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Chapter twenty-one

Vow of Eternity

Eoghan

D id I try to resist the goddess in my bed?

Yes. I was afraid that one taste of her would unleash the hungry, feral beast inside me.

After the blood I had spilt today, and all the blood I would spill tomorrow, I was afraid of myself.

I was afraid that my desperate frenzy would push her further from my grasp.

I truly wanted to be the man who could hold himself back from defiling the one good thing in my life. The woman who had given me a child, and a sense of home. The woman who wore my mother’s ring.

She was the last bit of sanity that existed in my world.

But when she asked me to make love to her, any bit of restraint withered into ash.

“I am your servant, madam,” I whispered, taking her mouth, wrapping my arms around her body until I sat up.

She slid onto my lap, straddling me. Her perfect, round ass pressed against my hard cock. I felt the satisfaction of her sigh against my mouth.

I had broken the dam. I was starving for her. My restraint was broken like the shattered glass in Morelli’s cell.

More, more, always more! I was starving for her. I was a glutton for Kira Green.

Her naked breasts pressed against my chest, her nipples pebbling with her arousal. Her arms wrapped around my neck, her fingers twining through my hair, until her nails dug into my scalp. I winced and adored the pain.

Nothing from my Muse could be bad. Nothing that she did to me, even if it caused me pain, could be a fault.

“More,” she moaned when our lips parted, just for a moment, so we could catch our breath.

“Your wish is my command,” I whispered against her lips, wondering if she remembered our first night as man and wife. “I am at your complete mercy.”

Did she replay our first time making love the way I did? Did she remember every taste and sound, every touch and whispered adoration the way I did?

I had replayed so many of our evenings in the last three years. I could recreate every word, every image, everything. I had lived for those memories. I would die by them.

“I will be your sovereign, your jester, your knight, if you wish me to be,” I vowed. The conviction with which I had said it before was gone, and now all that was left was the tragic truth.

If she wished me to be any of those things, or nothing, then that is what I would be.

“You’ll do anything for me?” she asked, and I didn’t know if she said it because she was sharing the memory, or if she asked it out of hand.

“Yes, Kira. Anything.” I felt the pain of my loneliness like a garrote around my throat. It tightened and tightened, threatening to cut off my air, my blood, my life.

“Then fuck me, Eoghan Green. Make me feel married.”

I could have wept at her words, knowing that for once, I was not deluded into thinking I was alone.

She remembered with me, and I wanted to scream in joy.

Not wanting to make a fool of myself, I buried my head into her throat, taking the skin of her shoulder between my teeth. With firm hands on her hips, I lowered her down onto my aching cock. I thrust myself deep inside her heat until we both groaned in perfect ecstasy.

I am a selfish bastard.

“I love you, Eoghan,” she said. She always said such sweet things in the throes of love making, and I bathed in it like sunshine. “I need you so much, it hurts!”

Her body curved into mine. She closed any space that existed between us.

My body responded in kind, needing her just as much, if not more.

My body did not care what my mind had decided.

It acted on its own accord, taking more and more, as my hands lifted her high, until she floated with just the tip of my cock pressed in her warm, wet heat.

Then I slammed us both together again, the violent pleasure as desperate as my love for her.

She screamed as her climax loomed close. I slammed us together again, and her cunt spasmed around me, choking my cock until I saw stars.

I noted every single detail of her: the way her neck arched as her head fell back, the way her nails dug into my skin, drawing the blood that rightfully belonged to her.

I watched the heave of her breast, the parting of her lips, the feel of her sweat as the passion of our movements heated her skin.

Her thighs clenched around me, holding me inside her as I resisted the urge to join her in pleasure.

I am a selfish bastard , I reminded myself, but this is for her.

“Eoghan.” She whimpered my name so sweetly that it sent a shudder up my spine. But nothing prepared me for the bittersweet longing I felt when she whispered, “Husband.”

I dropped my head into her chest, my breath warming the space between us as I inhaled the scent of us together. Her body and mine, her slick arousal, the most dangerously intoxicating perfume I would ever know.

My voice shook as I whispered, “I wish I could lay you down on a bed of orchids.”

I flipped her onto her back, pressing myself between her thighs, rotating my hips so I rubbed against her clit.

“I wish I could paint you for hours, and watch you sleep in the morning light.” I kissed her mouth, taking her breath, stealing it for myself again. “I want to cut your palm, and chain you to me forever. I want to make vows for eternity.”

“Then do it!” she moaned.

Christ, I wish I could. I wish I were the kind of man who could take her in the throes of passion and selfishly extract a promise that we’d never part, because that was what I wanted in my selfish, monstrous heart.

I kissed her neck, her chest, tasting the sweat of her skin.

“Do it,” she whispered, as she placed her left palm between us. “Bind us!”

She wanted to handfast.

I wanted to weep.

I took her hand, tempted as I was to reach for my blade, but didn’t.

She says the sweetest things in the throes of passion… such lovely promises that she’d never keep.

I put her palm to my lips, then bit down on the skin, marking it with my teeth. Just for a moment, I could mark her as mine. It would fade in the morning, but for now, I could mark her. Just for now… I could content myself with just this moment.

I knew that the moment would never be enough, and I would walk away starved for her. But I could live in the illusion for now.

“I love you,” I whispered. “I love you, Wife. I love you, my darling Muse. I love you more than you will ever know.”

“I love you, too,” she said between beautiful, melodic gasps. “I love you so much. I’m yours. I’m yours, Eoghan. I’m yours…”

She said her vows, her pleas, her gentle recitation of all the words I wanted. The lies filled my ears, and I was not at all insulted. I felt the sweetness of her intention.

“Please, Eoghan,” she said, placing her left hand between us. “Do it.”

She came once more, my cock strangling inside her, as I groaned through the pleasure, holding myself back until my balls ached.

“No, Kira,” I groaned against her, holding on to the last of my humanity with both hands. “Not like this.”

She groaned. “Then when?”

“Tomorrow,” I whispered… “Or the next day…”

“Eoghan!” She dug her nails into my skin, letting me know her displeasure without words as I kept moving myself inside her, feeling her clench around me until I grew dizzy with pleasure.

I groaned, wrapping my arm around her, our hands interlaced as I pressed her against the mattress.

“Not like this.” My jaw was so tense that I could barely speak at all. “Not now. Not when we’re on the brink of war.”

“What better time than now?” Her whine was sweet and desperate, as she let out a keening cry of pleasure as my tip grazed the sensitive spot inside her heat.

I was barely holding on. I was a wire pulled taut, ready to snap!

“No, Kira!” I growled. “Not now. Not when we’re afraid. Not when our son is far away.”

I bit down on her clavicle, drawing her skin into my mouth, sucking on the salt of her sweat, leaving a bruise there to mark her as mine.

“Please!” she whined, her nails digging into the flesh of my back as she left marks of her own.

I was so fucking close, and so was she. She’d tumble down with me, and I knew it.

“No!” I ordered again. “For once, Kira, I don’t want to force you into a vow.”

“You’re not forcing me.” She shook her head back and forth, as if the pleasure was too much for her. “I’m begging you!”

I loved her pleasure whines. My balls ached, ready to spill.

“If we make that final vow,” I said between thrusts, “It will be when we’re of sound mind. When our family is whole.”

“Eoghan!” she screamed, her eyes wide. She threw her head back, her mouth open, as she let out a long, silent scream.

“I do not want a vow made in desperation and fear,” I told her. “Not this time. Not now.”

Her entire body tensed around me, and her glorious cunt sucked the seed from inside me. I convulsed, as my release took what was left of my soul and gave it to her.

I collapsed on top of her, and she wrapped herself around me.

When her breaths evened out, I rolled to my side so that she and I faced each other, our bodies entangled, my cock still inside her sweet, warm center.

“I love you,” she said, her fingers looping into my hair, scratching at my scalp in a sweet gesture.

“I will love you the same tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that, and the one after that. I will love you when there is war, and when there isn’t.

I will love you in this haunted house, or in your New York penthouse. ”

I shut my eyes, savoring her words.

“I loved you even when we were apart,” she said, putting her cheek on my chest, snuggling into me. “I loved you when you gave me one thousand orchids.”

I felt her body relax against me, as her breaths evened out as she began to drift to sleep.

“I love you now,” she said, her words getting lost in a sighing yawn. “Even after I know what happened to Morelli, the painting, and Yuliya.”

I kissed her forehead and placed my nose at the top of her head, closing my eyes, as I gave in to a different passion than what we had just expressed.

It was the passion of tenderness. It wasn’t lustful, or desperate. It was the simple, quiet comfort of feeling at home when you lay beside the one who made you whole.