Then my entire being seemed to explode with an ecstasy that turned my already hazy vision completely white and tore Sethian’s name from my throat in a drawn-out scream that was also a half-sob. Even still, Sethian kept up his relentless oral stimulation as my body shuttered and was racked with spasm after spasm of pleasure.
An eternity later, Sethian lifted his head, and my whole body just sunk bonelessly into the mattress, exhausted and totally wrecked, but still tingling like mad. Breathing heavily, I looked down the length of my body at him with half-closed eyes that felt as though they were weighted down with boulders and was not really surprised to see that he was no longer wearing anything but a sexy smile.
Apparently, it was his turn now.
CHAPTER SIX
Lariel deserves my eternal gratitude, I thought as Sethian crawled between my legs and moved up my body as fluidly as a panther advancing on its prey, making me shiver as his warm silkiness slid over my sweaty and still-hypersensitive skin. If she had not decided to let me sleep the day away, I doubted I would have still been conscious. To have missed such an erotic sight would have been a travesty.
I held out my arms and embraced him as soon as he was within reach, somehow finding the energy to lift my head off the bed to kiss him. I felt him smile against my lips before he opened his mouth to reciprocate. For a long moment, we merely sucked on each other’s lips and tongue, and I finally got to feel that satisfying heaviness of his body when he settled on top of me.
I squeezed my thighs more tightly against his sides, wanting to feel him against as much of my body as possible, but I didn’t try to rub myself against the cock that was currently a firm, hot bar against my groin. Before I jumpstarted that particular engine, I needed time to recuperate from that mind-melting orgasm, or else I feared that my body and mind would give out before he was satisfied. Engaging Sethian in a bit of enthusiastic tonsil-tickling was definitely the perfect way to accomplish this, especially when he was in such a—giving mood. I could lie here in his arms feeling him suck the breath from me forever.
It was Sethian who finally began our sensuous dance, rolling his hips in a slow, deep grind against my groin that immediately had my sex throbbing with need again. I released his mouth with an appreciative moan and arched my head back, offering him my neck to be devoured. His tongue painted a wet line from my chin to the hollow of my throat and back up to the junction of my neck and shoulder before I felt his teeth against my skin.
I drew in a sharp breath in anticipation, but the expected sting of pleasure/pain didn’t come. Instead, he slowly scraped his teeth lightly along my shoulder, making me twitch in reaction to the different intensities of his increasing thrusts and the barely there rasp of his teeth. I kept expecting him to bite down when I once again felt the moistness of his lips at my neck. He alternated between those teasing scrapes of his teeth and the occasional tug as he sucked firmly on my skin. However, the bite never came, and that uncertainty, like before, served to only heighten my arousal.
My hands slide down his back, loving the silky feel of his skin beneath my fingertips, and followed the curve of his ass to grab each mound tightly. I dug my fingers into the firm muscles, encouraging his hips to move faster just as his mouth moved in for another kiss. He made a small sound of appreciation when I flexed my fingers again, so I couldn’t help but try to make him do it again.
I arched up into his thrusts, trying to match his rhythm in order to increase the friction, but he abruptly stilled his hips and pulled away from the kiss. For a split-second, I froze, scared that I had done something wrong, hurt him somehow; then he grinned down at me, and I could breathe again.
“Sethian?” I said, letting my uncertainty bleed into his name.
His grin melted into a gentle smile that seemed to temper some of the lust in his eyes. He bent down and gave me a soft kiss.
“You will have me climax before my cock can taste what my tongue has already savored,” he scolded playfully.
Hearing him say the word “cock” was so jolting and out of place that the rest of his lewd comment went right over my head. It was almost like hearing your grandma cuss for the first time. There was just something so inherently wrong about such a crude word coming from someone who could very easily be mistaken for an angel if he only had wings.
Luckily, Sethian’s next kiss saved me from both embarrassment and having to reply. I wrapped my arms around him in something like desperation and pulled him closer, hoping that we were done talking for the night. Although my ardor had cooled somewhat thanks to his out-from-left-field remark, my yearning for his touch was as strong as ever.
After kissing me breathless again, he bent his head to whisper in my ear, “Turn on your side.”
I shivered at that low tone and immediately moved to obey once he had lifted himself off my body. He grabbed my uppermost leg behind the knee and pushed it up until my knee was touching my chest.
“Hold this here,” he commanded, and once again, I rushed to comply.
Opening myself to him like this felt inordinately naughty even though I knew there wasn’t anything particularly special about the position, but to someone who had only lost their virginity a month ago, any position other than missionary felt kinky. I was eager to see what he had in mind, and he didn’t make me wait long to find out.
I watched with hooded eyes and heat in my cheeks as Sethian settled on his knees halfway behind my ass and straddling my other leg. He then positioned himself at my opening, his cock rubbing teasingly against the length of my vagina a few times until it was slick with my juices. His eyes met mine has he did this, piercing and just plain hot.
Then without warning, his entire member entered me in one powerful thrust, making me almost lose my grip on my knee as I jerked and let out a surprised moan. One hand clutched the top of my hip while the other fondled my clit as he slid himself in and out of me in deep, undulating strokes that seemed to reach more deeply inside me than ever before.
My nails dug into the skin of the leg I held while my other hand had begun to mindlessly tug at my own hair in time to his thrusts. The room quickly became filled with the sounds of my moans and the slap of flesh hitting flesh as Sethian pushed into my passage with increasing speed.
I almost screamed in frustration when I felt him slow just when I was nearly at the pinnacle, but his change of pace was only so he could sink into the bed behind me until we were more or less spooning. As his hips resumed their vigorous pace and the hand rubbing my clit began to jerk me with more determination, Sethian curled his left arm beneath my body and began caressing and pinching my boobs as well until I was practically going out of my mind with overstimulation.
A split-second before I started to orgasm, I felt Sethian bite down hard on my right shoulder, the shock of finally feeling the pain I had been unconsciously anticipating since I first felt his teeth scrape along my skin made me come so hard that I couldn’t even draw enough breath to scream. My passage clamped down tightly around his cock, making him moan and sink his teeth even deeper into my flesh. He then pushed into me with one final, heavy thrust and spilled his seed deep within me.
Panting, I released my leg, letting it stretch out on top of my other. Sethian immediately swung his own leg over it, entangling our limbs and pulling me back more snuggly against his body. I was keenly aware of his member deep within me, pulsating and somehow still hard despite his climax, but he made no move to withdraw it from my body.
I squirmed a bit as the wound he had bitten into my shoulder began to throb. I wondered if it, too, would be mysteriously healed by morning like that bite wound on my breast, then decided that it didn’t matter.
The only thing that did matter was that Sethian was with me, he was holding me, and it didn’t look like he planned to leave anytime soon.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was somewhat disturbing how at peace and safe I felt wrapped tightly in Sethian’s arms with his body solid and warm against my back. This is something I had neve
r experienced back home, and for it to elicit such strong feelings of security for me when Sethian and I were still practically strangers was something I just couldn’t wrap my head around. With nothing to compare it to, even our previous couplings as I had either passed out during the act or soon after, there was no way to know if this was just something everyone normally felt when cuddling with a partner after sex.
We had not spoken once afterwards, not even when he had finally withdrawn his cock from my body and had once again settled me back against him for what I presumed was sleep, but no matter how sated and drowsy I had felt, I just couldn’t shut down my racing thoughts enough to drift off. Judging by the quiet, even breaths I felt at the back of my neck, Sethian was already well into sleep.
I had a strong urge to look at his sleeping face, wondering if sleep had softened that intimidating air of power he always seemed to carry, but I didn’t want to risk waking him and losing my current cocoon of warmth. I could only hope that I would get countless other chances to watch him sleep in the future.
For the next few moments, I closed my eyes and simply listened to him breathe, trying not to think about anything at all, least of all the secret I stubbornly insisted on keeping and the problems doing so would likely cause. I just wanted to enjoy this moment where for the first time since my mother had passed away, I felt cherished.
When Sethian suddenly shifted behind me, I didn’t react, thinking he had done so in his sleep.
“So—do you want to tell me why you still have not told me that you are carrying our child within you?” he then abruptly said into my ear, and I swore my heart stopped beating for a couple of seconds.
He knew.
My eyes instantly welled up with tears as a wave of anguish thundered through my entire being. It all made sense now. Of course his attentiveness tonight would have a reason. I had screwed up majorly, allowed myself to believe that the kind of relationship I wished with him was within the realm of possibility after all. Now the hammer was about to fall, and I was completely unprepared for it.
I curled in on myself and clamped my mouth shut tightly to hold back the sobs that were threatening to burst from my throat, but I was unable to keep the tears from falling. Unfortunately, once the waterworks had started, it was like I had opened a floodgate, the tears pouring from my eyes in hot streams of hurt and fear that I had no hopes of stymieing. I’m sure my out-of-whack hormones weren’t helping matters much, either.
What would become of us now?
“It’s all right. You must not think that I am angry with you. You can tell me,” he coaxed gently, but I barely heard him, already lost too deeply in the mourning of my shattered dreams.
When I remained silent, Sethian tried to turn my face to him, making a distressed sound deep in his throat when his hand encountered the wetness on my face, but I refused to budge. I didn’t want to show him such a pathetic face, and I especially didn’t want him to be kind or to feel guilty because of his strong sense of duty. In a way, that was even worse than if he had been indifferent from the beginning.
I wanted him to love me.
“I am not angry,” he repeated firmly, wiping at the tears that were still streaming down my cheek. “You were terrified at the thought of having a child before. If you are still just as conflicted, then it’s completely understandable. There is no shame in that.”
Those words meant to comfort only served to make me cry harder, to the point where I could no longer keep my sobs behind my teeth. He really was too kind for my piece of mind.
He let me cry myself out without another word, stroking my back soothingly and planting soft kisses to the back of my neck and shoulder while I trembled uncontrollably, and to my shame, I drank up that comfort like a woman dying of thirst in a desert. It was this that finally allowed me to pull myself together enough to speak.
“I didn’t want to lose this.” My whispered confession sounded as loud as a shout in the silence of the bedroom.
I felt Sethian still completely, his hand freezing on my upper arm mid-stroke.
“‘This’?” he asked finally after a tense moment of silence. His confusion was so palpable that I could practically taste it in the air.
I sniffled and swallowed thickly against the huge knot that was still lodged in my throat. The damage had already been done, so I supposed anything else I said wouldn’t make much difference either way. It was time to lay out all my cards, no matter how embarrassing or painful.
“You brought me here because you wanted a child,” I began in a small voice.
I was glad that I was facing away from him or else I don’t think I could have gotten out more than a couple words before chickening out. It was hard enough to meet his gaze normally without the added difficulties of telling him my deepest fears about our relationship.
“Although you say that I am your wife,” I pressed on, “I’ve only been able to see you on the days that I’ve been fertile. I understand that you have duties way more important than me, but I had at least hoped that you would spend some evenings with me, maybe even share a conversation with me over a meal or two. Even though our marriage was as far from conventional as you could get, I’ve accepted that fact, but at the same time had hoped that it could eventually mean something more than just an act of convenience for the sake of your laws of succession.
“I didn’t want my pregnancy to signal the end of even those visits. I thought, maybe if we could spend more time together, then maybe you would come to enjoy my company enough to keep coming back regardless of not needing to try for a baby anymore. Life is short for a human, so I really don’t want to spend the most important parts of it existing in a constant limbo of waiting and yearning for just a few moments here and there of real living.”
There it was, words I could never take back, and I held my breath, terrified of his reaction. The rest of my life depended on this one moment, and I prayed desperately that I wouldn’t have to regret the power over my fate I had so willingly, stupidly, given him on that first night.
“Emily—please look at me.”
The tone of his voice was strange, something I couldn’t readily identify, so it was with a large dose of apprehension that I scrubbed the remaining tears from my eyes and slowly rolled my body to finally face him. The look in his eyes was every bit as intense, piercing, and utterly unreadable as I had feared, and it took every last ounce of my courage to not look away in panic.
Then Sethian suddenly leaned forward, and for a moment, my mind couldn’t understand what he was doing until I felt the soft press of his lips against mine and everything instantly stuttered to a stop. A fleeting caress, then he was pulling back before I could unfreeze my mind enough to react.
“I’m sorry,” he said, the absolute sincerity in his voice hitting me like a knife to the chest. The last thing I had expected was an apology. “To make you feel such abandonment and uncertainty—it was unbelievably thoughtless of me to forget that humans do not experience the flow of time in the same manner as the Sidhe, but it is downright unforgivable of me to have forgotten to tell you a very crucial detail of the process that has allowed you to enter and remain in the elven realm. I have done a very cruel thing to you in allowing you to believe something that is no longer true, and even a thousand years of apologies is not enough.”
I—don’t understand—” I began, but he cut me off with a finger against my lips.
“You were greatly changed when you were brought here. In truth, your physical body now has more in common with an elven body than a human’s—and that includes an elf’s longevity. One year, fifty years, or five hundred. They are but a blink of an eye within the existence you now have before you.”
For a long moment, I was too shocked to do anything but stare back at him in utter disbelief. To live for thousands of years just like an elf…the idea was as alien to me as the concept of aging must be to Sethian. How could a living being even have the natural ability to change something so fundamental about another?
Sethian shrugged. “Transmutation is not an ability that I possess, so it is not something I can explain with any authority. My abilities, as you have already witnessed, deal with the manipulation of the fabric of space as well as the energies associated with healing. Only a handful of my people possess the ability to transmute, it is so rare.”
He began to absently thread his fingers through my hair as he spoke, and the sensation relaxed me enough that I was able to calm down significantly. I had gone into this conversation expecting to have my world crushed beyond repair, but instead, Sethian had opened up a whole new one. I had been so emotionally rung out in the last hour or so that I didn’t know what to think or feel anymore.
However, he wasn’t finished yet. “What was done to you is not something that is done often, and never on a whim. Only the most skilled mage is ever allowed to perform a transmutation on the living. The mage that performed your transmutation is one who has lived for nearly six thousand years, old enough to have performed the transmutations of the human brides during the last Plague of Infertility.”
Sethian suddenly cupped my face in both hands. “I would never have given permission otherwise. Never think that you mean nothing to me. The passion you have stirred within me in just the short time you have been here is incomparable to what I feel when I am bedding Limira. With her, it is an act as mechanical as walking. There is no passion, no joy, just rutting in the name of our royal duty to continue the royal bloodline.”
I made a face before I could stop myself. The last thing I wanted to hear about was my husband’s sexcapades with the queen, never mind that she was his wife as well.
Claimed by the Elven King: Part Three Page 4
