Chapter Seventeen
Miles
Despite the warmth of the sun beating down on us, it started to get cold in the water. When I shivered, Jethro caught hold of me, instinctively knowing it wasn’t pleasure making me shake. He lifted me out and carried me over to a sunlit spot on the cave floor. The heat from the rock warmed me as the sun beaming down on us started to dry our skins.
Jethro knelt between my legs as I lay on my back. He reached down, his hands finding my feet, fingers and thumbs trailing across the wet skin, up along my legs and thighs to my hips. Then up higher, along my sides, tickling my underarms and making me laugh.
“Ready?” he asked me.
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure what came next. He leaned in, capturing my mouth in a kiss that left me breathless.
“I need you to trust me? Can you do that?”
I stared at this man, at this stranger who felt so familiar. This Alpha who risked everything to free me from a short, brutal life in captivity. The lust he’d spoken of burned heavily in me. I ached to touch him, to be touched by him. But under that, there was something else. An intense feeling that I felt not in my head or my groin but my heart.
As if he could hear my thoughts, he laid his hand across my chest and I could feel my heart beating under his palm.
“I am yours. And you are mine.”
A slow smile crept across his face as he drank me in, his eyes raking across me. Looking down between his legs, I could see he was hard for me. He was ready and so was I.
“Stretch your hands out above your head,” he whispered. I did as he said, laying my arms down along the floor, feeling the sun shining across them.
His hands found my knees, gently spreading my legs. Then he lifted my hips a fraction, his hand between my cheeks. I was wet there. I could feel it and so could he. Heat spread across my face, but it only made him smile more.
“You’re ready for me,” he said taking his hand away and pushing his body against me. I could feel him hard and ready, pressed tight against my hole. It had never felt so empty as it did in that moment. I needed this, needed him, needed to be filled.
But there was another part to this equation and as Jethro lowered his upper body over mine and reached for my hands, I realized what it was. His mark and mine had to touch, our bodies and marks as one.
His mouth found my cheek first, kissing me gently.
“Trust me,” he murmured again, his eyes on mine. “I won’t hurt you.”
His fingers linked with mine but his arms were arched, keeping our marks from connecting. I glanced up at our joined hands, at our glowing marks, and then back to Jethro’s face.
“I’m ready. I want to bond with you.”
His mark pressed over mine and I readied myself for the burst of pain that would follow. But there was none. A wave of ecstasy washed over me as our marks collided, like stars bursting within me, and I cried out with joy as Jethro pushed inside, filling that empty place inside and chasing out the last of the cold.
He felt big, so big, that no part of me could ignore him. There was heat from our marks and I glanced at our joined arms, seeing the bright glow from where our skins pressed together.
Jethro pulled out and I keened from the loss. No, no. Come back.
He thrust in again, and I gave a cry of relief, clutching tighter to his hands.
“Don’t let me go,” I begged him.
“Never,” he insisted, as he thrust inside again. Each push of his hips rocked my body forward and sent sparks of pleasure through me. I was surprised to see I’d grown hard again. Clearly, the gods of pleasure weren’t done with me yet.
“Fuck, Miles. You’re amazing, so amazing,” Jethro said, his hands flexing against mine. All too soon, neither of us had breath for conversation, too lost in the thrust and pull, in the heat of our marks. His thrusts grew quicker as if he was chasing something down and nearing its capture. His mouth found mine, kissing in a way we’d never kissed before, his tongue pushing between my lips as his cock pushed between my legs. I gave in to every part of him, let him inside, and was rewarded with a surge of white-hot pleasure that blotted out everything else. Distantly, I felt Jethro still as he came inside me. Filled, I was filled. In every way imaginable.
I woke to Jethro’s cheek pressed to mine, our arms still held together. The glow between them was still there. Instinctively, I knew that it wasn’t time to let go yet, not until that glow had faded to almost nothing, the bond between us solid.
Jethro had released my other arm, his hand on my hip, his thumb stroking idly. I used my free hand to card my fingers through his hair.
“I am yours and you are mine,” I murmured, tacking, “I love you,” onto the end. It wasn’t an afterthought. I could feel the love I had for him, singing through every cell in my body. I wanted to shout it, to scream it from rooftops and mountaintops.
Jethro sighed against me. “You are mine and I am yours,” he mirrored. “And I love you, too.”
Tears sprang to my eyes and trailed sideways down my cheeks. I was happy, so happy. I didn’t think anyone anywhere in the world had been happier.
Jethro lifted his head and kissed away my tears. “No one will take you from me now. Not ever.”
We drowsed in each other’s arms as the time ticked slowly by until the glow between our hands started to fade. My arm was stiff when Jethro’s hand slowly released mine and our marks and bodies separated.
Jethro helped me up and we sat there, holding our arms side by side as we marveled at the changes to our bond marks. Gone was the carpet of little black dots. Gone were the bright, shining marks that sent Jethro on his quest to find me. They had been replaced by silvery, gossamer spots with lines connecting them, as if someone had taken silver paint and played connect the dots with our marks.
“They’re beautiful,” I said, as I ran my hand over mine and then Jethro’s. The skin around them was perfectly smooth, the unused marks gone. “They look like constellations.”
“I think they are.” Jethro peered closer, tracing the lines with his pad of his finger. “I think it’s Andromeda.”
“Who was he?” My studies had never stretched to something as far-flung as astronomy and the sky. I guess my father wanted to keep me grounded. Or maybe blinkered was the better word.
“She was a princess. Her mother offended some demi-gods or nymphs or something. They complained to the guy in charge, Poseidon, and he sent a sea monster to destroy their kingdom. Andromeda was the sacrifice, to be taken by the monster in exchange for the kingdom being spared.”
It was easy to identify with that. Hadn’t I been the sacrifice my people had demanded? “What happened to her?”
“A brave hero named Perseus killed the monster and saved her. And they married and fell in love, and had seven sons and two daughters.” That was a lot of sons.
“Does that make you my Perseus?”
Jethro smiled. “I haven’t slain any sea monsters lately.”
“But you rescued me.”
“I stole you. Which would make me a thief, not a hero.” He didn’t sound sorry about it, not one bit. And neither was I, not really.
“A thief and a traitor.” For all the guilt that I felt for my actions, I liked the sound of that. “I guess we make a good match.”
Jethro put his arm around me, holding me close. “More than you know.”
Jethro snuck back outside just before dusk to check on the climbers’ progress.
“They’re on the plateau just below us, setting up camp for the night. Assuming they start climbing again at dawn, they’ll be here about an hour after. Maybe sooner if they’re quick climbers.”
“So what do we need to do before dawn?”
We’d joined out marks, we’d made love. What else would ensure they didn’t split us apart?
“Fall in love,” Jethro answered easily.
“Too late for that.” The love was there, very much alive within me.
“Is that so?” Jethro said, stalking toward me and backing me against the wall. I watched him, full of anticipation. “I think this needs further exploration, don’t you?”
I’d thrown my T-shirt on as the chill of the evening set in, but I surrendered it willingly a moment later.
“Take my hand,” he said, holding it out. I did, and he drew me across the cave, to lie under the inky black sky. He laid me down on my back and straddled me, bending down to whisper in my ear. “The night is young and the sky is full of stars.”
I parted my legs and caught his face between my hands, kissing the words from his lips and drinking him in.
Afterward, we slept in each other’s arms, too tired and sated to do much of anything.
“What will happen in the morning?” I asked him, my eyes heavy with sleep.
“Don’t worry about that now,” he murmured, wrapping an arm tight around me. “Just rest.”