Page 13 of Radiant

His black eyes wandered over my stomach, down to my erection, and then back to my face. “I don’t want to stop either.”

I nodded. “Good.”

He leaned forward and kissed me sweetly, and even that minimal contact made me light up from the inside like one of his fires.

“I love you, Ethan.”

He got back to his feet, and with excruciating slowness, he opened his pants and slid them down his thighs, then stepped out of them.

On the floor, looking up, I was enthralled not by his vampiric magic but by the fae beauty of him. So many shadows, so much light around him. I examined him like the background to a thousand shots—not plain white canvas, but a skyline or a building, the background only nominal, in truth the perfect whole that could never be captured in a single photo.

All of that ceased to matter when he descended on me like warming sunshine, all hands and mouth. I had demanded tenderness from him, lovemaking, and I’d thought I knew what I was asking for. I’d been wrong.

He started by gifting me an abundance of touch, my face, chest, arms, down to my thighs, my back and shoulders. His fingers exploring every inch of me wasn’t precisely sexual, but at the same time it wasn’t not. I reciprocated. I wasn’t used to this and couldn’t help wanting to touch his cock, so I did. My foreplay was crude rather than refined like his.

“There is no need to hurry,” he whispered in my ear, and for the life of me, I couldn’t make him hurry. The lack of selfishness in what he was doing to me was admirable and not something I’d come across before.

We progressed to kissing and closing the distance between us. Auris rolled me back onto my back—I’d moved, too excited by his presence to lie still—and made sure I was on a pillow and not the hard floor. I could feel the addiction settling in, watching him above me, fire-glazed in orange and black, the sounds of wood crackling in the flames the only background noise.

Our fingers twined on the pillows above my head, and while we tasted each other, Auris started leisurely rubbing against me with his whole body.

For some of it, my mind wandered to his story, and I tried picturing it: Auris as a teenager, living on a weather-beaten island and looking out at the waves. Auris crouching low behind some saplings in the forest and watching a panting rabbit to learn a lesson from it that he would share with me centuries later. Auris in a medieval village, standing up to a man in order to protect a child.

I saw him in daylight, his eyes silvered, but that wouldn’t have been right, not then. I turned my head to get reprieve from his ministrations for a moment.

“What were your eyes like? Before? I mean, blue, but what kind of blue?”

He hummed against my collarbone. “Mother called them ocean blue. The left one had a streak of brown in it. Tove said that meant I’d been marked by fate.”

His body kept moving against mine, lips seeking purchase.

“Did you ever dream about me? Earlier, when you were still waiting for the prophecy to happen.”

“Yes.” He opened his mouth over my throat, almost as if he wanted to sink his teeth into me, but he stopped short, just grazing me with his sharp eye teeth. “I imagined you were a golden-haired prince riding a fine destrier, retainers at your heel. I imagined you wearing a crown and gold buckles on your shoes. Then sometimes, I thought you might be a farmhand with calloused hands and a wholesome smile. And freckles.”

That made me freeze, then break out in laughter.

“What?” Auris was still on top of me and not letting me move, and he looked frustrated about the interruption.

“Wholesome? You dreamed about me being wholesome? With freckles?”

“I didn’t know you then. I didn’t know I’d fall in love with your tourmaline eyes and sable hair. Wholesome freckles were still a possibility before meeting you.”

I stopped dead. “You’re saying I’m not wholesome.”

A predatory grin spread over his face and his eyes narrowed. If he’d had visible pupils, they’d have been blown for sure.

“I’m saying you do not appreciate the true romance that sharing one’s fantasies can be. I’m saying that perhaps, my sweet, you lean more toward the carnal aspects in a gathering of lovers such as we are.”

“I think I understand. You want to give me your cock?”

“Seduction by crudeness. Very well, I succumb.” He turned serious. “You still want me inside you? You can change your mind about it, always.”

“I know. I want to. Want you.”

“All right.”

He moved, and I immediately missed his weight. Perhaps he knew and understood, and perhaps that was why he chose to lift one of my legs over his shoulder when he next settled, stroking my calf and heel too.