Page 37 of Trick Of Light

There were no words.

“You’re mine,” he growled as he took hold of my hips and pressed inside me, the slow push seamless, as slicked with oil as I was, and endless, until he was buried to the hilt.

I gasped with his entry, with how full I was, my relaxed muscles now clenching around him, trying to suck him in deeper, the pressure and the stretch a dull pain that quickly succumbed to a glorious aching need.

He was enormous, long and thick, and the oil allowed for movement, the slide of him rubbing over every nerve ending as he ground deeper, making me roar his name.

“Go ahead, shout louder so everyone knows,” he whispered, the bindings keeping me still as he pulled out slowly only to thrust back in, harder, faster, rutting into me, all his power there on display as he used me savagely.

It should have been frightening, and had been before it was him, but now, because I knew if I had insisted, if I had said no, if I had told him unequivocally to release me, that he would…it had become something else altogether.

I was helpless, all the control was his, and because it never was, because we were always equal, had been from the start, I had never put myself wholly in his hands. I had never let down my guard completely with anyone. From the time I was sixteen, when I became a warder, groomed to fight and protect, to stand between the innocent and the abyss, I had been watchful, ready, never allowing a moment of complete vulnerability.

But now, suddenly, there was no choice. And he’d saved me, made me safe. I was his dominion, his prize, his love, his life, everything. I belonged to him, and in that moment, I let go.

“Jackson,” he whispered, and there was a pull on the ropes at my wrists and then release, the tightness gone for seconds before his lips grazed the slope where my neck met my shoulder, and then his fangs. The bite was deep, and I was lost, plunged into nothing but a distant hum as my vision washed white.

His voice, a soothing lull, came first, and my skin was so hot, burning as my pulse thundered in my ears before the euphoria of release. I spurted over my stomach and chest, shuddering in my held position as Raphael fucked me through my orgasm, pounding mercilessly, tirelessly, until he curled over my back, twisting my head to the right and burying his fangs in the other side of my neck, sucking hard as he came violently, bucking against me, in me, hammering until he collapsed, the feral claiming leaving us both utterly spent.

I felt floaty, disembodied, lost in the liminality between being awake and being asleep. When he carefully slid free of my still clenching channel, I felt the gush of warm fluid, but it didn’t anchor me. I was still separate, not in my body, but in my head. When everything loosened, I was swimming, rising, lifting for the surface, for air, for breath.

“Look at me.” He rumbled out the demand, and I was untucked, stretched out, and gently arranged on the bed.

I tried really hard to open my eyes. My body tingled as blood rushed to my limbs, and he gently massaged my arms and legs, my back and feet.

“Jackson…fuck…open your eyes.”

But I wanted to sleep.

“No way I let you— Baby, look at me.”

With monumental effort, I got my eyes open, and then I was no longer sleepy at all.

“Okay,” he said quickly, releasing the breath he’d been holding. “I thought you—”

“Raph,” I breathed out, staring at his enormous black-feathered wings, noting the iridescent glow that seemed to be emanating from them. “Why aren’t those gold?”

He grimaced as he raked a hand through his thick hair. “I fell, for a time, into ruin, and for my abandonment of my place, and for losing hope…Michael has made this change.”

“I prefer the black.”

“As do I,” he said, beaming down at me for a moment before his face fell and he looked unsure. “But tell me honestly, did I hurt you?”

“Hurt me when?”

“Just now,” he ground out.

“No, you didn’t hurt me,” I snapped at him, feeling suddenly like myself again. “You have never hurt me, even in the beginning, before it was love.”

I watched him swallow hard.

“And that, what we just did… That was fuckin’ amazing.”

“You’re certain?” he asked, searching my face, worried now, sitting down beside me on the bed in our room overlooking the sea. There was a warm breeze gently moving the gossamer curtains, and I couldn’t remember ever feeling so safe or content. He was with me, and after thinking I’d lost him, it was a blessing. “I’m just worried.”

“Raph, you fucked me while I was tied up, you bit—” I checked my neck, both sides, and it was sore, but I wasn’t bleeding. “You bit me and took blood, and now you’re second-guessing what you did?”

“I’m not second-guessing,” he said, reaching out to cup my face in his hand. “You and I both know that seeing marks on you that I put there allows me to live well in my own skin.”