Page 61 of Ecliptic

My eyes shot open to my soul flame’s face, creased with concern. That ever-present line between his brows was more prominent than ever. “Rowen,” I gasped, my chest heaving.

“Thank the spirits,” he rasped, his eyes scanning my face. “You weren’t waking. My only thought was to get you back to the village in time for Takoda or Madds to wake you.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see that,” I said, not realizing I was crying until I tasted the tears on my lips. “He’s still trapped.”

“I’m not usually one to feel helpless, but around you, it has become my new normal,” he said as his fingers combed through my hair and his palm cradled my face. His thumb gently wiped away my tears as his presence grounded me. “With the way Erovos threatened you, I had to try to get you home. Despite the risks, I grabbed you and ran. As much as the thought ofMaddock’s hands on you makes me want to murder . . .” he trailed off as we both realized.

We were touching.

Rowen’s hands were on me, touching my bare skin. There was no blood on his nose or a weakened look in his eyes. He’d managed to carry me a few feet from our bedroll, and now here we laid in the dead soil, wrapped in each other’s arms.

Our chests heaved, and our breaths collided, yet our touches were timid and hesitant. It was as if we couldn’t believe this moment was truly happening.

Carefully, I ran my fingertips up Rowen’s arms, my hands looking so small against his rippling muscles. I traced the powerful contours of his shoulders, feeling the wild beat of his pulse before threading my fingers through the lush waves of his hair.

My experience within the crevice had allowed my body to accept the Alcreon Light. I’d turned the lens inward and confronted every part of myself: the dark, the light, and all the shades in between.

I’d escaped Erovos and his astral demons, thinking it was my descent into hell, but the relief of opening my eyes to Rowen’s gaze felt like heaven. There was only him. Only now.

He seized my face in his hands and crashed his mouth against mine. His warmth, scent, and taste collided through my senses, weaving through the fabric of my existence. He kissed me long and hard until my lips bruised. His tongue traced and licked and devoured as he worked my mouth open. His kiss was brutal, unforgiving, and savage. But so was mine.

His fingers dug into my skin with delicious pressure, and a moan escaped my lips. “There you are,” Rowen breathed at the curve of my neck, sending goosebumps along my skin and tightening my nipples. I clawed at him desperately as my body buzzed to life in his hands. His touch was electric.

Desire rushed through my veins like a stampede of galloping horses—wild, powerful, and unstoppable. I had spent so long taming such feelings that only left me empty and aching. But now that I had Rowen beneath my fingertips, the long-awaited pleasure erupted inside of me and coursed through the depths of my soul like bursting stars.

Our timid touches vanished as they morphed into desperate need—an ancient call for the flames in our souls to reunite.

His hands roamed down my waist and pressed just below my ribs. I arched into his grip, the stars within me pulsing brighter and brighter. His broad hands pinned me down, but I pounced as my barriers shattered, the reins of my control snapping.

I slammed Rowen’s back to the ground, and he grunted as I mounted him, my legs opening to straddle his hips. With my palms on his chest, I rubbed myself against the strain in his pants. His thick girth beneath me had me throwing my head back to the heavens. “Rowen,” I breathed, about to explode after months of pent-up desire. “I feel you.”

“You’re about to feel more of me,” he growled as his fingers found the exposed flesh of my abdomen, and with breath-stealing efficacy, he ripped open the lacing of my pants.

“Yes,” I gasped, a burning desire pooling between my legs as I writhed on top of him, every part of me finally released from its cage. His massive hands guided me over his cock, his tendons straining from his punishing grip. The utterly feral glint in his eye told me his restraint was at its wit’s end.

“I think I need to teach you a lesson, Keira. Make it so you’ll remember never to pull this shit on me again—make it where I can’t touch you,” he warned as his eyes and breath went ragged. He sat up, landing his palm on the small of my back to keep me in place while forcing my thighs to open wider around his waist. He pushed my shirt over my breasts and lowered his head to my nipple. He traced his tongue over the pebbled fleshbefore offering a sharp nip, and I cried out as my core coiled tighter.

He ripped my shirt off, watching the moonlight glint across my heavy breasts as he ground my clit against him. “I’m going to punish you with pleasure. Make you come again and again until you beg me to stop. Each and every one of your orgasms will be mine to control, and I’ll wring out every one. When your body can’t handle me anymore, and you’re begging me to stop, I will give you one more.”

I savagely tore at the lacings of his pants and pulled out his glorious cock, already glistening with a drop of precum. “Yes,” was all I was able to articulate, desperate to lick the iridescent bead with my tongue. He grabbed me by my waist and shifted me from his lap to the ground. His broad fingers curled into my waistband, pulling my bottoms down until they reached my ankles. He opened my legs as wide as they would go, keeping me spread yet trapped within my clothes. He grabbed the gathered fabric cuffed around my feet and used it as leverage to twist me around in one fluid motion. I landed on my hands and knees with a speed that made me see stars, and I almost choked on an inhale.

He yanked my pants off the rest of the way before tipping my hips up higher to meet him. My blood rushed in my ears, everything was pulsing erratically as I was bared before him in such an animalistic way.

“But first, I’m going to take you hard and fast. And I fear I won’t be gentle with you, my flame.” His touch trailed up the backs of my thighs before his powerful hands gripped my hips. I jolted as his tongue licked over my clit, up my entrance and backside—the whole slit of me. It was obscene and indecent, and a depraved moan escaped my lips. “Your ass and pussy are blooming so good for me. You will be sore tomorrow, feeling what I did to you with every step you take.”

“Yes! Please, yes!” I rasped, my whole body pulsing at his intensity.

I cried out as he drove two broad fingers inside of me, filling me in one slick stroke. He left one palm on my waist as he fucked me with his hand. “Good girl,” he rasped deep from the back of his throat. “You’re ready for me.”

“I’ve been ready for you for weeks,” I whimpered as the cool night air danced along my exposed and dripping pussy. “It’s been torture.”

“Torture?” He slid his fingers out of me, and I quivered as his cock pushed between my thighs. He lined himself up against my warmth, both of his hands latching onto my hips. There was no more restraint, no more careful control, and he growled as he yanked my waist back toward him, entering me with a soul-shattering thrust. I cried out as he stretched and filled me, my universe narrowing to the joining between my legs. “Torture is realizing you can never be with the love of your life,” he said as he pulled out to the tip and then slammed back into me. “Then, by some miracle, she becomes yours, only for her to disappear again.” He held me firm as he drove every inch of his cock in and out of me. “And when she finally returns to you, you can’t even touch her.” My debauched moans filled the starry night as his jarring force rocked my body. “That is torture, Keira.”

He gripped my hips tighter and thrust deeper, reaching a place only he had the power to touch, to leave his mark. He was in me to the hilt, as deep as he could go. He squeezed my ass tighter as he dove inside me with another brutal thrust. Again and again.

My palms and knees scraped on the ground as he ruthlessly pumped into me; my head tipped back, and my hips arched up. I was fully exposed and vulnerable to his ministrations as he held me exactly where he wanted me.

His guttural moans brushed up my spine, and I arched myback further, pleasure spasming through me as he rutted into me with a desperate fury.

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