Page 96 of The Endless One

Jessamine spread her fingers wide over his forearms, sliding them down to his hands and clasping her fingers with his callused ones. A small sob burst free, but she quickly caught it before her emotions ruined this quiet moment between them.

But he knew. He understood. Because Elric leaned down, pressed his lips to the side of her neck, and she swore she could feel tears on his cheeks as well as he hid his face where her throat met her shoulder.

“Nightmare,” he whispered. “How I have missed you.”

A few tears fell down her cheeks then, and she made a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a sob. “Oh, Elric. I missed you so much.”

She turned in his arms and kissed him with all the need in her body. She had missed him every day. Every fiber of her being had constantly been reaching for him, and there wasn’t any way for her to get to him. They had been forced to stay away from each other because of their duty to her kingdom, but now, there was no duty.

He hesitated for only the briefest moment before he kissed her back like a man possessed. His hands came down onto her bottom, lifting her up in his arms as he carried her to the base of the tree. She couldn’t keep her hands off him. She needed to touch every single part of him that she had been missing for weeks on end.

The rounded muscles of his shoulders that flexed and bunched as he lowered her onto the ground. The fine hollows of his ribs, where the shadows had tempted her to lick at them for ages. The V over his hips that led down to a straining need he pressed against her belly, rocking against her with a groan that filled her senses.

Yes, that noise. That’s what she had missed most of all. His little groan of need and desire and want that burned through him so much that it was hard for him to breathe when she was around. She wanted to hear that over and over again.

Their clothing melted away. A god and a goddess who banished the merest hint of fabric so they could finally feel each other’s skin against the other. His lips came down on her throat, trailing down her chest, until he coiled his tongue around her nipple and sucked so hard she saw stars.

It wasn’t enough. She wanted him to crawl inside her body. She wanted him to rip her apart and build her anew, just like they had done to her kingdom.

His hands were a bruising punishment, warning her to never be parted from him for this long again. Strong fingers bit into her thighs as he moved down her body, forcing them wide until his lips were between them. She arched back, and one of his hands moved up her belly, palmed her ribs, holding her in pace as he feasted between her thighs and made her see stars again.

But then he was crawling up her body, or no, he wasn’t. Those were his shadows. They burrowed their way into her mouth, between her legs, assisting him as she sucked on them hard and felt an answering groan come from between her legs. Could he feel that? Did his shadows allow some sensation like she was…

She didn’t care. There were shadows roving all of her, some of them looking like his hands as they molded her breasts and palmed her ass. Those shadow hands propped her up for his feast, even as fingers seemed to delve deep into her body as he used his tongue to bring her to the highest peak.

It was overwhelming. It was too much. It wasn’t anywhere near enough as she desperately tried to hold herself together while doing whatever she could to bring him pleasure as well.

And as she shattered, she was overwhelmed once again by the sound of his frustrated growl. Elric had become a beast she could not control as he rolled her over and sank himself between her legs.

The deep, guttural sound he made came from deep within his chest. He wrapped her hair around his hand, using it to pull her back against him. She was moving for them now, slamming her hips back against his as she was filled to the brim. And then his shadows came again, prodding just above where he was already plundering her.

It was a question. She knew it was. And the answer was always yes.

“I want you full of me,” he groaned in her ear, arching her back even more as she slowly took the shadow he was using to give her pleasure. “Every bit of you.”

Again, those shadows appeared before her lips, stretching out from his body in tendrils, and she wanted them just as she wanted him. She opened her mouth, allowing him into every single part of her body that she could take him in.

Then Elric began to move. She groaned around the shadow tendril in her mouth as every single one of them, the two tendrils and Elric, started at a different pace. It was like being fucked by three men with the knowledge that she only had to give her trust to one of them. Overwhelming. Exhilarating. Her body didn’t know what to do with all the sensations, and soon enough, she was coiled so tightly she couldn’t even think.

“Come for me, nightmare,” he snarled.

She couldn’t deny him. In moments, she came, and she could feel him do the same. Every muscle against her spine locked up as he moaned in her ear, and it was the hottest thing she’d ever heard in her life, if she had been able to focus on it a bit more.

She came so hard it almost hurt. But then once she wound down, she was just in his arms. Like she always should have been.

They stayed like that for a while, just wrapped up in each other’s arms and taking it in. He never stopped touching her, and she never stopped touching him. From his fingers tracing circles on her hips, to her hand rubbing up and down his back, they reacquainted themselves with bodies they knew so well.

The only sounds around them were the tiny birds singing in the trees above them, the quiet burble of the river as it flowed over rocks, and the hush of the wind in the willow branches.

“Where did you get all this from?” he asked.

“Every sacrifice was a gift. Elissa gave me some birds to keep me company, and that made me sad to see them die.” She waved a hand up to them. “So I gave them new life here. There are no predators, so they will live safely and forever in this realm.”

“And the river?”

“Agnes told me a story about a river she swam in as a child. Every little detail, she whispered for me to hear, and so I got a river.”

“The tree?” He shifted so he was leaning against the sturdy trunk.