Page 18 of A Storm in Every Heart (Enchanted Legacies #2)

KASTIAN, PRESENT

O nce.

Once is such a torturous trap.

On the one hand, it’s perfect.

If I thought she wanted anything else from me than to “get this out of her system,” I’d worry if it was fair to her to start something when I already know I’ll never be able to form a soul-bond with her. But just once means I don’t have to tell her.

On the other hand, once is like taking a single hit of opium and expecting not to want more. Like expecting a single drop of water to turn a desert into an ocean. I already know it won’t be enough, but I’m past caring.

I feel like I’m cheerfully sprinting to my own execution as I carry Odessa up the stairs to my bedroom. I finally understand why the men who get lured in by the sirens die with smiles on their faces.

“Where are we going?” Odessa asks as we climb the stairs.

“My room,” I say into her skin, unable to stop myself from pressing my face into the curve of her neck, and breathing in her ocean and floral scent.

Dessa shivers but says nothing else until we reach my second-floor bedroom and I shoulder open the door. She twists in my arms, looking around.

The room is neat and clean with very little in the way of personal effects—just the way I prefer it. The furniture is whatever was here when I moved in, and the most I’ve done to change things around is put my clothes in the wardrobe.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” Dessa says sarcastically.

“Well, some of us like to see the floor,” I tease her, thinking of her disastrous bedroom.

Looking affronted, she glances up at the ceiling, and her eyebrows pull low.

Fuck.

I see the wheels turning in her mind and I know she realizes that this room is directly below hers, and if I let her think about it too long, she’ll also remember that the walls in the manor are relatively thin and the floors creak.

I can always tell when she’s gone to bed, when she’s pacing in the middle of the night and when she trips over that mess on her floor.

Hoping to distract her before she has the chance to put two and two together, I kick the door closed behind me and cross the room in two strides where I put her down on my sharply made bed.

She scrambles onto her knees and looks up at me from beneath her eyelashes, not in a seductive way but more like she’s nervous. For once, I think I understand why.

It’s hard to pretend this is some rash, irresponsible mistake that we can blame on poor judgment in the heat of the moment. The walk between the dining room and my bedroom made it all too clear that whatever this is, it’s a choice.

I reach out and run a hand through her hair, stopping when my fingers graze her throat. I leave them there, not squeezing, just resting against her pounding pulse. “Don’t look at me like that.”

She blinks. “Like what?”

“Like you’re about to bolt at any moment.”

She flushes and bites her lip, her pulse fluttering beneath my fingers. I watch her violet eyes shift from my face, down my chest, and linger around my stomach. My blood heats and my entire body tightens, growing hot with anticipation.

“Is that better?” she asks, teasing.

A growl rumbles through my chest, and I flex my fingers against her throat. “Much, but I still want to hear you say it.”

Siren or not, I need to hear her give over control to me or I won’t be able to justify to myself all the depraved things I’m already planning to do to her.

She smiles wickedly, the heat in her eyes still simmering just below the surface. “I want it…just once.”

Good enough.

My fingers tighten on her throat before I’m sure if I intended to pull her toward me to claim her mouth or shove her backwards against the bed.

Somehow, I manage both at once, and our lips collide as she splays on her back, tugging at my shirt until I fall over her with one arm braced over her head.

All hesitance gone, Odessa opens her mouth, tangling her tongue with mine. Her fingers dig into my scalp, nails raking, pulling me impossibly closer until every inch of me aches to be inside her.

My hands roam, mapping the ridges of her ribs, the curve of her waist, memorizing the geography of her skin, knowing this might be the only time I’ll ever be allowed to touch her.

She arches under my touch, breath hitching as I slide my palm up, massaging her breast. She whimpers, and her hand joins mine, trying to tug down the neck of her already-torn gown.

I pull back from her, rocking back on my heels. “Turn around.”

She cocks an eyebrow at me, but twists to show me her back. Her dress has hundreds of infuriatingly tiny buttons.

I groan. “Do you like this dress?”

“Not really,” she says, out of breath. “You already tore it beyond repair.”

“Perfect.”

I grip the fabric in both hands and tear it down the center, tiny pearl-shaped buttons flying everywhere, pinging off the walls and floor.

Underneath, she’s wearing a corset that covers only her stomach to the top of her hipbones, leaving her breasts bare—probably to make them appear larger, despite the fact that she absolutely requires no help in that area.

She twists back around in the pooling fabric of her torn dress and smirks at me.

Unable to hold back, I gather the remnants of her dress and toss them onto the floor, then grip her thighs and tug her toward the end of the bed. She shrieks and falls flat on her back, and I slide back off the bed. Standing between her legs, I look down at her, taking in every inch of my prize.

Her long hair—which looks sometimes red and sometimes blonde depending on the lighting—fans out around her in waves.

Her lips are swollen from kissing, and her skin is flushed all over.

The lacy cream-colored corset pushes her tits up practically to her chin, and her blush-pink nipples are hard and just begging to be licked.

For the love of the fucking gods. She’s so damn beautiful it’s distracting.

I want to blurt that out, just to expel the thought from my head, but I know Odessa already knows she’s beautiful —she’s likely been told that a dozen times a day since she was a teenager and I notice how she flinches when anyone brings it up.

So I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from speaking and focus on her soft skin beneath my fingers. I trail up her thighs until I reach the edges of her lace panties and dip my fingers beneath the lace to skim the divot where her leg meets her hips.

She gasps and wriggles her hips, sliding closer to me, clearly urging me to go faster. Half-obliging, I skim my fingers over the front of her panties, and she shivers. “Kastian…”

I bite the inside of my cheek harder, tasting blood.

I fucking love hearing her say my name, like she has a right to it. I want to hear her say it over and over. All night. Every day for the rest of my immortal life.

“Just once.”

Suddenly frustrated, I fist the fabric of her panties in one hand and yank.

The fabric tears, and I rip it away, tossing the scraps of ruined lace on the floor with the dress and all the tiny broken buttons.

Odessa gasps in surprise and starts to sit up, but I splay my fingers across her lower stomach and push her back down. “Don’t move.”

Her eyes narrow. “Excuse me?”

I hold my hand firm against her stomach, not giving her an inch. “Didn’t you hear me before? I want to feel you coming all over my fingers and my face, and then I’ll consider letting you have my cock.”

“You’ll let me?” she hisses.

I ignore her. She’ll figure out soon enough that I don’t like to share control.

Odessa’s expression is indignant, but I can see the lust and curiosity in the way she shudders when I run my fingers again over her bare cunt and dip between her folds.

Finally, she whimpers, unable to maintain that haughty, annoyed expression as I slide one finger inside her and draw it back out slowly. “…So fucking wet for me.”

I bring my fingers to my mouth and suck. Her eyes bug out of her head, focused on my mouth. She rolls her hips, and I chuckle, sliding my fingers back inside her. This time, I add a second and scissor them, stretching her tight cunt wide until she gasps.

My cock throbs, wanting desperately to be included, but I force myself to ignore it. I refuse to rush this and waste my only opportunity to own Odessa—claim her as mine, if only temporarily.

She bucks her hips and grumbles with impatience, and I give in—a little. “Play with your nipples.”

She glares down at me over the swell of her tits. “You do it.”

I laugh. “I could, but I think you’d rather I did this.”

Still moving my fingers in and out of her, I run the thumb of my other hand over her clit, rubbing gently until she whimpers with approval. I add my pointer finger, rolling her clit back and forth between the two. She gasps, cursing under her breath.

I smile widely, recognizing the words instantly.

Language isn’t often relevant in Ellender because the entire continent is enchanted with universal language, but every so often there’s a word or phrase from one kingdom that cannot be translated into the language of another.

I smile as Dessa curses fluently in Hydrattan.

I like the reminder that we’re originally from the same place, and in another life I would have been her king.

“Play with your tits,” I tell her again. “Don’t make me ask you again, or I won’t let you come.”

She growls, even as her hands come up to graze over her taught nipple. “You arrogant ass.”

I grin and curl my fingers inside her, stroking over her inner walls.

She mewls with desperation, her hips arching off the bed as I trace fervent circles around and over her clit, striving to mirror the rhythm of her fingers teasing her nipples.

Her breaths come faster, turning into ragged gasps as a flush blooms across her chest and creeps up to her cheeks.

“Oh my gods,” she hisses, her eyes clenching shut as her mouth falls open in a silent scream.