Chapter Forty Nine
She was sitting in her garden in the last light of the evening when she felt a familiar presence drop over the wall. She’d known he was coming, she’d been able to sense him constantly ever since she’d reached out for him during the battle.
“You ok?” Kenny asked her in a richer voice she’d come to find marked concern.
She felt tears pushing at her eyes. “No,” she said.
He sat down next to her and pulled her into his lap. “Figured. Thought you might need space but then I wanted to see you.”
“Kenny,” she said, the words tumbling out, “I saw him. The real Puppet Master, he’s in my head, a part of me. I traded him a bit of freedom in exchange for the strength to break out of their hold and save Traedon and Genji. They were going to use my abilities to amplify some attack and take out everyone on our force.”
“What the hell was Traedon doing needing saving?” he growled.
She smiled, “He attacked Horan.”
“Should’ve known he’d lose that one.”
“You would have fought, too, given the same odds,” she told him.
“That’s true but I would’ve won.”
She felt the corners of her mouth quirk up, “I said given the same odds.”
“It’s good to see you smile.”
Her face fell. “I’m a monster.”
“The people you care about needed you to be a monster,” he stroked her hair absently. “I don’t have that excuse.”
“You don’t need an excuse.”
He slid his hand to her chin and tilted it up to look into her eyes, “No, I don’t. Neither do you.”
He kissed her. Feeling her hesitating again he pulled back. “I’m never going to get compassion and sympathy. Trust and respect though, I can do that. And you’ve already got it from me. You’ll have it regardless because you’re too strong to be anyone you don’t want to. Does that make sense?”
She kissed him, “Oh Kenny, it does,” she pressed closer, to taste him. Her lips, still tender and swollen from where Horan had struck her, burned, and she flinched.
Kenny growled, low and dangerous, “If you hadn’t taken their heads off I would’ve torn them apart, one piece at a time.”
She kissed him again, softer this time, and he dropped his mouth to run it over her neck and collar. She leaned her head back, her weight against his arm, and enjoyed the sensation of her skin tingling under his touch. Her body responded to him like metal to a magnet. She marveled at it every time.
She pulled herself back to face him and pushed his jacket off his shoulders. The cuts he’d taken during the last fight were still visible, but shallow now. She ran her hands over his shoulders and down the back of his arms as he tugged at the knot holding her wrap on, feeling his powerful muscles moving. She turned to straddle him as the knot came undone and she moved her body against his as he tugged the wrap off her.
Scooping her up and standing, he untied and kicked off his own pants and then dropped both of them gently into the grass.
“Kenny,” she said hesitantly.
He growled into her neck as he moved his hands behind her thighs.
“Take down your shield.”
“Ok.” He nipped at her neck. She felt his mind against hers as she dropped her shield as well.
She felt him stroke her clit as she cautiously found the resonance between them and opened it further, strengthening it and pulling them together. She felt herself drawn in as he sunk his fingers into her.
His chest rumbled when he felt what she was doing, “That’s interesting.”
He pulled his fingers out of her and pulled her down onto his cock. With their bodies intimately connected, the link between their minds solidified and Dahlia gasped as she felt everything intermingle. She could feel her body, could feel him pressing inside her, the pleasure of the sensation washing over her. It was more than that, though. She was caught up in what he experienced: pure need and the clarity of unconflicted desire. She felt washed in the raw lust she’d drowned in the first time they’d been together. It mixed with the bittersweetness of longing she’d grown to feel for him, the desire for someone who made her feel unhesitatingly accepted. Her breasts became even more sensitive as she felt them rubbing against his chest as he moved inside her. She pressed against him and ran her hands over his back, wanting to experience every bit of him.
She felt him move faster, deeper as she rolled her hips against him. The pleasure that swept over her was layered and intensified by his. She found the same bittersweetness in him along with hot rage that someone had hurt her. It consumed her as he ran his hands over her body and buried himself in her, needing to feel her, know that she was alright. She felt him dig his teeth into her breast again; a primal mark claiming her, protective and possessive.
She moaned and pushed her hips against him, telling him she wanted to feel him even more. He responded to her desire by pushing harder into her and her pleasure washed over him. She let go and floated halfway between the physical world where their bodies intertwined and the world created between their minds. The ecstasy coursing through her limbs became as real as the blood in her veins. She buried her hand in his hair and gripped his back, desperately pulling him deep into her as she satiated her need for his body. She felt his complete acceptance of what they were and what they wanted and she felt herself opening to return the same. The wound that had opened in her heart when she’d traded for power closed. Relief washed over her as her body found the same release in the sensations making her tremble.
Their need, their desire built as it was answered by the movement of their bodies. She cried out as she became lost in that passion. Thoughts silenced, words became meaningless, and her existence narrowed to just the melding of their bodies and the rapture they had created. For a moment, she found eternity with him as colors danced around her eyes and the ocean roared in her head. Her body trembled and a delicious shiver ran down her back from the intensity of her release. She felt herself wrapped against the body of her lover, descending back into the grip of reality they’d managed to escape from.
She ran her hand through his hair and down his face as she took in his black eyes and carnivorous grin, matching it with one of her own.