Page 17 of Daughter of the Ninth Line, Part Two (The Lines of Ebrus #2)

Seventeen

Avalon

T here wasn’t a single atom in my soul that didn’t feel the effects of Vox’s kiss.

It tingled in my fingertips, burned through my blood, and clouded my brain.

He was everywhere, yet not where I wanted him.

My body ached for him, and it was such a foreign feeling—like I was being possessed by some sex-obsessed demoness—that it was momentarily disconcerting.

Not disconcerting enough to stop, though. Not even the college itself falling in around our heads could make me tell him to stop. He continued to kiss me as he laid me down on the bed, his body poised between my thighs, and I hooked my ankles around his hips, trapping him to me.

I didn’t have to worry about him leaving, because his mouth devoured me, kissing and nibbling his way over my skin as he peeled my shirt from my body.

He kissed down my neck, then further south, between the valley of my breasts and over to one of my pink nipples.

When he sucked it hard, I moaned. When he blew a freezing cold breath across the peaked bud, I squealed and wiggled beneath him, pleasure shooting straight to my clit.

A little voice in the back of my head told me I was far too out of my depth to be doing this with Vox, a man who’d probably had more lovers than I’d had hot meals, but again, I didn’t care.

We had nothing but this moment. I wasn’t trying to woo him; we were just two souls, coming together to find pleasure where we could.

He tugged at the waistband of my pants, and I used my legs to lift myself so he could tug them down over my ample ass.

Time at Boellium, with its unlimited rich food and rigorous exercise, had given me curves that weren’t soft, but were definitely a little too steep to be considered fashionably beautiful.

Especially not in the Court of Fortaare, and the women Vox must have slept with before.

As he moved down my body, over the soft roundness of my stomach and the harsh curve of my hips, I tried to drag him back up to my face. Away from the parts of me that made me feel insecure.

I should have known better, though, because Vox Vylan didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do. Air curled around my wrists and dragged my arms upwards until they were above my head, my fingertips touching the cool bars of the metal bedframe.

“I’ve been dreaming about this for too long, Ninth, to half-ass it just because you can’t get out of your head. Lie back and let me feast,” he murmured. I should’ve been pissed at him calling me Ninth, but the way he crooned it, like a pet name and not a curse, made me keep my mouth closed.

Well, for a moment anyway, because my lips parted as his mouth found my core, and he sucked my clit between his lips without warning.

“Goddess!” I yelled, my abs contracting.

I would have jack-knifed into a sitting position if those bands of air hadn’t been holding me still.

Vox chuckled around the sensitive bud, making my eyes roll back in my head.

No wonder people were sex-obsessed. Nothing I’d ever done to myself had ever felt this good.

This kind of pleasure was only ever felt in my dreams. I hadn’t thought it could be real.

“Such a pretty pussy, all hot and wet just for me,” he groaned, and I tightened my thighs around his shoulders.

More air captured my ankles, holding them still.

His power was immense, and to be honest, hot as hell.

“Maybe I need to cool it down a little, hmm?” he breathed.

As he pushed a finger inside my aching core, it was so cold that I gasped.

Fucking Goddess, his fingers were like icicles. The combination of the heat of his mouth and tongue, and the coldness of his fingers sliding in and out of my body, had me coming so hard, the edges of my vision went spotty.

“Vox!”

He hummed a happy noise around my clit again, pulling away as he stroked me through my orgasm. “That’s it. Scream my name. I want everyone to hear it and know you’re mine.”

He didn’t stop thrusting his fingers in and out of me, but he warmed them back up, and the heat of them after the chill was…

I had no words. I climbed higher and higher, and he watched my face, like he was collecting my orgasms, stacking them together like blocks until I was so high, I had nowhere to go but down into the messy abyss of mindless pleasure.

I gave him another orgasm, his crooned words senseless to me. But when he stood and removed his clothes, my breath stilled in my chest. Clarity crashed down around me like a bucket of ice water.

He was fucking beautiful, a work of art so glorious, it took my breath away. Strong and broad, he reminded me of the white marble cliffs near my home, hard and cutting and breathtaking. His cock jutted out from his body, and my eyes bulged.

Holy shit. Was that supposed to go inside me? Because it looked big and unyielding, and I wasn’t sure there was enough space in my body to take that without perforating something important.

He chuckled low. “I don’t know if I should be honored or insulted that you’re looking at my cock like it’s a deadly weapon.”

I didn’t know either. “I feel like this is probably the time to tell you that I’m a virgin and I’ve never done this before and that thing is scary.”

His whole body went still, looking like the marble statue I’d just imagined him as. “Never?”

I shook my head, my face probably as red as a beet. “If you want to change your mind, it’s okay. I probably should have told you earlier.”

“Fuck,” he breathed softly, coming back down between my thighs, his whole body pressed tightly to mine. “A better man would stop. Your first time should be with someone who can give you a future,” he mumbled against the skin of my shoulder. “Not the stolen moments I can give you.”

Wrapping my fingers in his dark hair, I pulled his head back so he was forced to look at me. “Lucky for us both that this isn’t just your decision to make. I choose you, Vox Vylan. Now, fuck me—gently—until I can’t help but remember the feel of you inside me for the rest of my life.”

He groaned, but palmed his cock, lining it up with my entrance.

“I’ll go slow.” Then he was pushing inside me, with calm precision that was in direct contrast to the tenseness of his jaw.

He felt too big, too much, too painful. His cock was as cold as ice, numbing the pain until he was seated all the way inside me.

I felt like I could feel him everywhere.

“Handy trick,” I breathed, and he grunted, his eyes closed like he was physically in pain.

Slowly, his cock returned to normal temperature again.

Pulling out excruciatingly slowly, he was gentle as he pushed back in again, and every thought I’d ever had about anything at all disappeared from my head.

There was just Vox, and me, and this moment.

“You feel so fucking perfect.” He kissed the corner of my mouth and down my throat, his body trembling from holding himself so tightly. “You fit around me like we were made for each other by some divine fate.” Raising himself up on his arms, he looked down at my expression. “Are you okay?”

“Yes!” I gasped out. “Please, Vox. More. ”

He grinned, and it was a devastating expression.

One I knew would be imprinted on my heart forever.

It left me feeling dazed, but I didn’t have time to focus on it, because he was pushing himself up on his knees.

Holding me by my hips, he pulled back and snapped them forward again, and a whole new type of pleasure made my skin feel too hot, too tight, too much as it coursed through my muscles and bones.

He made love to me. We could call it fucking, I guess, but the care he showed, the tenderness, it was something more. I knew it deep in my chest.

“You don’t know…” He shook his head, like he was as lost in this moment as I was. “Anything you want is yours. Avalon, my Avalon,” he groaned, and an echo of the words rang around my head. A different voice. A whisper from my dreams.

I didn’t have time to dwell on the sensation of déjà vu, because pleasure was hurtling through me. I clenched around Vox, my whole body arching upwards as I was consumed.

“Fuck,” he cursed, gripping me even harder until I knew I’d have fingertip-shaped bruises on my flesh.

He fucked me with single-minded focus, riding out my orgasm before he pounded into me like a man possessed.

He came hard, and I felt the hot splash inside me.

It was a sensation that I wouldn’t forget anytime soon.

He collapsed against me, his body a heavy blanket over mine.

I ran my hands up his spine, then out over the hard lines of his shoulders, until my fingers grazed large, raised welts.

Had I done that with my nails? It was almost impossible, given that my nails were little more than chewed-down nubs.

Having long nails and doing sword work didn’t really go hand in hand, not without a lot of time and energy, or a heavy dose of magic.

So what were those welts on his back?

I looked up into his face and noticed his eyes had gone blank, his body tense. “I didn’t do that, did I?” I asked softly, and he shook his head.

There were only two people in all of Ebrus capable of inflicting harm on Vox, and I could stand against neither of them. Moving my fingers away from the painful, raised skin, I wrapped my arms around his waist and held him tightly to me. I didn’t say I was sorry, didn’t offer him empty platitudes.

I’d been where he had, at the hands of a man who shared my blood and was meant to love and protect me, but didn’t. “I know this feeling,” I told him simply. “It’s their failing, not yours.”

Vox’s body went taut again, his eyes running over my face, finding the secrets that I was laying bare before him but was too cowardly to say out loud. He knew, though. I could see his understanding in the way his jaw tensed. “I’ll kill him,” he growled.

I couldn’t help but laugh. He absolutely could, but not today. “Okay, my Ice Prince. But do it later. I want to cuddle first.”

Huffing a small laugh, he rolled onto his back and gathered me up against his chest. That had to hurt the lash wounds on his back, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Acacia had given me a poultice to put on my injuries after the Eugene incident, so later, I’d use some of that on Vox’s lashes to help ease the pain. Hopefully by tomorrow, they’d be gone.

But right now? I would just lay here and hope that this moment was enough to heal the wounds that no one else could see.