by Elena Lawson
And the way his jeans rode low on his hips without a belt made my back stiffen and my breath catch. Another inch lower and I was sure I would be seeing a whole lot more than the twin dips on either side of his groin and the whisper of dark hair leading in a trail down his lower abdomen and below the waistband of his jeans.
His hair was still damp from the shower, and it leaned it a glossiness that made it shine with bits of chestnut and the tiniest strands of copper I didn’t think I’d ever seen before. Maybe it was the light?
Not for the first time, I thought I might drool just from looking at him, and I unconsciously checked to make sure I was keeping it all in.
“Hey, is there anything to drink in this place?” he asked, and I remembered the small cellar-like room, the walls made of rough gray stone, that jutted off from the kitchen. It was stocked well with bottles upon bottles of aged Spanish, French, and Italian wines.
Strengthening my resolve, I launched myself off the bed and onto unsteady feet. “Yeah, there’s bunch—” I blurted before my knees betrayed me and I tripped over my own feet, my body flinging itself forward.
I gasped, bracing for impact, silently cursing myself as I smashed into Elias in the doorway and we both tumbled out into the hall, only stopping when we hit the opposite wall, my head connecting with the stucco wall so hard it made my brain rattle in my skull.
Shit, shit shit!
Why? Why did this kind of shit have to happen to me all the freaking time! I thought this stage of my life had passed. I thought clumsy—can’t-do-magic-properly-to-save-her-life Harper was a thing of the past. Stupid!
My head throbbed, and I blinked to clear the black spots and stars from my vision.
“Damn,” I heard Elias curse, and through the blurred haze of my vision, saw him reach back to rub a sore spot on the back of his neck. “Harper, you okay?”
I felt strong hands lift my head from the wall and another short, rough curse. “You’re bleeding,” he said, his voice tight as my vision began to return.
I shook my head, but stopped the movement immediately, it only made everything more painful and blurry. I hated myself right now. “I’m fine,” I said, and heard the note of annoyance in my voice. “Are you alright? I didn’t mean to—”
“Harper,” Elias interrupted and the warm press of his hand against my cheek prodded me to look up at him and into his dark storm-cloud blue eyes. “It’s fine. I’m fine,” he said honestly, and after a quick survey of his unblemished skin, I found he was telling the truth.
“Why am I so clumsy?” I blurted before I could stop myself. “I hate it.”
Elias chuckled, his thumb brushing over my jaw. Before my still-dazed mind could register what he was doing, he pressed his lips against mine in a chaste kiss and then pulled away again. “I wouldn’t have you any other way.”
Stunned, I couldn’t help the tiny smile begging to be let loose on my face at his sweet smile. I remembered a time not so unlike this one—the very first time I’d ever met him. I’d knocked him to the ground then, too. Scattered his papers over the hallway outside of the headmaster’s office. He hadn’t been put off by my lack of balance then, either.
“Come on,” he said and gingerly hauled me to my feet. I swayed a bit, the black spots returning as my blood rushed back to my toes. But Elias’ strong hand gripping mine held me steady. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
At his words, the sting in the side of my head intensified and the roll of a droplet of blood as it made a trail down to my chin tickled my cheek in a way that made me cringe, eager to get it off me. “Good idea.”
Elias led me back into the bedroom and sat me down on the edge of my bed, ensuring I was completely steady before he disappeared back into the bathroom and I heard the water running in the faucet.
He returned with two facecloths soaked in warm water and set to work on my head. Once the blood was cleared out of the scrapes there, a golden glow shone near my temple and I knew he’d activated the healing sigil. Warmth seeped into my temple and I shivered at the alternatingly smoothing and itching feeling of the small wounds sealing themselves back up. After a second, what remained of the blur in my vision was gone, and soon after all remnants of the throbbing, too.
Damn, he’s good at that.
Maybe he should have studied to become a healer.
When I opened my eyes again, I found his face level with mine, his body pressed in between my knees as he kneeled on the floor. “Better?” he asked, and I couldn’t help myself.
I pulled his face up to mine and kissed him again. Tenderly, he set his arms around my middle, holding me with fingers splayed across my lower back. Elias kissed me back sweetly, without the same carnal fervor he’d kissed me with earlier out in the drive and I realized he probably didn’t want to press after I’d just had a head injury.
I needed to show him I was alright. I let go of his face to reach between us, undoing the buttons on the navy top I was wearing. Elias froze and I felt his hands leave my back to cover mine on the buttons, stopping them.
My heart dropped to my toes.
“What are you doing?” he asked, the words a whisper of breath against my lips.
I steeled myself, removing his hands from mine. “Something I’ve been wanting to do for a very long time.”
Elias’s lips parted, and he looked into my eyes, searching, his brows lowering. “Are you sure?”
My magic rose within me without my calling it. Surging in response to his question. As though it were reaching out its own wisplike fingers to assure him that this was right. That it was out of our control.
Looking back into his eyes, I was immeasurably happy to find the layer of ice he always tried to keep up between us had melted. That extra measure of caution and unease had vanished. I saw only a man who wanted to make sure I wouldn’t regret this, and it warmed my heart even more—made my magic sing in my veins.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
It was the truth. I would never regret my first time being with Elias. Even if things didn’t work out. Because though I loved Cal and Adrian—and knew on some level I was falling for Draven—I’d loved Elias first. I hadn’t wanted to admit it, but I think I’d loved him for a while now. I just didn’t want to ruin it. Didn’t want him to have the power to crush me so irrevocably that if anything ever happened to him, I’d splinter into a million pieces and never be able to put myself back together again.
Because this was a fleeting thing. We didn’t know if we had a hundred years or only this moment. Now more than ever I believed that. I wanted to live now before I regretted not living at all when my time came. I choked back the urge to cry at the realness of it all—the despair clutching my heart and lungs. Because even then I knew—I wasn’t long for this world. With everything that’d happened, and everything that had yet to—and how I was always somehow embroiled in all of it—he had to see that, too.
One of these days—soon—whoever it was that plotted in the dark against us—and against all the other races…whoever that was—they would see me—us—as the threat we were and they would come for us all. I just hoped we were stronger. That we would act faster.
For now, it would be a crime not to live.
I saw the same raw emotions etched in the lines of Elias’ face. Could see the same thoughts echoed in his gaze. “I love you, Harper,” he said, his voice like rich velvet and rumbling thunder.
Fuck. My hand itched to grip my chest—to hold in the fractured pieces there. I’d grown up a loner in a trailer—traveling the continental USA with my adoptive parents. No friends to share the journey with. I’d been alone for so long—with only Leo and Lara for companionship. I’d thought it was enough.
It wasn’t.
It never had been.
I had no fucking idea what I was missing out on. And now that I had it, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. “I love you, too.”
His face split into a bright grin and I reached up to run a hand over the soft
stubble on his jaw, he caught my hand there, holding it in place.
“We’ll figure this out,” he said, without needing to offer more explanation. I knew what he meant. This.
Us.
“I’ll leave the academy—I can take a job at the Department, I—”
“Shhhh,” I hushed him with a finger pressed to his supple lips. These were problems for another time. To be solved later—but if he thought I was about to let him quit his job because of me, he was a fucking lunatic. That shit was not going to happen. But we could argue about it later. I looked forward to it.
I didn’t want to think about problems right now.
I didn’t want to think at all.
“Just kiss me, you idiot,” I told him, and he did.
Elias deftly rose from his knees, one arm curling beneath my arms to wrap around my back, the other pressed against the firm mattress, and he lifted my body and moved me more towards the center of the luxurious, down-filled comforter. My heart sped with anticipation, and my breathing was already stuttered and broken.
I tried to school myself. To remain calm. I didn’t want him to think I was too nervous and change his mind. I just wanted—
All rational thought was wiped from my mind as his lips found mine and his body lowered to cover me, laying me swiftly against the covers with the press of his body weight.
His kisses were slow and measured, but knowing what we were about to do, each one of them sent sparks and flashes behind my eyelids and fluttering sensations all over me. Heat racing down my spine, pooling in my belly and between my legs.
I moaned into his mouth and he used the opportunity to slip his tongue inside, and my lower back arched against him, feeling the hard length of him press into my inner thigh.
Elias. Elias Elias.
That’s all there was. Him. His hand finishing the work I started on my shirt, expertly unbuttoning. The taste of his lips, like mint and honey. The smell of him covering me like the fine mist of the mountains in the early morning. Crisp pine and warm spice.
His hands as they pressed up against my bare abdomen and skated across my naked breasts, helping me to remove the shirt. My nipples pebbled at the small contact and I moaned again, wholly unable to stop the sounds from stampeding from my lips.
Elias. Elias. Elias.
My fingers clutched at his back, the nails biting down even though I was doing my best to be gentle. I pulled him down, closer, wanting to feel him there. He obliged and with a grind of his hips, his cock pressed firmly between my legs. I inhaled sharply and his body shuddered in response.
I felt like I was going to explode if he stopped. It would never be enough. I would never get enough. I began to undo his pants, wanting—no, needing him—to feel all of him.
Elias’ lips left mine for an instant and it felt too long. I was left rasping from the loss, breathless and flushed. As my eyes adjusted, I found him staring down at me, a peaceful expression on his handsome face as he took in the mounds of my breasts—the small dark pink nipples still hardened. Gooseflesh rose over my skin at his reverent appraisal.
“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, Harper,” he told me and I pressed myself up, wanting to help him remove his pants, but he gave a slight shake of his head and stood, rising from the bed to close to door and lock it.
A little sizzle of embarrassment panged in my gut that I hadn’t thought of that. Imagine if one of the other guys had—
I stopped the thought in its tracks, watching him like a hawk as he dimmed the lights and undid the top button of his jeans. Then undid the zipper—all the while walking slowly—oh so fucking slowly, it was torture—back to where I waited on the bed.
When Elias reached the edge, he stopped, leaving his jeans unzipped and unbuckled he reached out and grabbed hold of my ankles. His fingers brushed against the sensitive skin there and made a shiver race all the way up to my neck as he tugged me towards the end of the bed, his hands trailing up my legs—his gaze fixed on a spot below my navel.
His eyes ate me up hungrily and I saw something raw and unchecked cross his gaze. Something almost animal in nature. Not like Cal and Adrian’s wolves. Or the blood-hungry beast I sometimes saw behind Draven’s. No. The animal behind Elias’ eyes was the one we all had deep inside. The one we usually kept caged or on a tight leash. The kind who only demanded freedom when certain emotions ran too high, so high it could no longer be contained.
It was that animal gaze that fixated on me as he undid my pants and tugged them down until they were tossed aside, discarded onto the floor. And as his fingers hooked onto my panties and made those disappear, too.
Oh fuck.
His own jeans dropped to the floor a second later and I caught the lick of his lips before my gaze was drawn someplace lower. Much lower. To the proud length of him as he leaned forward, one hand down to steady himself and the other gripping tightly to my waist as he fought to control himself—to rein himself in. To stop himself from taking me hard and fast and decide to go slow.
Once he was horizontal with me, his cock brushing my opening, our hearts thudding against one another where our ribcages were pressed—bleating out a discordant rhythm, he reached down between us, and his fingers found the wetness below. He growled and pressed his lips to mine again.
My body convulsed as his fingers began to circle my opening, making all kinds of foreign sensations skitter and dance over my body. A tightening began low in my belly and my muscles clenched. My fingernails bit down hard into the skin of his shoulder blades and he nudged his cock against me—pushing inside with slow purpose as his fingers continued their perfect pirouettes.
The pressure was delicious, if a little painful, as he worked the tip of himself in and out. The combination of his fingers circling my clit and the pressure of his head make my toes curl and I opened my legs wider for him, wanting to feel the whole of him.
Elias obliged, entering me a little more, groaning against my lips as he did. “Fuck,” he cursed between fevered kisses and his body began to tighten beneath my hands. His skin flushing with warmth and a thin layer of sweat.
The pain was sharp for a moment as he pushed a little deeper and I let a small whimper escape, trying to ride it out.
“I can stop,” he breathed, his hand halting in its torturous circular motions. His small thrusts slowing.
I gripped him tighter. “Don’t you dare,” I growled back and he resumed, burying his face into my neck to kiss a path down to my collarbone that had me shivering in pleasure. A quickening was beginning from some unfathomable place within me, my magic coloring it with vibrant hues of purple and brightest yellow behind my eyelids.
“I want…all of you,” I managed between pants, my voice pitched high and breaking. “Now.”
Elias thrust into me, filling me to the brim. He stayed like that for a moment, allowing me to adjust to the size of him there. The sharp pain I’d felt only a moment before had waned into a duller throb that was nothing compared to the riot of sensations vying for dominance in each one of my nerve endings. They begged for release and after I caught my breath, I moved against Elias, circling my hips against him.
Elias removed his hand and I almost screamed at the loss of his fingers, but then he began to move, grinding and thrusting, stimulating everything. The rhythmic grinding motion of his hips and the pressure of him as he drove into me again and again was going to undo me.
I could feel it coming—like a fucking derailed train, careening from the track. It was going to be a disaster. It was going to be a goddamn catastrophe. It swirled and pulsed, my thighs tightening—the warm quickening in my belly rising to a crescendo of unparalleled ecstasy.
I shouted out, a shuddering scream echoing back to me in the cavernous room as we both found our release.
16
Elias and I had lain there together for what felt like a long while. Content in each other’s arms. His hands softly brushing my unruly red hair away from my face. But when I heard the front door o
pen, I figured I should get up.
Elias’ eyes were halfway to closing at that point, and I urged him to stay in the bed with a promise that I would return soon. He was asleep before I was even able to finish getting dressed and I doused the lights, pulling a throw blanket from the closet to cover the perfect silhouette of his naked body against the mattress.
Taking one more second to appreciate what lay before me, I leaned down and kissed the spot near the top of his cheek bone and went to leave.
The soreness between my legs as I bounded down the stairs reminded me of what we’d just done and my belly clenched, releasing a whole new wave of endorphins into my bloodstream. I swallowed to squander the sensation, unconvinced that Cal and Adrian—hell, maybe even Draven, too—would be able to scent what Elias and I had just done.
Shit. Maybe I should have taken a shower?
Too late now. I rounded the corner and went down the hall, hearing their voices in one of the sitting rooms, though I couldn’t tell which one. I stopped in the kitchen for a tall glass of cold water, and even bent low over the sink to splash some on my face, ridding myself of the last dregs of haze clinging to my mind.
I found them in the drawing room. Cal and Adrian in nothing but low-riding shorts—their ripped bodies on display in the orange glow of lamplight. Seeing them that way right now wasn’t helping me. Draven was standing next to a window overlooking a section of garden I hadn’t yet seen—since I hadn’t had much opportunity to explore yet.
“How was your run?” I asked them as I entered, doing my best not to let any awkward inflection into my voice.
Adrian lifted a brow and Cal leaned forward, his eyes hooded, clearly brooding. My heart pounded in my chest and I resisted the urge to turn and walk out the door. Had they heard us? Were they upset?
Hadn’t they just said they wouldn’t make me choose. That they understood how I cared for Elias—and even for Draven? Maybe it was that they were jealous they hadn’t had me first?
