Page 41 of Bloom in Darkness

“Again,” I tell him, and he gives me the same angle harder, my cheek pressing into the carpet as his chest settles along my back. His fingers thread through mine against the floor while his pace settles into something stronger, his hips driving harder each time I push back to meet him.

I turn my head until he can kiss me. He groans into my mouth when I push back to meet him, and the next thrust makes a sound tear out of me before I can swallow it.

A soft laugh brushes my cheek, warm and breathless. He kisses me again and repeats the same angle until my fingers tighten hard around his.

His knot starts to swell. I feel the thicker drag catch on the next thrust, and Caelan slows immediately, keeping himself deep while his mouth presses against my shoulder.

“You want it?”

I turn my face enough to find him. “Yes.”

His forehead drops between my shoulder blades, and he pushes deeper. The stretch burns at first, broad and slow, then eases as he eases the knot in another inch, his arm tightening across my chest as the rest follows until we’re locked together.

Caelan goes still behind me. His breathing is hard against my back, and mine isn’t much better as the pressure keeps building with nowhere for either of us to move.

I come with him still locked inside me, shaking hard enough that his arm tightens to hold me steady. Caelan follows a moment later, hips pressed firmly against mine while heat spills deep and his face disappears against the back of my neck.

He stays folded over me while I come down, then kisses my shoulder, slower this time, and I trace my thumb over the back of the hand still threaded through mine.

“Caelan.”

His mouth brushes my shoulder again. “I’m listening.”

“I don’t want you to buy my time.” His body stills a little behind me, but his hand stays wrapped around mine. I swallow before continuing. “I liked this. I liked knowing it was you. I just don’t want this to be how we see each other. I don’t want Sabine getting paid every time you want an hour with me.”

His mouth presses against my shoulder. “I don’t either.”

“I just want to see you.” It comes out softer than anything else I’ve said, but I don’t take it back.

Caelan’s arm tightens around me. “Then see me.”

We stay on the floor while his knot works loose, neither of us in any hurry. When he can finally slide free without hurting me, he presses one more kiss to the back of my shoulder and sits up.

He fetches a cloth from the bathroom and kneels beside me. I stay where I am while he wipes my stomach clean, then between my thighs, so careful about it that I start smiling without meaning to. Caelan notices and says nothing, but his mouth curves.

By the time he tosses the cloth aside, I’ve shifted to sit cross-legged on the carpet, and he’s already hunting for the clothes we threw everywhere.

He finds my things one piece at a time and hands them over. Caelan King ends up crouched on a private-room carpet searching for my missing sock, and I start laughing when he fishes it out from halfway under the sofa.

“Very dignified,” he says, handing it over.

I throw the sock at him.

Caelan looks at me while I’m still laughing. “Come home with us this weekend. The whole weekend, just the three of us.”

I stop with my shirt bunched around my waist. “Seriously?”

His smile gentles. “Seriously. Just the three of us.”

I don’t even have to think about it. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Eventually we’re both dressed again. I feel loose and warm in a way that has nothing to do with the Bloom, every glance at Caelan making me want to grin again. He checks the time and winces. “Our hour’s almost up.”

The disappointment lands harder than I expect, but he steps in and kisses me once, slow and thorough. “I have to get back to the Forge, and you unfortunately have a job.”

I make a face. “I know.”

“You’re going to make Bryn a very jealous man.”