Chapter 82 Elena Heart- POV
He sucked gently, his tongue swirling around the peaked flesh, and I felt the sensation arrow straight down between my thighs.
My hands fisted in the sheets, twisting the rough fabric, as he lavished attention on first one breast and then the other. Each pull of his lips, each scrape of his teeth, sent sparks skittering along my nerve endings.
"Please," I heard myself say. The word came out breathless, needy, and I didn't care. I was beyond pride, beyond restraint. I needed him with a desperation that frightened me. "Please, I need—"
"I know." He raised his head and looked at me, his eyes dark and heavy-lidded. His lips were swollen from kissing, glistening in the storm-light. "I know what you need."
He moved down my body with agonizing slowness, pressing open-mouthed kisses to every inch of skin he could reach.
My ribs. My hip bones. The crease of my thigh. By the time he settled between my legs, I was trembling, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
The first stroke of his tongue nearly undid me. He licked a long, slow line up my center, tasting me, and the sound he made was almost pained. "God, you're so wet."
I couldn't respond. Words had abandoned me somewhere around the time his mouth had closed over my breast. All I could do was feel—the heat of his breath, the wet pressure of his tongue, the gentle scrape of his stubble against my inner thighs.
He took his time. He explored me with the same deliberate attention he'd shown every other part of my body, learning what made me gasp, what made me moan, what made my hips buck off the bed. When he finally closed his lips around that tight bundle of nerves and sucked, I nearly screamed.
"Ah—Xavier—"
He held my hips down with his hands, pinning me to the mattress as he worked me with his mouth.
His tongue circled and flicked, alternating between gentle and firm, building the tension in my core with ruthless precision. I could feel the orgasm gathering, a tight coil of pleasure that grew with every stroke, every suck, every hum of approval he made against my flesh.
"Don't stop," I gasped. "Please, don't—ah!"
The wave crested before I was ready for it. I shattered beneath his mouth, my body arching off the bed as the pleasure ripped through me in pulsing waves.
He held me through it, his tongue gentling but never stopping, drawing out every last tremor until I lay boneless and gasping on the sweat-damp sheets.
He pressed one final kiss to my oversensitive flesh and then moved back up my body. His weight settled over me again, and I could feel the hard length of him pressing against my thigh, still trapped in his trousers.
I reached down to touch him, but he caught my hand and laced our fingers together instead.
"Not yet." His voice was rough, strained. "I just—I need a moment."
I looked up at him, and I saw it then—the thing he'd been trying to anchor with his kisses. His eyes were bright, not with lust but with something rawer. Something that looked terrifyingly like fear.
"Hey." I squeezed his hand. "I'm here."
He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against mine again. His breath came in ragged bursts, and I could feel the fine tremor in his arms where he held himself above me.
The storm continued to rage outside, purple lightning splitting the sky, but in this moment, all I could focus on was the man above me, the weight of his body, the warmth of his skin.
"I can't lose you." The words were barely a whisper, spoken into the tiny space between our mouths. "I can't—whatever happens tomorrow, whatever you have to do—I need you to know that I—"
He stopped. Swallowed hard. His jaw tightened, and I watched the words die in his throat, unspoken.
I pulled him down to me and kissed him. I kissed him with everything I couldn't say, everything I was afraid to feel, everything I'd been running from since the day I'd first seen him across that crowded throne room.
He made a sound against my mouth, something between a groan and a sob, and then he was kissing me back with a desperation that stole my breath.
His hands found my body again, and this time there was no hesitation. He touched me like a man possessed, his fingers digging into my hips, my waist, my thighs. I reached for his trousers, and this time he didn't stop me. Together we shoved the fabric down, and then he was there, hot and hard against my entrance.
"Look at me," he said, his voice strained.
I opened my eyes. His face was inches from mine, those blue eyes blazing in the darkness, and I could see everything he was feeling—the fear, the need, the desperate, aching love that he couldn't put into words.
He pushed inside me slowly, inch by inch, and I felt my body open for him like it had always been meant to. The stretch was exquisite, a fullness that went beyond the physical, and I heard myself moan as he filled me completely.
"Ah—Xavier—"
He held still once he was fully seated, his forehead pressed against mine, his breath coming in harsh pants.
I could feel him trembling, the effort of holding back written in every line of his body. I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him closer, and he made a sound that was almost a whimper.
"Move," I whispered. "Please. I need you to move."
He withdrew slowly, agonizingly, until only the tip of him remained inside me. Then he pushed back in, just as slowly, and the friction made my eyes roll back in my head. He set a rhythm that was almost unbearably gentle, each thrust measured and deliberate, as though he was trying to make this last forever.
But there was something else in his movements too. Something beyond the physical pleasure. Each time he pushed into me, it felt like a promise.
Each time he pulled back, it felt like a prayer. He was anchoring himself to me in the only way he knew how, using our bodies to say all the things his voice couldn't.
"I'm here," I told him, my hands framing his face. "I'm not going anywhere."
He kissed me, hard and desperate, and his rhythm faltered. His hips snapped forward with more force, and I cried out at the sudden intensity.
He did it again, and again, and I could feel the tension building in my core once more.
"Come for me," he growled against my mouth. "I want to feel you."
His hand slipped between our bodies, his fingers finding that swollen bundle of nerves, and he circled it with just the right amount of pressure.