Page 119 of Synodic

I went to reach for him, to wrap my hand around him, but he hesitated for the briefest of moments, and I stopped cold.

Was he afraid? Afraid that the last woman who touched him like this would spring to his mind? Afraid that he wouldn’t be able to feel pleasure without seeing her face?

He grabbed my hand, holding it tenderly in midair. “I wasn’t sure this would happen, would barely let myself believe it could. That you would want me, in this way, after I told you everything. I went to Takoda this morning on the small chance you would, and he brewed me a tea that will prevent a child. In case you should ever want to leave, there will be nothing tying you to me.”

Relief flooded through me, not just because he wasn’t thinking about another woman as I had feared, but because he had been prepared and thoughtful in the important responsibility of protection.

“I told you, nothing you could say would turn me away from you. And I meant it. I want you now and always.”

Rowen’s forest eyes breathed a sigh of an eternity turned over, and hearing what he needed to hear, he plunged into me with a soul-shattering groan as if it was impossible to go even one more second without being inside me. He stole the air from my lungs as he stretched and filled me, leaving me breathless as I adjusted to him.

He pulled out of me slowly, and I felt every excruciatingly wondrous inch of him. “Lift your hips again for me, Keira,” he commanded quietly in my ear. And I did as he said, rising up to take in his cock before sliding back down.

He shuddered uncontrollably, then he dove back into me, pinning my hips to the bed as he ground me into oblivion. And with an ancient understanding that locked into place, our bodies moved as one.

Somehow his body could sense everything mine wanted, but he took it a step further, going beyond in ways I had never imagined. As far as my mind could go, he met me there, then jumped a chasm into a realm I didn’t even know existed, didn’t even know how good it could feel. And I came once more.

My parted mouth found Rowen’s and never left as I rode the blinding waves of my orgasm. Rowen followed soon after, finding his own mind-numbing release with the utterance of my name. I was a glowing comet, leaving trails of stardust in the wake of my beaming light as it engulfed us both.

We collapsed side by side, our chasing breaths ragged and our heaving bodies glistening.

Rowen pulled me close, and I nestled on his shoulder, still coming down from the multiple highs. He tilted my chin up until we locked eyes.

There was a silent moment, a breath of revelation between us before we both laughed in complete satiation, shock, and amazement.

I was ruined. Completely and utterly ruined for anybody else ever again.

It was always him, had only ever been him.

His cock hardened against my hip, and I took his impressive weight in my hand, guiding him into me once more.

43

I blinked awake to Rowen’s sleeping face, his arm draped around the indent of my waist. His chest rose and fell like a calm summer tide gently rolling from shallow seas. The slightest trickle of his breath washed over my lower lip, granting me the smallest taste of his peaceful ocean drifting, and I knew he hadn’t slept this well in a very long time.

His full lips were slightly parted, and his long dark lashes rested on his sun-peaked cheekbones. His hair was disheveled from where I'd repeatedly run my fingers through it, and every muscle, down to the crease in his brow, was entirely relaxed.

If I could draw, I would draw this.

I raised my hand to his face and gently trailed the tip of my finger down the bridge of his impossibly straight nose. He didn’t stir in the slightest at my touch.

Tendrils of warmth and light snuck through the air and danced across my raised arm. I hadn’t properly seen the sun in days and the burnished sliver of dawn called to my vitamin deprived skin.

Rowen looked so wonderfully content that I couldn’t bear to wake him from his sleeping reverie. Plus, I would be back before he even knew I was gone, returning the favor by surprising him with breakfast in bed.

Slowly, I peeled myself from under his heavy arm, careful not to disrupt him as I crept through the hanging canopy. I silently stretched up off the bed, feeling everything Rowen had done to me last night like a map upon my body. Remembering how thoroughly and profoundly he’d handled me sent flushes of heated blood through my veins. Warming me as if I had never known fire.

Spotting the robe he’d stripped me of last night, I tiptoed over to the terracotta-colored garment laying forgotten on the floor. I wrapped it snugly around myself and slipped out the revolving door of Rowen’s dome.

I still couldn’t believe last night was real, but with every step I took along the path, my body reminded me just how real it was. It was an exquisite sort of reminder. No one had ever touched and claimed me the way Rowen had.

It was hard to fathom how the past few days had been the best and worst of my life.

Basking in the sun, I thought about Rowen’s tongue leaving trails of gunpowder along my skin, catching fire and exploding with every kiss, and a radiant smile lifted my lips. I absentmindedly stroked my fingers down my sternum, between my breasts, committing to memory every moment of our night together.

The mere thought of Rowen had my breath speeding up.

I’d wanted a quick walk in the sun, having been deprived of it for several days, but now my pulse sped and my mouth watered for his touch.

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