Chapter 25 Complex Feelings
CHAPTER 25: Complex Feelings
Seraphine's POV
For a second I was lost. His kiss wasn't gentle.. it was a claiming and God help me, I kissed him back just as fiercely.
My hands which had been pushing against his chest fisted in his torn shirt, pulling him closer. Every ounce of my fear and my confusion, my rage... it all melted and poured into that one, searing kiss.
Then, like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head, I snapped back to reality.
I shoved him away, stumbling back a step, my hand flying to my bruised lips. Disgust rose in my throat. Disgust at him, for doing this. Disgust at myself, for wanting it.
“Don’t,” I spat, my voice trembling. “Don’t you dare use this to blackmail me emotionally. You think a near-death experience and a… a… forceful kiss gives you the upper hand? That it makes me forget?”
Aric’s chest was heaving, a trickle of blood still seeping from a cut on his brow. His eyes though were calm and intense.
“I’ve been thinking about our conversation in the throne room,” he said, his voice low and gravelly.
I let out a sharp scoff.
“You pick now to talk? With that… that thing bleeding out two feet from us? Are you insane?”
“There’s no better time,” he insisted, stepping toward me. His gaze was locked on mine, refusing to let me look away. “Forget the grimhowl. Look at me, Seraphine. I need you to hear me and I need you to believe me. I did not order the attack on Red River. I give you my word. It. Wasn’t. Me.”
“Then who?” I cried, my voice breaking. “I was there, Aric! I saw it! They were lycans! Your people! Not these… these monsters!” I gestured wildly at the dead grimhowl.
“I don’t know!” he roared back, his own frustration finally boiling over. “But we need to figure it out together. And we need to talk about this...” he gestured between the two of us, “...this thing that is so obviously between us that you’d rather punch me than admit it!”
“There is nothing between us!” I yelled, the lie tasting like ash on my tongue.
“Liar,” he growled.
In two strides, he was on me again. His arms banded around me, crushing me to him, and his mouth captured mine in another blistering kiss. I fought him, I really did.
My fists beat against his shoulders, a weak, pathetic protest. But he just held me tighter, his kiss deepening, becoming less about anger and more about a desperate aching need that I felt echoing deep inside my own bones. My resolve crumbled. It shattered into a million pieces.
A small, broken sound escaped my throat, and I surrendered. My arms wound around his neck, my fingers tangling in his dark hair, pulling him closer. I kissed him back with a ferocity that shocked me, all the stubborn denial melting away under the heat of his mouth.
His hands were everywhere... tangling in my hair, sliding down my back, gripping my hips to pull me flush against him. I could feel the hard length of him pressing against my stomach, and a fresh wave of heat pooled low in my belly.
“I need you,” he growled against my lips, his voice rough with desire. “Now.”
“Yes,” was all I could manage, my own voice breathless.
Our clothes became a frustrating barrier. His torn tunic was easy; I ripped it over his head, my hands immediately splaying across the hard planes of his chest, feeling the rapid pounding beat of his heart.
He made quick work of the laces on my dress, his fingers surprisingly deft despite their slight shake. The fabric pooled at my feet, leaving me in just my thin underclothes. He looked at me then, his gaze dark and hungry and a blush heated my skin from head to toe.
He lowered me onto the soft moss of the forest floor, his body covering mine. His mouth left my lips to trail hot, open-mouthed kisses down my neck and my collarbone until he was nudging my thighs apart. He knelt between my legs, his eyes holding mine for a loaded second before he lowered his head.
The first swipe of his tongue against my core made me cry out. It so intimate it stole the breath from my lungs. He licked and suckled, exploring me with a focused intensity that bordered on worship with a low continuous growl vibrating against my most sensitive skin. The sound shouldn’t have been a turn-on but it was. It was the most primal erotic thing I’d ever experienced.
My hips bucked against his mouth as he drove me higher and higher, my fingers clutching at the moss beneath me. The world narrowed to that one point of contact, to the building pressure he was stoking inside me until I shattered with a broken sob, my body convulsing under his relentless tongue.
Before I could even come down, he was moving back up my body, kissing me deeply, letting me taste myself on his lips. He poised himself at my entrance, his eyes asking a silent question.
“Aric,” I whispered, nodding and pulling him down to me.
He pushed inside me in one smooth, firm stroke, filling me completely. We both groaned at the sensation. For a moment, he was still letting me adjust to the feel of him. Then he began to move, setting a slow pace that had me meeting him thrust for thrust.
This was nothing like I’d ever imagined. He was everywhere, his scent, his heat and the feel of his skin under my hands. I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, wanting all of him.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice rough. I opened my eyes, meeting his fierce gaze. “See who you’re with.”
He rolled us over without breaking our connection until I was straddling him.
“You take what you need,” he said, his hands gripping my hips and guiding me.
I rode him then with my head thrown back and my hands braced on his hard chest.
The new angle was dizzying, letting me control the depth and pace. I watched the pleasure etch across his face, felt his muscles coil tighter beneath me and a powerful sense of my own power surged through me.
With a groan, he flipped us again, pressing my back into the moss. He hooked my legs over his shoulders, driving into me even deeper, each thrust hitting a spot that made me see stars. The sounds of our bodies moving together, our ragged breaths and his moand filled the small clearing.
I felt my second climax building and from the tense look on his face, I knew he was close too.
“Come with me,” he gritted out, his thrusts becoming desperate.
That was all it took. My name was a roar on his lips as my own scream was torn from me. The world went white behind my eyes as the most intense pleasure I’d ever known ripped through me wave after wave and I felt him pulse deep inside me with his own release shuddering through his big body.
We collapsed in a heap on the forest floor both of us panting and slick with sweat. The only sound was our ragged breathing and the distant rustle of leaves.
Slowly, reality began to trickle back in with the cool air on my heated skin, the earthy smell of moss and blood and the dark hulking shape of the dead grimhowl just a few feet away wnd with it came the guilt. It crashed down on me, heavy and suffocating.
Oh, God. What had I done?
I just had mind-blowing, earth-shattering sex with the Lycan King. The very man I had vowed to kill. The man I still didn’t fully trust. I had moaned his name, kissed him, let him touch me in the most intimate ways possible, and I had loved every second of it.
A part of me was still floating, sated and pleasure-drunk. The other part recoiled in pure horror. I had given in.
I had given myself to the enemy and a treacherous satisfied part of my body was already craving more. Lying there beside the beast he’d killed to save me, I was disgusted with myself. I was no better than a traitor. To my father. To my village. To myself.
And the worst part? I wasn't sure if I regretted it at all…!