He doesn’t need to be told twice. He hoists me into his arms, begins climbing the stairs, pressing kisses along my temple, my cheek.
The lantern room at the top of the lighthouse is all windows, sky. The glass is old, thick, warped in places, turning the moonlight into something liquid, soft. A makeshift bed sits on the floor, blankets, pillows piled into a nest of warmth in the cold stone room. The lantern itself has been doused, leaving only moonlight, distant stars, the faint glow of my marks responding to his proximity.
He sets me down, undresses me slowly, like each piece removed is a revelation. He pushes the tunic off my shoulders, presses his mouth to the newly exposed skin, kissing across my collarbone, down the slope of my shoulder.
His hands follow, sliding the fabric down my arms. Where his fingers trail, my marks light up in response, golden warmth chasing the path of his touch.
"You're glowing," he says against my skin.
"Your fault."
"I'll take the blame." He pulls back just enough to look at me, and his expression makes my breath stutter. Not just desire. Reverence. Like he can't believe I'm standing here in front of him. Like he's grateful for it in a way that goes deeper than words.
He lifts me. Just picks me up, hands under my thighs, and I wrap my legs around his waist as he carries me to the pile of blankets. He lays me down gently and then he's over me, the weight of him warm and solid, and his mouth finds mine again.
This kiss is different. Hungrier. His tongue slides against mine, and I make a sound in the back of my throat that seems to undo something in him, because his hips press forward and I can feel exactly how much he wants this. Wants me.
I pull at his shirt, and he breaks the kiss long enough to drag it over his head. The moonlight catches the corruption marks covering his torso, dark veins and carved lines that should be frightening but just look like him. I trace them with myfingertips, following the patterns across his chest, his stomach, the ridges of muscle that tighten under my touch.
He watches me touch him with those dark, burning eyes, his breath uneven. When my fingers reach the waistband of his pants, he catches my hand and brings it to his lips. Kisses my palm. Kisses each fingertip. Then pins my wrist above my head and lowers his mouth to my throat.
He works his way down. Unhurried. Thorough. His mouth on my collarbone, the curve of my breast, the peak that makes my back arch when he takes it between his lips. His hand finds the other, thumb drawing slow circles that match the rhythm of his mouth, and I'm making sounds I couldn't control even if I wanted to.
"Tell me what you want," he says against my ribs, his breath hot on my skin.
"You. All of you. Stop being gentle."
Something shifts in his eyes. The tenderness remains, but it sharpens. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of my pants, strips them down my legs in one fluid motion. Then his mouth is on my hip, my inner thigh, then—
I gasp. Loud. My hand tangles in his hair. His tongue is unhurried, devastating, working me with a focus that borders on worship. He reads every sound I make, every shift of my hips, adjusts accordingly. Harder when I arch. Softer when I shake. Relentless when I'm close.
My thighs tremble around his head. My marks blaze, gold light filling the lantern room, reflecting off the glass windows so the whole lighthouse must look like a beacon from outside. I don't care. I can't care about anything except his mouth, his hands, the pressure building inside me like standing on the edge of something enormous.
"Don't stop," I manage. "Please don't—"
He adds his fingers, curling them inside me. His tongue flattens against the spot that makes my vision white out. I shatter. The orgasm rolls through me in waves, my body locking, then releasing. I'm saying his name like it's the only word I know. His free hand finds mine, holds it tight, grounding me while I come apart.
He stays with me through it, gentling his touch as the aftershocks ripple through. When I finally go boneless, he presses a kiss to my inner thigh and crawls back up my body, settling his weight on top of me. His face is flushed. His pupils are blown wide.
"Hi," he says softly.
"Hi yourself." My voice sounds wrecked. "Get up here."
He does. I reach between us and free him from his remaining clothes, wrapping my hand around him. He groans into my neck, his hips jerking forward involuntarily, and the vulnerability of that reaction, the loss of control from someone who controls everything, makes me want him so badly it actually hurts.
"Now," I tell him. "Kaelren, now."
He enters me slowly, watching my face the entire time, checking, making sure. My body stretches to accommodate him, and the feeling is so much; fullness and pressure and the rightness of it, like a key turning in a lock. He stops when he's fully seated, forehead pressed to mine, both of us breathing hard.
"Move," I whisper.
He moves.
Long, deep strokes that I feel in my entire body. His hands grip my hips, adjusting the angle until he hits a spot that makes me cry out, and then he stays there, finding a rhythm that's steady and devastating. Each thrust pushes a sound out of me, gasps and moans and fragmented versions of his name that I couldn't hold back if I tried.
He lowers his mouth to my ear. "You are everything," he breathes, and his voice is ragged, barely holding together. "You are everything I have ever wanted."
I wrap my legs around him and pull him deeper, and we both groan. The pace quickens. His composure cracks, the careful, measured Kaelren giving way to something primal, something that matches the wildness I feel building in my blood. His thrusts go harder, faster, each one punctuated by the sound of our bodies meeting, and I'm climbing again, climbing fast, the tension coiling tight in my core.
