What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(87)

“Caelum,” I gasped, pulling my mouth away from his when his fingers found the bare skin of my thigh. “We should stop. This isn’t the place.” His sudden, greedy assault on my mouth had left my lips stinging, wondering what had possessed him.

“Everywhere is the place that I want to touch you,” he murmured, dropping his mouth to the top of the Mark on my neck. His tongue teased the sensitive skin there, his fingers working closer to the apex of my thighs. “I’ll stop if you really want me to, Little One, but I want to finish what I started this morning. What’s it going to be?”

His thumb brushed against my core, the simple, barely-there touch lighting me on fire as I threw caution to the wind. I turned my head, capturing his lips with mine as he groaned. That wandering hand beneath my dress shifted between my thighs, stroking me while I whimpered into his mouth.

He slid his fingers through me, pressing one to my entrance and guiding it inside, carefully at first. My body wasn’t ready for the invasion, muscles clamping down and protesting it while he stroked my clit with his thumb and tangled his tongue with mine.

Slowly, I welcomed him inside. He growled when he felt me give way to him, adding a second finger to join the first as he pumped them into me with painful slowness. I wanted it faster. Harder.

More.

I was starved for him and the touch I’d denied myself, as if a gate had opened and only his hands could close it. Yet he deprived me of the orgasm that was building within me, keeping me from falling over the edge with expert torture.

“I suppose this would be an inappropriate time to tell you that I intend to kill every man who has felt you like this. Who has had the pleasure of your body wrapped around him?” he growled, leaning forward to sink his teeth into the sensitive skin on the side of my neck where he’d bitten me the night before.

“You can’t kill a man just for having fucked me, Caelum,” I argued, unable to force myself to push him away. Even when he was acting ridiculous, I’d have done anything to pull him closer. To take him inside me and make me burn. “Think how many women I would have to kill.”

He pressed his hard length against my thigh as he worked me with his hand, building my orgasm higher as he pulled back to stare down into my face. Malice lurked in his gaze when he met my eyes. “I would love to see that, my star.”

“That’s not normal,” I argued, my body jolting when he applied more pressure to my clit.

“I assure you, I do not give the first fuck what is normal when it comes to you. If you want to watch the world burn, I’ll set it on fire for you. If you want to slaughter every woman who has ever taken what is yours, then I will gladly sit back and watch you play,” he said, a twisted smile toying about his lips as he dropped his mouth to my lips and sank his teeth into the plump flesh. “Now fucking come for me, Estrella.”

“Caelum,” I gasped, then I shattered beneath his touch as he worked me, my legs feeling like they would have caved beneath me if it hadn’t been for his support holding me up and the knee he shoved between mine.

“These lips were made to moan my name,” he said, leaning down to kiss them gently as he pulled his fingers free from my pussy. He returned my dress to normal, letting it fall flat and cover me from view as he kissed me sweetly.

He made no move to ask me to return the favor, simply imparting a gift upon me for whatever reason. He could give me that gift every day for the rest of my life and I suspected I would never tire of it.





28





Another night passed without Caelum doing anything more than kiss me in the privacy of our shared room. After our moment in the library when he’d touched me, part of me wondered if something had happened to take away his sense of urgency. The other part of me was grateful, because I still hadn’t worked up the courage to bathe with an audience just yet and had to settle for a few awkward sponge baths instead.

That would change today; I knew the activity of the morning would drive me to need a true bath, as I followed Caelum to the training cavern. Even knowing that Melian may not be pleased with the decision to come here, and at the end of the day I would still return to those books and the knowledge they contained, I couldn’t not have some form of activity.

I couldn’t sit on my hands and eat the food Melian had delivered to me as I read, letting my body fall into disuse. I’d been easily exhausted and unable to run when I’d needed to escape Mistfell.

I wouldn’t allow it to happen again.

We made our way through the commons, accepting the light breakfast of buttered bread and the tea they gave me, made from lily of the valley plants, to prevent unwanted pregnancy. I ignored Caelum’s pointed stare while I downed the drink, handing my empty cup back to the woman who passed them out to any who wanted it.

We continued on our way, and I winced when all eyes turned to me the moment we entered the caves where the fighters trained, and I knew there had been conversations about me since Melian had assigned me to the texts. I didn’t belong here; not when I had another task that needed my attention.

“She can’t expect you to spend all day locked up in that cave alone,” Caelum murmured at my side. His voice dropped lower, his tone becoming scathing. He didn’t approve of the task Melian had given me; rather, he didn’t approve of the fact that I would need to do it alone, away from him. “Perhaps I should mention that I can also read the Old Tongue. If translating these texts is so important to her, surely my time is better spent there than having me train with her fighters.”