Page 89 of Beasts of Briar
“I thought you might want to be close to them,” Kairoth said. “This pond is the closest body of water. It’s also well hidden in the jungle. Your brothers will be safe here.”
Tears sprang to my eyes, emotions bubbling up in me that I’d pushed away for so long. I felt overwhelmed with them, scared by them. I needed air. I needed to get out of this jungle and away from these feelings.
I backed up a few steps before turning and running. Kairoth called after me, but I didn’t look back, didn’t stop.
Darkness swept over me once more, and I stumbled several times, blindly feeling my way through the jungle until I burst through the foliage and back out near the garden. I leanedagainst a tree as tears trailed down my cheeks, unable to control this flood of emotions. I’d cried more in the shadow court than I ever had in my sixty years spent in the Wilds.
“I’m sorry.” Kairoth appeared beside me, and I wiped my tears. Of course he’d easily find me. “I thought you would like it, but if I did something wrong?—”
I shook my head, not turning my head to look at him, just signing the words I needed to say.“You’re doing everything right, and that’s confusing. Because you’re supposed to be this awful god who wants to destroy the world. Everything I know about you since I arrived is being turned on its head, and I don’t know how to feel about it. I don’t know what to think. You tell me you don’t want to free the other gods, but there’s so much I still don’t understand. About you. Your past. Your goals.”
But it wasn’t just that.
I swallowed, not sure if I was ready to admit this next part. I did it anyway.“No one’s ever done things like this for me.”I gestured to the garden.
“Why not?” Kairoth asked, voice low. “You deserve so much more than this. You deserve... everything.”
His words sparked a fire in me. I still wasn’t sure I believed him, but gods, if he didn’t make me feel something I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. Wanted. Deserved. Revered.
I wheeled around to face him, reaching through his shadows, grabbing his shirt, and yanking him to me. I stretched up and pressed my lips to his, melting into him.
This kiss was driven by need and desire, by pure lust. He brought his hands to my hair, grabbing fistfuls of it and tugging my head back as he plunged his tongue inside of my mouth.
I moaned while he kissed me deeper, harder, pressing me up against the tree and pinning me there with his body. I let my hands roam over his strong shoulders and arms, wanting to feel every part of him. Spirits below, every part of him was so hardand chiseled. I hadn’t known what I expected. He was a god, but actually touching him and feeling the planes of his muscles made him so much more real.
“Where do you want my hands?” he said against my mouth, voice rough. “Where should I touch you?”
Bloody stars. No one had ever asked me that before. Just shoved their hands wherever they wanted them. My core throbbed with his words.
I grabbed his wrist, then skimmed his hand down my stomach, under my nightgown, and in between my legs. His shadows slipped from his arms down my body. They moved under my skirt and up my legs.
He shot me a wicked smile. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to touch you there. To know how wet you’d be for me.” But he withdrew his hand just as his shadows slithered from his arm and in between my legs.
Oh. My. Gods.
Heat danced across my thighs where the shadows grazed. I gasped, and Kairoth captured the sound with his mouth, using his hands to pin mine against the tree.
The shadows moved around my thighs, languid and slow, teasing. Heat pooled in my belly, searing down to my core, all while Kairoth continued to ravage me with his mouth, so much delicious pressure in so many different places on my body.
The shadows glided from my thighs to inside my panties. Flickers of heat and pressure danced over my center, lighting me from within. Kairoth slid his hands down my collarbone to my breasts. He massaged them, his thumb rubbing around my hard nipples that peaked through my nightgown.
“You’re so fucking delicious,” he murmured, then captured my mouth again as his hands roamed around to my ass. He lifted me ever so slightly so that the tips of my toes barely grazed the ground.
All the while, his shadows continued to flick and caress and rub against my clit. So many sensations my body could barely handle them all. Every time a shadow rubbed a quick circle around my clit, it pushed me closer toward the edge. I rocked into the shadows’ movement, and Kairoth deepened our kiss even more. Our mouths, our tongues, grew frantic. Our kiss messy and wet and sumptuous. Pleasure lit every corner of my body, sparking, igniting, until I was molten in his arms, panting as he edged me closer and closer toward a cliff. His shadows increased their pressure, rubbing quick, hard circles around my center. Tension coiled between my legs, my stomach clenching as the pleasure intensified.
I wanted so badly to moan out his name, to have the feel of it on my tongue as I came apart.
My hips pushed forward as my body grew tighter and tighter. I gasped into his mouth, the pleasure ripping through me while Kairoth held me, his shadows unrelenting, pushing me through my orgasm until I could barely breathe.
I gripped his shoulders tight, clinging to him and throwing my head back against the tree. My breathing slowed, and the shadows vanished, appearing back around Kairoth’s arms.
He cradled me gently. In a way I’d never have expected from this beastly god. He was just content to hold me in silence until my legs stopped shaking and my heart rate returned to normal.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for a few weeks now,” he said. “I wondered what your body would feel like pressed against mine. What your lips would feel like. How you would taste.”
I swallowed, the heat already gathering between my legs again.
“It did not disappoint, Bellamy.” He stepped back, giving me some space as I leaned against the tree, body spent.
