Page 71 of The Chaosweaver's Daughter
“Delicacy?Mi kalalitani...”He looked around the room for a moment before seemingly making up his mind about something.
Kas’s eyes returned to hers, and his gaze grew molten. She stood on the edge of a dark precipice, ready to leap into the unknown. Terrified, but never one to turn down a new experience, she shifted, leaning into his magic.
The provocative air lapped up her ankles, almost liquid, as he murmured, “If only I had a harpsichord... I’d sweep you off your feet—play you a sonata with my magic.”
Shecouldmake him one, but it most certainly was not the right time. “‘Woulds, coulds, and shoulds mean nothing in the face of inaction,’” Nes quoted one of her favorite Thanin lines, flashing a cheeky smile at Kas before she continued, “As a scholar, I’ll be needing a demonstration of thisdexterityyou claim to have in such abundan—” She gasped as the warm pool of air at her feet split, forming two tendrils of heat that circled her calves in symmetry. It reminded her far too much of her dream from the night before, and a realization struck.
That wasn’t a dream.Or, perhaps it was in a sense, but the way his magic had caressed her? There was no way she’d imagined the sensationsexactly as they were. There was no way he’d been awake—he was far tooKasto do something like that on purpose. There was no way. Rather than prick her nerves, knowing they’d done this before, in some capacity, relaxed her.
Thought failed Nes as his twin cords of magic swirled up her legs, pausing to lap at the sensitive spot behind her knees. They continued their exploratory upward climb. Heat rose in her chest, the flames fanned higher and hotter by her rapidly beating heart. Kas’s humid magic pulsed against the backs of her thighs as the tendrils licked at her skin. The air was balmier than it had been. It felt like hot breath teasing all over her, like fingertips caressing her.
“Oh,” she gasped, unbidden.
His eyes never left hers, and she felt undressed before him while keenly aware of the many layers that separated their bodies.
“Have I proven my dexterity?” His magic gathered together into one mass that cupped the base of her bum, teasing the creases below her cheeks, now cool against her steamy skin.
She shivered, desperate for more. “Lacking in nuance.” Her lips twitched. “Heavy handed.” She ticked off invented faults. “Decidedly indeli—ohh...”
Kas split his magic again, and tendrils wound their way over the swell of her bottom, up and around her waist. There, they lingered for a moment, caressing her peaked hip bones, dipping down to the thatch of curls between her legs, teasing mere inches above her center.
He searched her face, reading her features, scanning whatever expression she wore for something excruciatingly specific.
She stared back, breathing shallow, unable to speak over the insatiable need pulsing at her core.Touch me, kiss me,she nearly begged.
He found something writ plainly upon her face. Perhaps it was her plea.
Kas’s magic heated again, sending a sizzle skittering over her skin as the ropes of air danced over her. His power combined into a singular column so condensed it felt as though it had mass, pulsing in time with her rising need, teasing her inner thighs, sweeping over the juncture at the top of herlegs, but never once touching her center. He was torturing her, expertly, infuriatingly.
Just when Nes was about to scream, a wispy tendril broke from the rest and brushed along her slit. Lightning shot through her, and she gasped as Kas parted her. His magical heat licked at her clitoris, sending shivers of pleasure coursing through her, buckling her knees.
Her eyes widened, and she nearly lost her balance, but he wrapped an arm around her waist, steadying her, and tugging her close. Charged air hovered in the scant space between them. She needed him to touch her... needed his skinagainst hers, needed more than his magic on her body.
“I feel it all,” he confessed, his voice low, strained, “like touching you with ghostly fingers.” Kas’s eyes bore into hers as tendrils of his magic continued exploring her center.
Boldly, knowing precisely what she wanted, she taunted him, “I can’t imagine that’s as satisfying as the real thing.”
“M’ekina,”he rasped, bending to crush his mouth to hers.
He was gentle, even as that shoddy dam broke. Weeks of need they’d avoided, left to swell behind poorly constructed falls, burst forth in a rush of desire that threatened to drown them both. They explored each other’s bodies with their hands and mouths. He nipped at her lower lip, and she returned the gesture with fervor.
Kas slid a hand down her back, massaging her bottom. His other palm skimmed her ribs, sweeping the underside of her breast. Her nipples pebbled. Their tongues prodded one another, testing for willingness before tangling in a dance orchestrated by their feverish lust.
She skated her palms down the smooth velvet of his coat. As he had done to her, Nes dragged one hand to his rear and the other to his chest. Kas’s heart beat rapidly, tangible even through his thick dinner jacket and tunic beneath.
Too much fabric.
She wanted this. She wanted his skin beneath her fingers. She wanted him, naked against her. She wanted to touch him, to explore him, to sate herself, away from the rest of the world.
Following instinct over logic for the first time in nearly twenty-twoyears, she let her fingers do as they wished, fiddling with the buttons on Kas’s infernal jacket. “Get this off you—” she offered a poor explanation, not daring to break their kiss for more than a half-second. There was something almost juvenile, tenuous, about the moment, and she couldn’t risk self-doubt and propriety slipping in and putting an end to things.
He moaned into her mouth in response, pausing his hands from their roving long enough to shrug out of his jacket and let it fall to the floor.
The rest of their clothes came off in much the same manner, unlaced and unbuttoned between half-formed sentences. With his hands tight around her hips, he lifted her, leaving a puddle of gold where her feet once stood. Their eyes met.
Nes blinked at him, and Kas responded by dropping his lips to hers again, or maybe she pulled him toward her. Either way, their mouths came together, and their bodies soon followed as Nesrina wrapped her legs tightly around Kas’s waist, settling herself well above his hips withnothingseparating her sex from his abdomen.
Before she knew it, before she could even question whether it was wise, they were on the bed, their bodies tangled in a dance that echoed the steps laid down by their lips and tongues.
