In response, he presses my thighs even wider until my hips ache. It allows me to take him deeper yet, and we both moan on the next thrust. “Never get enough of you,” he mutters. “Can’t get deep enough, can’t make you come enough times, can’t fill you up until you’re dripping with me. Barely finish inside you, and all I can think about is starting again.”
I couldn’t find the words to respond to that even if he wasn’t fucking my ability to speak right out of me. I feel the same way. I want to blame it on frenzy, but I’ve felt frenzy before with past partners. This is different. Even as he is pounding into me as if he wants to imprint himself on my pussy, there’s a level of caring that I don’t know how to define.
I orgasm again before I have to decide if this is what love feels like. It’s just as well. I might be able to recognize it when it comes to family, but I’ve never felt it romantically. Who’s to say this isn’t love?
Bowen pulls me to him, careful of my fresh tattoos, and kisses me as he comes deep inside me. He loves to have his mouth on mine as he’s pumping me full of him. Truth be told, I love it, too. It’s just another in a long list of intimacies that I enjoy experiencing with him.
He gently pulls out of me and we both look down to see evidence of our fucking dripping from my body. I shiver and Bowen kisses me again. Then his fingers are there, pressing back into me slowly. It takes me a second to understand what he’s doing.
He’s finger fucking his come back into me.
“Bowen.”
He brushes a kiss to one side of my mouth and then the other. “Do you want me to stop?”
My active spell ensures I can’t get pregnant. This is all for possessive show, not with any endgame in mind. The scary thing is that I’m not sure if it would matter even if I wasn’t protected. I kiss him harder and spread my thighs. “Don’t let a single drop go to waste.”
He groans against my lips and then he takes my mouth as if we both aren’t still shaking from coming so hard. As if we’re just starting fresh. He gathers up what little come has escaped and shoves it back into me, pressing his fingers deep, as if he can reach a point of no return. He moves down to lick my throat. “You drive me out of my mind, Evie. I don’t feel like myself. I know you want to go home, but it’s taking everything I am not to haul you off to some island and burn all your clothes. We could spend the rest of our lives just like this, with me worshiping your pretty pussy.”
I try to tell myself it’s just sex making him say these things, but I don’t believe it for a moment. Bowen never says things he doesn’t mean, and I highly doubt he’s starting now.
He wants to keep me.
And gods help me, but there’s a part of me that wants to be kept by him.
I kiss him to stop myself from begging him to do exactly that, to haul me off and take away my ability to leave him. He moves me down to the bed and presses me onto my back, all without removing his fingers from my pussy. “Have you had enough?”
“No. Never.” I reach down and grab his wrist, preventing him from withdrawing. “Don’t stop until we have to.”
Bowen meets my eyes, and I see the same fatalism currently sinking in my chest. This isn’t forever. As much as I want to be kept by him, I am no bird to be stuck in a cage. I value my freedom above all else. I might love being trapped for a period of time, but eventually I would grow to resent him. To hate him. And that I cannot let happen.
In this moment of perfect understanding between us, I admit to myself this is love. And that sometimes love isn’t enough. We’re on two separate paths that have overlapped for a short period of time, but it won’t last. Eventually, whether it’s in a couple days or a couple weeks, or even a couple months, I’ll leave him.
And he’ll let me go.
He nods, and I can’t tell if he’s responding to something in my eyes or something in his head. In the end, it doesn’t matter. “Okay, Evie. We won’t stop until we have to.”
CHAPTER 26
Bowen
EVERY SO OFTEN, I’LL BE OUT ON THE DECK AND WITNESS a storm brewing on the horizon. Even with the warning, even knowing it’s coming, we still get caught up in it. Sometimes it even kills people despite all our experience, all our preparation.
That’s what it feels like having Evelyn in my bed. This moment of safety, of happiness, is only temporary. And it’s not because her ex wants to murder her. It’s not even because the Council may end up demanding an explanation about the dragon and ruling me a traitor.
It’s because she still hasn’t changed her mind about leaving Threshold.
I’m not a man of honeyed words. Even if I was, it feels wrong to try to convince her to do something against her nature. She’s told me time and time again how important it is for her to be free. I may want to tie her to me, to be the anchor that slows her down, but even I’m self-aware enough to know that it will ruin us eventually. And if it didn’t?
No, there’s no use clinging to useless hope. I know the stories of selkies as well as any sailor. They always go back to the sea, or face the fate of dying of sorrow. I can’t stand the thought of the bright parts of Evelyn being leeched away by my love.
It doesn’t stop my words from getting away from me every time we have sex. Even as I promise myself that this time I won’t let my possessiveness take the reins, the moment I’m inside her, I find myself saying the most unforgivable things. I’m nearly certain they make her orgasm harder. Speaking such forbidden words certainly heightens my pleasure.
But once the sweat has cooled on our bodies and our heartbeats have returned to normal, we both pretend that we weren’t begging and agreeing to things while in the moment.
There’s no reason to think Evelyn will leave me at Three Sisters, but dread takes up residence in my stomach when Nox comes to inform us that land has been sighted. They don’t comment on the love bites coloring my upper chest and throat. It’s just as well. Nothing I could say in response would be appropriate.
I shut the door and turn to face Evelyn in the bed with the mess of our sheets. “They’re hunting mermaids. If you take issue with that—”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about me this time. Mermaids are fucking malevolent and there’s no reasoning with them. They’re blocking off access to this trio of islands. The people will starve without ships being able to bring in food and goods, and the mermaids will definitely kill anyone who tries to sail past.”
I give her a long look. “Someone’s been talking with the crew.” As much as I would’ve liked her to stay in my bed the entire time, the reality is we both have shifts to cover and responsibilities that come with being on Hedd’s ship. There are no free rides in Threshold. At least not with the C?n Annwn.