Hands trace down my spine, his touch feathering over the base of each ribbon, right where they grow from my back. His fingers pluck them lightly like a harp, making my body sing, but only he can hear its song. Chills scatter down my skin, ribbons shuddering with ecstasy.
Bracing my arms on his shoulders, I bend my elbows so my hands can dig into his soft hair. I’m so overwhelmed with needy fervor and the intensity of our connection that my eyes burn with it.
Both of his hands come back to my waist, biceps bulging. This time when he thrusts his hips up, he goes so deep that it’s like he’s rooted inside of me, causing my pleasure to sprout up higher.
And I want more, I want this.
Using my thighs, I start bucking on top of him as fast as I can, spine undulating, hips grinding, my swollen clit being pressed against him every time I slam down.
“Fuck…” Slade grits out, and the curse from his lips just spurs me on to go faster, and then I’m nearly there, so close...
“Slade!”
“Come again, just like this,” he growls. “I want your pussy to choke my cock, Auren.”
My whimper slips out from the filth of his words, and I feel myself become impossibly wetter, my core going tight. My body purrs for him, back arching, hips in his grip, pussy clamping down around him. Our gazes fasten, gold and black anchored together like ships to the sea.
“That’s it, Goldfinch,” he purrs.
Utter rapture overtakes me.
My orgasm washes over me like crashing waves until I become submerged entirely. I cry out, nails scraping down his skin as my entire body seems to clamp down around him.
“Fucking yes…” He roars in my ear, burying himself deep, stretching me around him. He groans out my name like a rugged prayer as he comes, while the last of my rippling orgasm laps over me in lingering licks.
I’m floating in the depths he brought me, basking in the weightlessness of it all, in awe of the force of our joining. As I shudder and pant against him, I let my forehead rest against his. We sink against each other, breaths shallow, feelings deep, wading in waters that are completely uncharted.
So this is how it can be with the right person.
All my life, I thought sex was just...sex. A commodity to be sold, a job to perform. With Midas, sex was the only time he’d give me the touch I so desperately craved, a way for me to make him love me. But I never felt anything like this before. No one ever gave me such pleasure or made me feel so treasured, so sexy, so wanted.
I watch him with a sweep of sated awe, his aura languid, flowing from his shoulders to drip across mine like a cool stream. We breathe together, chests rising and falling
in tandem. My ribbons lazily stroke up his back, playing with the spikes that are once more protruding from his spine, and I hum in pure happiness.
Once again, this is a moment I never want to end.
But I know it has to.
As if he can see it in my face, Slade lifts his forehead from mine, eyes searching my expression.
“We should talk,” I tell him, my voice filled with regret, even as it still carries a husky note to it. Those three words break the spell we’re in, and then it’s not simple anymore. It’s not just him and me.
All too soon, we’re breaking apart, bodies separating, my ribbons drooping like they’re mourning the loss of him. I don’t blame them. All I want to do is curl up beside him and fall asleep in his arms, but we don’t have that luxury. I don’t know if we ever will, and that thought hurts my heart.
Maybe these stolen moments of a forbidden romance are all we’ll ever get. Moments where we forget about the outside, but the outside doesn’t forget about us. The world has a way of blowing past your bubble, poking and prodding until evaded reality pops its way in.
So, as much as I want to keep on ignoring, keep on melting into him, I don’t. If I want him, if I want me, it’s time to face those harsh realities, because there is no future with Slade if I don’t fight for it.
Which is why I clean up and get dressed in heavy silence, letting every concern and thought and worry rush back in as violently as churned rapids from the falls.
Slade watches me from his pallet, pants on, shirt off, spikes out, an army commander waiting for a problem he can attack.
“Tell me.”
Not a command. He says it in a way that lets me know without a shadow of a doubt that he’s here as my ally. That he’s not just my lover, but someone I can depend on, can trust, and that’s what gives me the strength to finally unburden myself and let my tongue unravel from the secret knots that have tied up my throat.
“Midas has him,” I say, and the weight is like a boulder dropped from my hunched shoulders. “He has Digby.”