Chapter Thirty-Five

Iris

Lips parting, a roaring in my ears, I watched as Kal came forward and leaned against the end of the counter, waiting. It took several seconds for the words to sink in.

"Well, it is getting late…" I trailed off as my heart pounded faster, and my face went tomato red. I couldn't think. I was far better at accidentally blurting things out.

Kal had gone still, a slight furrow between his brow as he wasn’t quite sure which way I was going with this. Taking a deep breath, a suggestion bubbled up as though it had been waiting there all along. Perhaps, unconsciously, Kal had given it to me as a way in or out.

“You asked me what I wanted, right?” The furrow deepened as I spoke. “Said you’d do anything for me, get me anything, and so forth? Haven’t asked for anything yet, by the way.”

“Uh, sure,” Kal said slowly.

“I want you,” I said, standing up straight from against the wall and pressing my hands against it. “All of you, Kallen Deacon. Scars, muscles, height, stubbornness…” With each thing I listed, Kal took a step forward. "Stories, heartaches, memories, lazy days, busy days, days, uh—”

“Days apart?” Kal asked in a husky, deep voice that made my bare toes curl against the cold wooden floor. A curl that increased as he placed a hand on either side of my head. His eyes bored into me, and his damp hair fell forward, darkened to a summer gold. Warmth from his skin washed over me, and my hands curled together at my navel, still too nervous to touch him. “Days where I spend every moment thinking about you and wishing I was with you. Listening to you ramble." I made a face at him, and he laughed. "Or trying not to laugh."

“And failing,” I added.

Kal pressed closer, and I bumped into the wall, making his lips twitch. “And failing,” he said. “Also failing not to want you so much I can’t think straight. But even that wasn’t enough.” His throat worked. “I knew…I kept away from you in the beginning because I knew if I gave myself even the barest inch, it would never stop.”

“What?”

“Wanting you,” Kal said, and his hand cupped my cheek, burning and gentle at the same time. "Wanting to close the distance between us. Wanting to unmake myself to possess you because I knew you already had me." I must have looked stunned because Kal laughed and leaned down more. “Why do you think I lost control the day we met, or acted like such an ass after—I had everything locked down. Everything planned. And here you come…”

His big thumb brushed my lip, and the memory of Kal standing in the freezing river with me, his eyes frantic, flashed behind my eyes. The relief and the look in his eyes.

He’d heard me call for him.

“You’re a wild spark, Iris. Caught me and burned everything down.” His eyes closed, and his breath grew ragged. “I didn’t think I could afford to be vulnerable or ever lose control. I was afraid of the cost I might have to pay.”

And you were punishing yourself, for Brody and maybe even your father. Survivor’s guilt, I thought. All you Alphas seem to have it. But that was for another time.

“I was scared, too,” I said and bit my lip. “I’m still scared. Letting someone in and finding a place that you could lose so easily.” A place and a person. I had no illusions about how dangerous Kal’s work could be. “I tried to keep my distance, too. I didn’t even realize it until…” Well, today.

He bent over a little more, head hanging down, and his hand slipping away off my cheek. “There’s a lot we need to talk about. I don’t even know where to begin. Although…”

“I know. I get it.”

For once, Kal was the one rambling a little, and I was being quiet. Heart pounding so fast it made my hands shake, I hesitated and lifted them to his shoulders. Kal tensed under my touch and then relaxed as I swept my hands up his neck, under his jaw, and to his face. The bristles rubbed reassuringly against my palms as I lifted his face. The gray smoldered, a storm building, and I wanted to let it consume me. 

A smile touched his lips as I leaned in and kissed him.

I’d meant it to be sweet and quick, a reminder that I was on the same page. But I couldn’t pull away, feeling as though I were catching flame.

First my tongue, then my hands, became eager. Roaming into his hair, down his strong neck, over his bare shoulders, and to his bare chest. I let my right hand rest on his thundering heart while the left fingers followed the groove of his stacked muscles lower and lower. But a big hand snagged my left wrist and pinned it to the wall over my head.

Suddenly, Kal caught my other hand and pinned it with the other, one hand easily keeping me in place. His free hand slipped down my side to my waist and then lower, gripping my thigh. The heat of the kiss intensified, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

A demanding sound pushed out of my throat, and Kal’s fingers on my leg gripped harder. Then it was around his waist, and his muscular thigh was bracing me up, my back arching.

Now I understood what he meant about wanting to close the space between us. Urgent, demanding hunger tore through me. To take him into myself, my bones, my heart, and my soul. I wriggled a little, trying to get free, and Kal kissed me harder.

Moans and whimpers were fighting free. With each one, Kal’s skin seemed to heat up an increment, and his body pressed into mine. My torso twisted a little, trying to relieve the friction, and he let out a deep growl of pleasure that made me shudder from head to toe.

The kisses slowed, bit by bit, until he was teasing me into oblivion.

Then he had the gall to pull away.

“You bastard.” Kal’s surprised eyes met mine as he barked out a laugh. “Why did you stop?”

His face crinkled up, and he laughed more, shaking against me and having to hold himself up. I tried to twist free or kick him, but he had me pinned.

“Only you, Iris. Only you would think to tell me I’m beautiful and a bastard.”

“Well, it’s true,” I huffed. “Kallen Deacon, if you don’t—”

He let me go so he could push his hands into my hair and kiss me thoroughly again. As he pulled away and I rested my hands on his rising and falling chest, a groan rumbled out of him.

“I’m addicted to you, Iris,” Kal groaned. “Nothing makes sense unless you’re around, even though I can’t think half the time.”

“Better keep me around,” I said, breathless and bold, drunk on kissing him.

But when his hands circled my waist, a sudden stab of self-consciousness went through me. Here was Kal, an Alpha, a leader of the Northbane and a ripped mountain god. In spite of everything he’d said, a nasty voice was whispering in the back of my head about what he could possibly see in me.

“You okay?” Kal asked and rubbed his hands up my back. “Did I manhandle you? I didn’t mean to.” A small chuckle escaped him. “Although you kept up so well, it made it hard to hold back.”

"Don't hold back," I burst out, and my eyes met his. Then I dug my teeth into my lower lip as he raised his eyebrow and caught my chin. "I mean, I like it."

Kal let out a breath like I’d socked him. “God, Iris, you…good to know.” His voice was strangled. “Then why…” His eyes swept over my face, and he shook his head slightly. “Oh, Iris.”

He swept me up into his arms and brought me over to the couch, dropping me on a pile of cushions. Then he sat next to me and pulled my legs into his lap so I couldn’t escape. I dimly thought it was a good thing this was such a big couch.

Rubbing my ankle with one big hand, the other went to tug my hair as I sat up a little more. “I’m not sure what to say except that I think you’re beautiful in more ways than I can count.” His fingers fell from my hair and rubbed my thigh. I like you the way you are, but I’d also like you any other way. If I made you feel otherwise…I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t,” I said, both pleased and embarrassed he’d picked up on it. “It’s just, you’re so big and chiseled, while I’m not.” Kal’s face became impassive. “Like, I have a belly.”

“No, really?” he asked dryly, and suddenly I was pushed down onto the couch. “Let’s see.”

He tugged up my shirt, and, before I could protest, he was holding my hips and kissing around my navel. Eyes rolling back in pure bliss, I tugged at his hair, and all the things I wanted to yell at him fell away.

“I’ve always been a man who likes curves, and then some,” Kal said, and his beard scruff scraped from my ribs to my hip bone, making my hips pop. “You’re beautiful, Iris, and I know you know that, deep down. Don’t ever think because of who I am, that makes you less.” His voice was stern. “You’re too smart for that.”

“Sometimes I forget,” I murmured.

“Curse of being a woman, I think,” Kal sighed against my stomach. “I grew up in a female-dominated house, don’t forget.” His hands slipped around my back and traced up my spine, making me arch. “But even I don’t know shit at the end of the day. And I will say…” Kal’s teeth nipped along my hip bone, and I gasped, grabbing his hair. “I often am struck dumb by you, Iris.”

“Mm, you’re not so bad yourself,” I teased.

Kal ignored that. “Besides, you’ve got a perfect ass and boobs…” I sat up, and he drew back, color rushing up his neck and into his face. Even his ears went red. “Shit—I, ah…” He couldn’t seem to put a sentence together, and I was giggling. “I’m just saying, I noticed,” he finished lamely.

I scooted forward and straddled him, kissing him between giggles. It was a delicious pleasure, his hands slipping inside my tank and roaming across my bare lower back. I wanted more.

This time, somehow, I pulled back. Immediately, Kal tried to compose himself and frown, nodding. “Yeah, we should—”

I stopped him, a finger on his lips. “We should go upstairs.”

“Me and you?”

“You see anyone else here, Kallen?”

Kal’s chest heaved with both a laugh and a gasp. “Don’t ever stop surprising me.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

Slowly, I stood up, but not before finding his hand. His fingers twined with mine as I walked backward a few steps, and Kal unfurled from where he was sprawled. His blond hair clumped and stuck out in every direction, all because of me.

Together, we went upstairs, my heart pounding with excitement and nerves. But at the same time, an indolent calm had settled over me. We’d wasted enough time.

The only time I hesitated was picking between our bedrooms. Kal took over then, tugging me into his room, shutting the door, and pushing me up against it. Here, it was dim and filled with his scent, sending a kick through my blood. I sensed him looking me over, and then he was kissing me, sending the room and the world spinning away.

“It was closer,” he explained after we’d broken apart for air and caught our breath.

Kal whirled me around, walking me backward, and I let him take over. My eyes had adjusted, and, while it wasn’t the warm glow of downstairs, it was enough to see him and create a more potent intimacy. There was something about seeing shadows slipping over bare skin that pushed the rest of the world away as it pulled you closer.

“And,” Kal said as my legs hit the bed and he looped an arm around my waist to toss me onto it, then crawl up over me, “I want your scent in my sheets.”

“Just that?” I teased.

The moonlight made Kal’s hair glow as brightly as his teeth in the dark. “You want to know how badly I want you, honeycomb?” His voice hit a low, smooth note that zinged up my spine. “I want you with every breath; I want to hear you say my name, hear you call for me, beg me…” My heart was spinning in my ribcage. “I want you—your smiles, your laughter. And I think the only thing that might outpace my hunger for you is how much I want to fill you with bliss from head to toe.”

“Kal,” I said in a ragged voice. “I want you. I need you, oh…”

Fingers tugged at the hem of my tank, and knuckles brushed against the sensitive skin of my stomach as Kal leaned down. I couldn’t think, only arch up and pull him closer. His lips brushed against mine as his hands began to rub slow circles up and down my thighs. First the top, then the sides, and around to the back. Meanwhile, he was leaving lingering kisses up and down my jawline.

When his scruff dragged down my neck with his hot lips, I gasped, and my body jumped, only to be pressed back down by his hands on my thighs and his body weight. There was a brief brush of something hard against me, too, but it was gone before I could appreciate it.

A frustrated moan slipped from me. My hands, which had been idly exploring his back, now grew demanding and bolder. I got lost in the broad, hard planes of his trapezius, the swell of his lats and the sturdy spine, up to his rock-hard deltoids and biceps. Sometimes the muscle would jump under my touch, and I knew Kal was as close to the edge as I was.

“I am going to taste every inch of you,” Kal murmured into my ear as his hands gripped my thighs. “And you’ll know just how much you’ve consumed me, Iris. How you’re mine.”

Suddenly, there was a kiss under my ear, and then teeth found the shell, with the perfect amount of pressure. I cried out his name, arching up and writhing as an echo of some deeper pleasure, waiting below the surface, rocketed through me.

“Kal,” I gasped. “Kal, please, I need you.”

“I know—I need you, too,” he said, and our lips met again for a moment.

Then, leaning back, Kal pulled me up with him, and he pulled off my tank, followed by my sports bra. Then, before I could grasp what was happening, he’d swung his legs around and pulled me in, one hand splayed on my back, the other kneading one breast, and his tongue laving the other.

“Kal,” I panted, my body angled in such a way that I had to hold myself up with my hands pressing into the bed. My fingers twisted into the sheet as he grew hungrier. Teeth scraped, and fingers pinched, making me cry out in mindless pleasure. “More, mmph.”

He switched, and this time I held onto his neck, arching and squirming in his lap. Kal growled against me, his own body responding, and a heavyweight teased my aching center.

If I thought I’d been impatient and hot before, now I was incoherent. Suddenly, Kal seized my waist and flipped me around, hands bracing me up, fingers still on my breasts and his lips on my shoulder. His mouth traced from one blade, to the nape, and to the other, then lower. He followed my spine, and just when I felt like the friction was too much, one big hand slid from my breast, down my stomach, and into my panties.

The sound I made was somewhere between a sob and a scream. Kal had whipped me into such a frenzy of pleasure, I couldn’t even focus. My senses were overloaded, with the rasp of his breath on my skin before his beard would scrape, and his lips would taste. The play of his fingers in two different places, both stroking and rolling.

Moonlight rushing across my skin as the wind picked up and threw shadows across the bed. Suddenly, the moonlight went white-hot and filled my vision, my lips parting as pleasure hit me.

Unraveled me in such a way that it seemed to take a while to come back.

When I did, I realized Kal was cradling me against his chest, my back pressed into his sturdy warmth, and his arms around my bare torso.

“You asked how much I wanted you,” he said in my ear, and there was a note of triumph in his voice, as well as tenderness. “I almost lost it, too. If I didn’t want to see you come undone…”

Turning my head, I kissed him. Already, my body was shaking off the hazy bliss and eager for more. When we broke apart, I gasped out my only request: “No more clothes.”

Kal laughed, and there was a flurry of movement—fabric flying through the air, blankets and clothes. My mate had half-slid off the bed as he undressed, and now I saw the stiff hardness between his legs. A big guy, of course he would be, well, impressive. Very impressive. What about him wasn’t?

He turned and stood in the moonlight. My heart ached in a strange way as our eyes met, and he half-smiled. “I can’t believe this is happening.” His voice was low. “As many times as I wanted it to, I think I thought it never would.” Walking over to the closet, he picked up a worn flannel shirt and hung it on the end of the bed. “I had a dream of you wearing this the other day. It was the pre-Rift world, and we were in an apartment, me making you breakfast, and you…or it was here. But there were no threats or anything to worry about.”

Only Kal would stand there, bare-ass naked, and profess things that made my eyes sting. I’d drawn up the sheets against the chill of the room and held out my hand, wanting him to come back to bed. “I’m more interested in right now,” I murmured. “And I don’t give a damn about the world or anything else.” My voice was fierce and warm. “I have you.”

Kal came over, intent and stern, suddenly. He kissed me, swift and hard, a purposeful and masterful kiss. Then he pulled back, letting his thumbs drift up and down the sides of my neck, and squeezing my shoulders. “I know there are no guarantees or any way to predict…but I swear I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.” His smile became wicked. “And happy. Turns out I’m not half-bad at that.”

Still a little dizzy from that kiss, I nodded. “I could’ve told you that. And I’ve got your back, Ice Bear. No matter what.”

Kal’s face filled with a tenderness that stole my breath from my body and made me want to bury my head against his chest. To cry and laugh.

“I know,” he said and winked. “Thank you.”

“Shut up,” I said with a laugh, and he kissed me again.

Eventually, he slid into bed and under the blankets with me. Warm, strong, and broad, he pulled me against him, almost fierce in his gentleness. Every kiss was tender and deep, making me dizzy as pleasure slowly lapped against me. It was a slow and rolling burn, spreading through me.

Finally, it reached an undeniable pitch, yet Kal still pulled back with a question in his eyes. I nodded and wrapped myself more tightly around him as he slowly began to fill me.

Breath bursting from my chest at the sheer size and the waves of pleasure bordering on pain, I clawed at his back without meaning to. That surprised him, and he thrust in, causing me to cry out his name and buck up, clawing even more.

Kal held me for a moment, delaying when he would move, and I let out a whimper. Forcing open my eyes, I saw him hovering above me, gray eyes bursting with fire. My breath caught. If I’d had any lingering doubts, they were gone. Kal’s face was open and heartbreaking. Desire, affection, and awe were all written there. For me.

“Iris,” he said. “Iris.”

For weeks, it had been the little touches and things that undid me. I hadn't thought of how, at this moment, it would come down to the same thing. The way he said my name, or how he looked at me. The feather-light stroke of his thumb against my lip, and the shift of hips.

Then he began to add more and more until I was arching up, gripping his hair and whispering his name because I couldn’t get the breath to cry out louder. This blend of intense, focused passion and tender touches wrecked me.

In the best way. For at that moment, there was nothing between us, not space or walls. My eyes had fluttered open as Kal broke off kissing, and there was a satisfied look in his eyes. He knew.

We both knew.

Soon, I hoped, I’d have the courage to say it out loud.

For now, we came together, lips and hands, heart and soul, until we were nothing but flames burning hotter and hotter. An endless loop of pleasure, his in mine, mine in his, back and forth. Pulsing and pounding, cresting till we’d become one.

Until we became whole.