“I was those awful things. The things you and he called me,” Aida said, a strained whine smearing her words into one another.
“You were glorious,kou’va. Perfection.” Teeth bared with his snarl, the brush of his lips against the corner of her mouth was gentle. “Beautiful.”
“You would say that of anyone who acted in such a way,” Aida stammered out. Darkness welling from deep in her heart, it spilled out in a frozen rush, drowning her in its icy surge, turning her blood black and chill in her veins.
“Only you,kou’va. Only ever you,” Er’it whispered, scattering the charred sticks, staining his trousers as he shuffled closer. Wrapping an arm around her back to lift Aida against him, he captured her lips.
With wide eyes staring back at him from a fingerbreadth away, unable to even blink through the smudging haze of colors, Aida’s mouth opened out of instinct. At least, she told herself that as Er’it teased her with his tongue and nibbled at her lower lip. A determined invasion, one made up of deep rumbles and clutching hands, his mouth slanted over hers as he pulled her against his hardness, grinding her against it yet demanding nothing further.
“You prove nothing,” Aida gasped out when he freed her for a breath.
“Do you not remember my answers to your questions?” Er’it asked. Dipping down, he trailed torrid kisses along her neck, aiming for the ache in her shoulder that did not pain her as it should.
Pulling aside the loose collar of the tunic, he placed his lips against the wound. His growl of satisfaction grinding through her spine, she arched her back with a low cry as she grabbed hold of his head. As her fingers wrenched his braids, pressing him closer, a scratching itch in the back of her thoughts urged her to do something, to finish what she had started in the depths of night. Aida whined and jostled, something thick and hot twisting through her chest and turning her insides molten. It banished the cold shadows as it wrapped tight around her heart, wrenching it into a stuttering rhythm not her own.
Aida keened as the loud thunder at her temples buffeted her thoughts into ash, scattering them to the wind until she could do nothing more than cling to Er’it as his mouth ravaged her neck and shoulder. Groaning against the mark he’d made there, he murmured words she somehow understood, though she knew she shouldn’t. Struggling in his too tight embrace, she did not try to get away, instead wriggling to get closer. Lush heat urged her forward, demanding her action yet obscuring what she needed to do. She knew only that it must be done and soon.
She squealed when he lunged to his feet to carry her with him. Tumbling her among the mossy blooms, his weight crushed her into the earth even as he tried to shuffle his tunic up her body. Aggravated sounds spilled from between his clenched teeth when it would not rise past her hips.
Aida’s breath hissed between her teeth as Er’it’s heat and weight wrenched away from her so fast it made her head spin. Thoughts a cloudy tumble, she watched the predatory gleam in his eyes as she cowered in his shadow. Squeaking when her body was jolted as he split the tunic down the middle, Aida was left bare to his hungry gaze and then his starved mouth.
“Wait,” Aida whispered, tugging at his hair when Er’it began laving a wet trail down the line of her body. She fisted his braids when he growled against the cradle of her hips in warning and nipped at delicate flesh hard enough for her to feel the sting. “I… I need…”
She did not know what she asked for, but Er’it did. As her stomach tightened with a painful cramp and a rush of potent slick wet her thighs, he wrenched open the front of his breeches, tugging her thighs wide so he could drive in deep with a single thrust.
There was no tenderness now, not like he had shown her at the stream. His violence rammed into her with the same overwhelming sensation as his hips. Tearing through her chest, twisting around her heart, it burrowed deep within her soul. Sifting her thoughts down to the finest grains, clearing away the lustful haze, clarity was hers at last as she raked her nails down his back and bared her teeth at him.
His smile warning enough, Aida tried to brace for his brutal assault but failed in wonderful fashion as he left her crying out with his next savage thrust. His thick length was glorious as it stretched her, the deep ache magnificent. Wanting more, craving it, needing it, Aida wrapped her legs around his pistoning hips to bring them together with that much more force.
Indecision and shame gone, she reveled in it. The heavy tempest of him moving above her drove her to greater heights. There was nothing delicate or soft about the pleasure winding through her spine, delving low into her hips. As vicious and frenzied as they were, it snapped and crackled through her veins, shivering through her limbs and drawing the muscles tight.
Growl as savage as she could make it, Aida shoved at him, knowing the position was not right for what she needed and understanding he let her topple them to the side until he lay beneath her. His grin as he folded his hands over her hips to push and pull her along his length expressed unabashed delight in her ferocity.
Power spilled over their skin in deep blue-purple, violent azure, and frenzied crimson, sizzling across their flesh as they came together, the slap of skin loud in the woods as Aida bent over him. Letting him control her movements so she could lean close, her lips hovered over his. They breathed one another in until the charged air slipped in a steady stream between them.
Close. So close.
His knot swelling as he delved deep inside her, Aida grabbed his shoulders to steady herself. Grinding back against his final thrust with a shattered cry, her muscles wrung the throbbing girth of him. Sheer bliss sheeted through her body, so sudden and intense she would have fallen aside had he not clung so hard to her. Their bodies joined, Aida dipped her head to his shoulder and burrowed her face against his warm skin, breathing in the musky cedar that was his alone before she opened her mouth wide.
It took far more effort than she thought to puncture his flesh, but Aida drove her teeth deeper as he roared under her. Hips jerking in an erratic tempo to push the knot deeper, Er’it wrapped his thick arm tight around her back to hold her to him. When his free hand moved to the back of her head, Aida feared he would pull her away. As she clenched her jaw all the harder, he only stroked the tangled curls and guided her for a better angle, baring his neck to give her more space.
Though he made savage sounds, his roars and bellows echoing through the trees, Er’it remained as still as he could under her slight weight. Moving only his hips, it was as if he sought to get somehow closer to her as she ravaged the patch between neck and shoulder.
“Deeper,” he ground out, fingers tangling in her hair to pull Aida closer. Pinning her hips to rut up into her with shallow thrusts, he rocked the knot against that spot inside her.
Aida keened as charged pleasure sizzled through her, the tight clench of her body refusing to release him. The sweet ache of his small movements pooled low in her belly, a wave building and building, threatening to destroy them all. Molten and thick, it smelled of cedar and spring, tasted of snow and musk. Aida screamed as her teeth punched through, a steady wash of hot blood coating her tongue.
It filled her mouth to overflowing as the deep purple-blue of the roiling energy spread out from them and painted the clearing, edging farther and farther out as Aida bit deeper. Deep enough to scar, it was a mark he would bear for a lifetime… one to match hers.
Wave breaking, it crashed over them. The vicious riptide of sensation left her breathless, though her lungs strained to push out yet another shriek, one of pure ecstasy as her body clenched around him so tight it pained them both. His ragged moan tumbled through her, a rockslide of bliss as he stilled.
Mouth still holding his shoulder, Aida bucked and shuddered. She was lost as the knot began to throb anew, filling her with the creamy fluid she craved.
The ache in her belly sated at last, Aida whimpered and closed her eyes. Trembling with the aftershocks of pleasure ricocheting through her body, exhaustion stole her sight.
* * *
Opening her eyes, Aida whined at the grinding ache in her hips. Feeling as if she’d been snapped in two and put back together with crude hands, she struggled to get her elbows beneath her to rise. Squawking as a heavy palm slapped down between her shoulder blades, she was driven down into a slab of heat.
