“But you didn’t know, and you were just a boy!” She moved to his side where he had to look at her. “I’m sure if your mother never told you the story, she wouldn’t have wanted you to feel badly.”
“I know. But that doesn’t change how I felt at the time. I’d tried so hard to win his favor, but had never been good enough. One day, I had enough. I resolved to leave. Damn him and his house.” Sparrow paused, back straightening with pride. “That’s when I went to your palace to work as a royal guard, and after years of service, I was promoted as a knight. When the time of the Selection came, I knew I was ready to compete. I won, and was knighted as your consort. And I came to you, and here we are.”
His soft smile melted her heart. His eyes still shone with tears, but he was beautiful, just like this place, and proud and stubborn, just like she was. It was going to be impossible not to fall in love with him.
The realization hit her like a slap, but even if she’d tried to fight it, Sparrow’s words would have broken down the rest of Chloe’s walls.
She leaned over, pressing a kiss to his forehead. A tingle flowed into her, starting at her lips and traveling to her toes. He tilted his face toward her even more, so she kissed his perfect nose, the tingle warming her, loosening her tense muscles and making her feel hot all of a sudden.
His face was close, his eyes eager. His stare was hypnotic. She couldn’t look away. The rest of her resistance melted away. He pressed a kiss to her lips and Chloe knew she was lost.
Chapter 14
That kiss was different than the ones they’d shared before. There was a sureness to it, a decisiveness that thrilled him. Chloe was giving herself over to the desire between them. He could feel it in the way their mouths came together, their tongues danced with each other. He could taste her want for him, and he could taste the power that would rise once they consummated their joining.
When she stood straight again, licking her lips and gazing down at him in amazement, his heart nearly burst with love for her. He’d admitted his real reasons for joining her palace guard in the first place, and she forgave him. Chloe didn’t even think forgiveness was necessary. It had weighed heavy on his heart since he’d met her, how selfish he’d been, and he’d worried that once she found out, she would think differently of him. But she didn’t.
He put his hands on her hips and pressed his cheek against her lower stomach. His beautiful Gaia. She was finally accepting him. He rubbed his cheek there, moving lower, and already even through her clothes the heat of her warmed his face. Sparrow groaned and dropped his hands almost to her knees so he could slide them up her outer thighs, pushing her skirt up and out of the way as they went. He turned Chloe so that her back was to the wall next to the window so she could lean against it if she wished.
When the skirt was pushed above her hips, Sparrow gripped the sides of her panties and slid them down to reveal his prize. He glanced up at her once to be sure she gave him permission to do what he wished. When her tongue slipped over her bottom lip, her light eyes darker with lust, Sparrow, leaned forward and slipped his tongue between her folds to taste his goddess for the first time.
She was like sunlight on his tongue, like sweet berries and spring water and honey all mixed into one. And he could feel the power pulsating inside her, struggling to be set free.
Chapter 15
Everything that was happening was basically the opposite of anything Chloe had ever done or experienced, from this beautiful, peaceful place, to a gorgeous, sexy fox demon gently pressing her to the wall and—
“Oh,” Chloe gasped as Sparrow’s tongue slipped into her most private place. His touch was gentle, warm and wet, and Chloe was grateful for the wall behind her as her knees went soft with the pleasure of it.
His big green eyes always looked at her with such devotion—such love—that any part of her that wanted to resist or thought she wasn’t ready was overcome by it. And the moment she’d kissed him this time, she knew with certainty that Sparrow would never hurt her. That was something she could never have been sure of with any other person in the world. But she knew it was true with him.
And God, she wanted him badly enough her body burned with desire.
Instinctively, she spread her legs to grant him better access. His tongue wriggled against her, flicked, sending tiny zaps of pleasure throughout her lower body. Sparrow moaned, and Chloe pressed one hand against the wall at her hip in an attempt to anchor herself in place. Her other hand rested on top of his head, her fingers sinking into his soft, thick hair.
His tongue flattened against her, then curled deeper, and Chloe’s head fell back until the wall stopped her. Sparrow toyed with her clit, pushing her to a new height of pleasure with each swipe of his tongue. This brand of pleasure wasn’t one she had much experience with. Norman had done this rarely, and had never done it well enough for Chloe to want him to continue. If anyone else she’d been bold enough to go to bed with after leaving him had done it, she didn’t remember, which meant it couldn’t have been that good anyway.
Sparrow, on the other hand, didn’t just seem intent on giving her pleasure. It was as if he worshiped her this way, pledging his devotion to her with his mouth and tongue.
Sparrow sucked on her clit, and Chloe heaved in a breath then cried out when his fingers pushed inside her. Her cry seemed to inflame his passions, because he sucked harder, licked faster, and pressed his mouth against her, devouring her with low moans and shaky breaths.
Sparrow stopped and looked up at her, his lips dark pink and wet, his eyes a deeper green than before. “My goddess,” he breathed, then dipped forward again and mouthed her, fingers filling her, until Chloe felt the floor shift beneath her feet and she came with a choked-off scream.
The wall behind her didn’t seem to matter anymore as her body arched in pleasure. Sparrow kept his tongue against her as she snapped forward, a roll from her shoulders down until she was pressing herself out, practically riding his talented mouth. Her fingers tightened in his hair as she cried out. After a third bone-shuddering wave of pleasure left her feeling boneless, Sparrow stood before her, those deep and gorgeous green eyes practically glowing with lust.
Chloe heard a soft tearing, a light snap and something hard pinging against the floor. The buttons of her shirt. Sparrow had pulled it open and gazed at her with open want. She leaned forward—one of them would have to reach behind her and unhook her bra—but Sparrow touched the center in the front and it simply split, opening for his hands. He slid his hands against her breasts, pushing the cups of her bra out of the way, and weighed them in his hands.
Between one blink and the next, they no longer stood with Chloe braced against the wall, skirt wrapped around her waist, shirt and bra torn open. In an imperceptible moment, they’d gone from there to the softest bed Chloe had ever laid upon, her clothes completely gone, with Sparrow on top of her, stroking her breasts. He straddled one of her legs, most of his weight supported on the knee between them. His thigh pressed firmly against her hot, wet center.
Chloe gasped and arched her back to grind against his thigh and was rewarded with Sparrow’s clever tongue lapping one of her peaked nipples before he sucked it into his mouth. He kneaded her other breast, thumbing its hard peak.
With a giddy feeling, Chloe realized that if she kept shifting against his leg, she was going to come again.
No one had ever made her feel this way—not even close. Was this because she’d gone so long without a man’s touch, or because he was magic? Or was it because they truly were meant to be together?
Those questions fled her mind as she arched and rocked against the hard muscle of Sparrow’s thigh, and shouted as another orgasm shuddered through her.
Sparrow pressed his face between her breasts and laughed breathily before mouthing her other nipple in turn. It felt so good, so right, and despite having come twice already, she wanted him inside her. Chloe wanted to do so much—to look at him, to take him into her mouth and make him shout the way she had
—but more than anything else at that moment, she wanted to feel his cock inside her and look into his eyes, and know…he was hers.
“Sparrow,” she whispered, and it was as if he knew what she was thinking, because he lifted his face to gaze down at her as he moved fully between her legs. His head slightly tilted, he shifted forward, and his cockhead spread her open.
Chloe sighed as he sank into her, the slight burn of intrusion easing quickly as her body adjusted for his impressive size. She hadn’t even gotten a good look at him, but it didn’t matter. She needed this now, and Sparrow seemed to need it too.
His cock filled her more perfectly than anyone ever had. She wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him deeper. Sparrow’s eyes went glassy, and he licked his lips.
“Goddess,” he breathed, as if in awe. “You’re perfect. But I knew you would be.”
Chloe’s hands went to his face, fingertips tracing his fine cheekbones, until her hands sank into the hair at his neck. Words she couldn’t have imagined saying before that moment fell from her lips. “I’m yours, Sparrow. I need this. I need you.”
He gasped and kissed her deeply, hungrily, and when he lifted his face again, their lips still brushing, he rocked his hips back and forward, and fell into a slow but steady rhythm. No one had ever been as gentle or driven her as crazy. Norman had been gentle, at first, but the longer they were together, the less he’d seemed concerned about her or her feelings. And the couple of little flings she’d had since turned out to be all about getting off fast and hard, with no time for tenderness.
But Sparrow was perfect, as if he knew exactly when she needed gentleness, and exactly when she was ready for more.
He drove into her, their bodies slapping together as she drew him closer with her legs around him, and pulled him down by his neck and shoulders. She couldn’t get enough of him.
“Yes,” she breathed as he snapped his hips faster, almost instinctively knowing what she needed. “Sparrow…”
He groaned in pleasure, shuddered against her, and between harsh breaths said, “Your power…will return soon.”
Chloe tossed her head side to side and cupped the back of his neck to make him meet her eyes. “I don’t even care. I just want you.” And unbidden, the words came. “I love you.”
His tongue slipped out to glide over his bottom lip, and Chloe couldn’t resist it. She rose up enough to capture that tongue between her lips and kiss him, overwhelmed by the need to come around his thick length and feel him lose himself inside her.
“I love you, Chloe,” he said into their kiss.
“Show me,” she breathed. “Fuck me, Sparrow, fuck m—”
Chloe screamed as he bucked forward, deep into her, sending her over the edge of her own orgasm. He felt impossibly huge inside her, and then he bucked again, his shout joining hers as he came.
Pleasure like she’d never known crashed into her, and for a moment Chloe genuinely thought she would lose consciousness. It was pleasure so acute, so focused on every part of her, that it was almost too much to take. She could never have imagined anything feeling that way, and Chloe realized it went beyond even the best orgasm she’d ever had.
Something else was happening.
The fingers of one hand tightened in Sparrow’s hair, and the other clawed at the sheets beneath her, like she needed to hang on to the bed or be swept away on a tide of sheer physical bliss. Despite these two hand-holds, Chloe felt unmoored, as if she’d been launched from the bed, she and Sparrow both, and they floated in some space with no beginning or ending.
Her eyes focused again to see his sparkling green ones staring back. They still lay there, Sparrow buried inside her and flushed from his own pleasure.
Heat between her legs spread upward, outward, down her thighs to her toes, to her fingertips and the top of her head. Another wave of pleasure broke inside her, but this time not from an orgasm. This came from somewhere else.
Sparrow smiled at her, a knowing smile, and whispered, “Do you see now, Chloe?” Tears shimmered in his eyes. “Do you see what you are?”
She didn’t see anything, but she couldn’t say as much. Her body didn’t feel like her own, except the pleasure that kept growing in her center and expanding like a sunburst. It rolled through her, and she had to close her eyes to bear it, her body arching and contracting around him again.
Chapter 16
He spilled deep inside Chloe, coming harder than he’d ever come in his lifetime. Her body gripped him, milking him and ensuring they felt every last bit of pleasure possible.
Sparrow never wanted to leave her side, never wanted to stop touching her, fucking her. But he felt the healing coil outward from within her—her power swelling until it would burst and rain down upon them both.
He reveled in it. “Do you see now, Chloe? Do you see what you are?” He blinked back tears as she closed her eyes, tossed her head back and gasped. Sparrow groaned and rested his cheek against her breast, clinging to her so he could feel every spark of it as she rediscovered what she was.
Her power triggered a change in him, opening him up as he had in her house to reveal the secret parts of himself that he never let anyone else see. A lightning cord rose from her and wrapped around the bolts swirling inside him, dancing in a fiery tango with him until he thought he might lose his mind from the sheer bliss of it.
And then they both slumped onto the bed, panting, his cheek still against her breast, her fingers woven through his hair, unmoving.
Sparrow lifted his face to look at his beautiful goddess. When she opened her eyes, they were wet with tears and bright with an inner light that hadn’t been there before.
“Oh my God,” she breathed in a quavering whisper. “I…I feel so different.”
Sparrow kissed her, nodding. “Because you are. We’ve woken your power, Chloe.”
“What can I do? Things like you?”
Sparrow laughed from pure joy. “Your power is so much stronger than mine. You’ll see. I’ll teach you.”
They curled together, her cheek against his chest this time, as he stroked her thick hair and told her about the wonders of the Twilight, her powers, and how she would never have to worry about another earthly problem ever again.
***
The butterfly flitted around the flowered vine, alighting and lifting off again almost as if teasing them. Chloe sat on the lush grass, naked and cross-legged, concentrating. Sparrow sat next to her, similarly naked. It had taken some convincing before Chloe would step outside with no clothes on, but Sparrow had finally made her see that no one else inhabited this particular place, and people in the Twilight tended to keep to themselves. They communed with the nature and the animals, and rarely made social calls.
Especially since Sparrow’s mother had been banished there. People kept their distance in fear of what might happen to them if they befriended her. Sparrow had hated them for it, but as he’d gotten older, he supposed he’d understood.
He slipped his hand beneath her hair and stroked her back. “Just call to it with your thoughts. No need to strain.”
“I haven’t been straining.” The furrow between Chloe’s brows told another story.
“You have, because if that’s your relaxed face I’d be afraid to see you get tense.”
Without missing a beat, she slapped his thigh and made him laugh. “Shhh, you’re too noisy for a teacher.”
“Think it, Chloe. Think come here.” He rubbed his fingertip in a circle between her eyebrows in an effort to get her to relax, and eventually she did.
The butterfly floated toward them, and landed on top of Chloe’s head.
“Is it there?” she asked, excited, holding stock still.
“No, it flew past,” Sparrow said.
She blinked a few times. “No, it didn’t! It’s on my head!”
“How do you know?” He waited to see how she’d verbalize it, curious how she might explain something he’d always had trouble with. His answer would have simply been I just know
.
But in typical Chloe style, she impressed him yet again. “I feel it…sharing the same space with me. I feel its energy next to mine.”
The butterfly flew to Sparrow’s knee then, and made a few lazy circles, exploring its perch, before flying away. Chloe laughed with happiness at what she’d done, what she’d learned, and leaned over to cup Sparrow’s cheek and kiss him.
Her happiness made him happy. She’d been learning quickly, and had rejuvenated a wilting flower yesterday with merely a touch and a thought. This was the first living thing she’d called to her, but Sparrow knew soon she’d be able to summon birds and animals easily, as well.
Then they would explore her full power, power like his but so much stronger. He was eager to see her wield it, but thought a step at a time was the prudent approach. Besides, for a while every time they made love, Chloe would unlock more of her goddess-hood. That would eventually stop, but it didn’t matter. Sparrow intended to make love to her in every square foot of his place in the Twilight.
That morning, they’d bathed in the stream, and had waded into the deeper parts so that she could easily sink down onto him while he stood. Sparrow swore the flowers lining the banks were brighter and taller when they were done.
Her kiss didn’t stop now so she could demand they try something new, or to suggest they pick some fruit to eat. Instead, she pushed him onto his back on the soft cushion of grass. She sucked him into the wet, hot cavern of her mouth, tongued him like he was a delicacy.
His back arched and he shouted as he came, and Sparrow felt his power surging in tandem with hers.
Chapter 17
A few days ago, Chloe had been prepared to throw the clothes she could fit into a suitcase and leave her life behind, again, to escape an abusive ex-husband intent on stalking her. She’d been soaking herself in bourbon, crying in a bathroom stall, and sure that she would spend the rest of her life on the run from the horrible man she’d chosen when they were really little more than children.
Firefox: a Fox Demon's Claim Page 6
