Shards: Book One of the Anderian Series

Chapter 26: Flames

Heaven looked a lot like a cave.

Gray stone flecked with streaks of ice. Shadows dancing and inching into the crevices as orange flames flickered in the center of the space.

Fire. Okay, so maybe this was hell.

That tracked with some of my recent life choices. Like killing myself giving someone road head. Definitely an offense worthy of hell.

Figuring there was nothing I could do to change things I sat up, bracing my hands against the rough floor and wincing as something sharp pierced my palm. I picked out the offending object—glass. It was everywhere, glittering wherever the firelight struck it. Most pieces were blue tinged and clear, but a few were red and yellow, like brake lights.

"Only awake two minutes, and you're already causing trouble," Cian whispered, taking my hand and smoothing a finger over the puncture wound. Warmth infused it, and the bit of pain faded away as if it had never existed. Dropping it, he brushed my hair out of my face and grabbed the back of my neck to pull me closer to his face. "If I ever doubted you were part Anderian, I certainly don't now."

"Why?" I asked, unable to focus on anything but the full lips inches from my own. It wasn't my fault. Everything I'd been feeling before the crash surged, amped up by the adrenaline of the fall. Every single atom in my body was supercharged, desperate to move, to feel, too live.

"You should be dead," Cian answered. He kept his grip on my neck while his other hand pushed open my shirt. I hadn't noticed it was ripped in half, nor that it was mostly red, soaked in blood. He flattened his palm between my breasts. "I pulled a shard of glass from here the length of your arm."

"Glad I don't remember that." My breath hitched when he slid the hand lower, stopping on my abdomen, just above where my pants began.

"Your guts we're hanging out."

"This is the weirdest seduction I've ever been a part of." A naughty finger went under the waistband of my panties. "But I'm kind of into it."

Cian grabbed a fist full of hair and tugged, drawing me backward until I laid on the ground. Holding me in place, he pushed apart my legs, still bent at the knees, and wedged his broad body between them. Fabric tore and cold air kissed my now exposed nipples. His eyes, already dark in the dim room went almost black as he watched the nubs turn too hard points, and as badly as I wished to beg him to touch, not look, I kept quiet, not entirely convinced this still wasn't hell. Not entirely sure I wouldn't be ripped away from this moment without an orgasm, or worse—my heart stuttered as the thought entered my mind—without feeling him inside me, merging our bodies into one.

"I poured healing magic into you for hours." Two hands went around my waist, and he followed the curves of my body upward, thumbs grazing the rounded undersides of my breasts before at last he cupped them, testing the weight. From the swelling between our bodies, he liked what he felt. "I was about to give up, and then I felt it."

"What?" I arched my back, moving like a greedy cat against him to create the friction I desperately wanted.

"Completion," he said before taking my mouth with his and ending the conversation.

I'd felt the mastery of his tongue between my legs before. It had raised me to heights never traveled before and destroyed me when I came apart. But that moment didn't hold a candle to his kiss. I felt as if he poured himself into me, filling me with every swipe and teasing taste, drawing me after him in a desperate attempt to keep him from separating us.

His hands were everywhere. In my hair. On my breasts. Around my hips as they dragged me into his lap.

I whimpered when he broke the connection and returned me to the ground, but it was only so he could stand and discard his clothes. Impatiently, I wiggled out of my pants and what remained of my top and bra.

We paused and just stared at the other. I must have looked a sight with my mussed hair and swollen lips, looking up at him with my legs open and pussy glistening and wet, but my only thoughts were on the perfect cock jutting up between a thatch of dark hair. When he stepped toward me, I rose up on my knees and stopped him from lowering himself to the floor, putting one hand on each thigh.

"Bria." My name was a growl that turned to a pur when I ran the tip of my tongue from base to tip.

"Fuck, you are delicious," I hummed, fingers digging into his muscular thighs as I worked my mouth up and down his cock. "Grab my hair. Control me."

I'd never asked Jac to do something like that. He was always so careful with me. So reverent. I wanted Cian to fuck me like he owned me.

"Use your mouth and hands," he commanded, grabbing me without being told again. And it was a perfect handful near the scalp, just enough tension to be pleasurable as he pushed me forward, forcing me to relax my throat.

In return, I did as told, circling his cock with one hand, pressing my lips against my stretched fingers and following them up and down as I fondled his balls. Salty pre-cum spread on my tongue, and I popped off long enough to run my tongue over my lips, holding eye contact as I continued moving my hand up and down.

"Enough," he said, as I lowered my head again.

Eagerly, I turned around on hands and knees, desperate to feel him enter me. I shrieked as he flipped me over onto my back.

"Cian, I like it the other way," I said. My voice was frantic as he lined himself up with my center. This was too much. Too intimate. Jac and I only had sex face to face when I was very drunk or could look anywhere but his eyes, like when I rode him.

"And I plan on taking you that way." He rubbed my clit with his thumb while he fed himself inch by inch into my body, stretching me to a point where pain and pleasure mingled. "From the back. Standing up. Against the wall."

He punctuated the last promise with a sharp, deep jerk of his hips that drove him all the way into my body, not a single bit of space separating us. With a tortured groan, he remained motionless, his face buried in my neck while I adjusted to his weight and size. Maybe if he stayed like this, it would be okay.

But then he kissed my neck, light fluttering kisses that went upward, moving along my chin, and then onto my mouth. Drawing back, he held my gaze, and I wondered what he saw there. The lust still burning strong, or the sheer panic that he might not like what he saw, but I melted when a tender smile stretched his lips. He reached down and hooked one leg around his hip and moved in pulses—quick, quick, long, stoking the fire in my core until I felt like it might consume me.

"Cian," I panted, trying to reach between us to put my hands on my clit, desperate to fall over the edge before I disintegrated.

Instead, he adjusted the position, going up on his knees while holding onto the center of my back, lifting and raising me so my hips did most of the work, grinding on his cock so that each shift struck the sensitive bundle of nerves. I screamed as I came, my core milking his cock so hard I had the fleeting thought I might have crushed it, but he only increased his efforts, manhandling my body the way he had my head when I sucked his cock. The slaps of flesh on flesh echoed in the cave, and I put my hands on the floor to stop my head from banging into the stone as he drove himself into me.

And then he came with a scream of his own, and suddenly I knew what all those smutty romance novels meant when they said the man roared as he came. Rocks broke loose and clattered to the ground, and I felt him tremble against me before setting me gently on the ground. He slipped out of me with a wet squelch, and within a few moments, his hot seed worked its way out of my body, the foreign sensation sparking a fuzzy thought in the back of my mind.

Neither of us spoke as he pulled me into the curve of his body. Sticky skin against sticky skin, we fell asleep as our heartbeats slowed, falling into matching rhythms.