Page 49 of Bright Soul

I had a moment of weightlessness as he wrapped his shadows around me, lifting my hips and setting me to straddle him on the bed. “I meant to tell you for a while, but…” I said, resting my hands on his warm chest.

He raised a brow. “But what?” he asked.

Buthe’d been so distant. Skirting the edges of his self-control, afraid to hurt me even though his absence was the worst pain he could inflict.

Buthe was so different, from a different world. Far more important than I’d ever dreamed of being. To think I was supposed to be his mate and equal.

“But we haven’t fucked, even when you were in the grips of a lust spell,” I settled on saying. “I thought I was, um, inadequate to you in some way. Probably many ways.”

His expression twisted into a troubled frown, and on cue, he blamed himself. “It is I that is inad—”

I swallowed the rest of what he was going to say by kissing him, holding one horn to get the angle I wanted. Just like before, the meeting of our lips seemed to obliterate Phaeron and draw out the growling animal that rested just beneath his princely manner.

He flipped us and trapped me in a cage of blankets and his body, kissing like he wanted to devour me. But he jerked away, panting. “This is a bad idea,” he groaned.

With each shift, I felt the hardness of him pressed against my thigh. He wanted me, and yet…it still wasn’t going to happen. I gathered myself to hear him tell me no, for him to disappear in a bank of shadows and leave me with only my hand to finish what we’d started. Moisture gathered in my eyes, and I glanced away from his conflicted face. I had to stop putting so much of myself forward like this.

He caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning my head back. “It will not do to have you doubting.” He pulled the covers from between us, and I caught sight of his manhood for the first time. I’d sucked on him in the dark, only able to feel the shape of him, which matched the sight. His shaft had a few nubs along the length and purplish veins, with a velvety dark gray cap at the tip, matching his lips. No other surprises—he was human shaped.

“Cress.” He pressed in close to me, our foreheads touching again. “Do you trust me?”

The tenderness in his voice stole my breath. “Yes,” I managed to whisper.

Shadows unfurled around him, one particularly long tendril hitting a light switch and plunging the room into darkness. Fabric shredded, and cool air hit my chest and legs, my breasts bouncing free when my borrowed clothes parted. I felt his handslift me as if I weighed nothing and sweep away the ruined material.

His magic felt as firm as his hands. In the dark, I could mistake him for having many caressing fingers. “Tell me to stop at any time,” he said close to my ear. “But I need to have control in this bed. Is that okay?”

He pinned my wrists above my head, keeping them there with a warm coil of darkness. “I can’t touch you?” I asked. The bindings flexed but held when I tested them.

“Not this night.” He nibbled on my earlobe, the sensation curling my toes. Everything was more intense when I couldn’t see what he was doing. He’d even covered the glow his eyes put off. In many ways, he was the night pressing in around us, here to take me.Finally.

“I want as much of you as I can have,” I told the darkness and parted my thighs for it.

“My True Light, you have called me home.” He pulled back, his voice enveloping me with warmth. I could feel one clawed hand adjusting my knee, running a palm up the tender inner flesh of my leg. “You are my beacon to return to, and how bright you have come to shine in my absence.”

I squirmed some as his touch skimmed closer to my heated core. The darkness sighed with me as the firmness of his fingertips vanished. His shadows continued to play across my skin, drawing circles and little nonsense runes over every inch of me except the folds that pulsed with my quick heartbeat in the dark.

Was he wrestling with his control as I waited breathless for his return? I wondered if he’d created the absence of light to hide his struggles and protect me from having to see how thin his control truly was.

He cupped my needy pussy, and I breathed out a soft sound of relief. “In the madness of every moment I spent with Myuna,”he said, stroking his way up my slit. “I clung to thoughts of you. If I would emerge from the ordeal as the man you recognized.” One of his fingers slipped within me, and I moaned. I could feel the tremor that passed through him. “If you would still want me.” In went a second finger, curling and coaxing within me.

“Of course I still want you,” I said breathlessly.

“I worried I would not be the same within,” he continued. He ran his lips along my throat and applied pressure to my clit with the pad of his thumb. My cry sounded ragged, too loud to my own ears. “That I would no longer appreciate the great power you carry within you. I feared the sight of you would no longer bring me joy. A true monster of hers would not crave the taste of your lips.”

His mouth was there, his kiss first a chaste brush but deepening to a full duel of teeth and tongue. He trembled with fine control. The sensation of his kiss pulled away, and he withdrew from my pussy too.

“Phaeron?” I asked, flushing hot, then uncertain. “If this is too much, we can stop…”

“Still so sweet,” he answered. I heard a wet sound and was fairly certain he was licking his fingers. “I may be a touch broken, bright soul. Mere pleasure cannot mend me.”

“Maybe we can still try,” I said.

“Yes.” Before I could worry about what he was trying to imply, he was there between my thighs, nudging within me. He lifted under my back, taking away the sensation of the sheets and leaving me in a cushion of darkness. And that inky night…all of it was him. His skin, his magic, his breath upon my shoulder as he sank inside of me.

His tail twined around my locked ankles, pulling my body into the roll of his hips. He drew back, adjusted minutely, and thrust again, repeating this three times until one of the hard nubs on his shaft brushed an ultra-sensitive patch withinme. Back arching, I screamed at the unexpected starburst of pleasure.

The darkness laughed, a chuckle of pure male satisfaction. I imagined his smug smile, the vicious way he tended to bare his teeth when he gave in to his shadowborn side. “Oh, Phaeron.” I longed toseehis pleasure.

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