Page 51 of The War of Wings
“I just want you.”
Her words boomed through my head, and my hands moved to her hips, squeezing, possessive. She arched toward me, molding to my body like it was the most natural thing in the world. So much could be said in this moment, so many words I could think of. Thebuts andwhat ifs had plagued us since the day I first laid eyes on her. They didn’t need to be spoken aloud. Instead, I pulled her closer.
We collided, my lips demanding and hers surrendering. She melted into me, one of her hands tracing the tattooed flames up and down my arm, the other reaching for the hem of my tunic. Our movements quickly turned frantic, pausing only to pull the shirts over our heads and peel the trousers from our legs.
I pinned her beneath me, my hands roaming shamelessly up and down her sides, skimming the bottoms of her breasts as my teeth sank into her bottom lip. I wanted to soak in the feeling of her, be consumed by her glow. I wanted to ruin and ravage her and shield and protect her all at the same time.
Her legs locked around me, greedily pulling me toward her. As desperately as I wanted to take my time with her, drive her crazy the way she did me, I was a man possessed.
“Please,” she whimpered, reaching between us. I hissed through my teeth the moment her hand wrapped around me, my forehead falling to hers. She lined me up at her entrance, andfuck, she was ready. In one thrust, I slid home. I captured her gasp with my mouth, swallowing my own groan as I began to move. Everything was happening too fast, it would be over too quickly, but I was anything but in control right now.
“Petra,” I snarled, moving my lips from her mouth to her throat.
“Yes, Cal,yes,” she whispered, her legs locking tighter around my hips, pulsing against my back, urging me to move faster.
She constricted around me, her hands gripping my shoulders for dear life. Her fingernails dug in, and I hoped I’d look down tomorrow to see she’d left marks. She was so perfect, her body responding to mine as if this was a law of nature, like the world made her just for me and me for her.
A gasp left me before I even felt the pain of a burn bloom on my shoulders, as if my body were seconds ahead of my mind. It hit me the moment she yanked her hands back, her eyes widening in horror.
“Oh my fucking Saints,” she blurted. “I’m sorry. Oh, fuck, I’m sorry, Cal. I don’t know what happened. It felt so good, and my fire just–”
I cut her off with a kiss, reaching up to place each of her hands back on my shoulders. I winced slightly when they made contact with the skin that was definitely already reddened and angry, but I didn’t care about the pain. Tears flooded her lashes as her fingertips ghosted over the burns, afraid to touch.
“Don’t be afraid to hurt me. There is nothing your hands can do to me that I wouldn’t welcome.”
Slowly, she pressed her hands into my skin again, the residual heat warming my shoulders as I captured her mouth inanother kiss. Her movements were tense, measured. She was holding back, even as her legs tightened impossibly more around me.
“Brand me, Petra. I’m yours.”
And she listened. Her hands pressed harder, the heat building as her motions slowly loosened, as her control slowly slipped.
“That’s it,” I urged her, nipping again at her bottom lip as my movements quickened. “Let go.”
I grunted as the burn singed my skin, so hot I knew I’d bear the marks forever. Good. I’d bear them with more pride than any crown or title.
Her hands left my shoulders, her features etched with a tentative hunger. “It’s getting to be too much,” she whispered.
Without a second thought, I was pushing to stand and mourning the loss of her heat.
She stared at my outstretched hand. “What are you doing?”
“Cooling you down.”
A soft smile played on her lips as I pulled her up and led her to the water, and she didn’t protest when we waded in, slowly moving deeper and deeper until the water was just below her chest. I lowered myself just enough to soothe the burns on my shoulders.
Petra opened her mouth, her apology imminent, but I spoke before she could. “Don’t you dare apologize,” I murmured, my hand stroking over the back of her head.
She was silent for a beat before our lips clashed together again. This time, it was different. The energy between us had shifted. What had been frenzied and feverish had taken on an invisible but undeniable weight. So much in the world was turbulent. So much was uncertain. But what was between us, this thing we’d built in the face of a great force trying to tear it down… It was everything.
Petra hiked one leg up to my hip, then the other. And as I sank into her once again, I hoped she felt what I felt. That at theend of it all, if everything else burned to ash, we’d always have this. Malosym could wipe the realm clean, break it down and wring every ounce of pain he could from it, but this moment, here, with Petra, would remain. He couldn’t take this away.
She began writhing against me, her breaths growing faster, her moans and whimpers growing higher in pitch. The water sloshed between us, cooling my shoulders. There was no sign of her fire nor the apprehension it had caused her. “Come for me,” I growled into her ear. “Let me feel it, Petra. I know you’re close.” Her movements grew more erratic, her hips bucking, my arms flexing as I pulled her against me over and over.
“Cal,” she moaned before her breath hitched and she shattered completely, her muscles squeezing tighter and tighter around me, pulling me along with her. Stars spotted my vision as she rode out her climax, her mouth open against mine. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Fuck, I love you,” I groaned as I followed her over the edge.
“I love you,” she whispered back, and I’d truly never get used to hearing those words come out of her mouth forme.
