CHAPTER 7: BURN ME IF YOU MUST
1631 Words
SELENE
The moon was on the rise when I finally found Caspian.
He was at the river, kneeling at the bank with his hands in the frigid water, as though he had to do it to cool the fire in him. He’d pulled his shirt off and tossed it over a rock, and his back was all hard muscled, and strained. Shoulders tight. Jaw clenched. The type of rage that did not settle but simmered.
I was behind him, just the faintest whisper of me on the breeze.
“I thought you would be halfway to the border by now,” he said without turning around.
“I considered it,” I answered with frankness.
Silence.
Then, “Why didn’t you?”
“Because I wasn’t going to leave it that way. Like this.”
He turned at last to give me a glance over his shoulder, his faint eyes glowing in the dark… feral, wild. Devastated.
“You think I want to hurt my feelings this way? To desire someone who can never make up her mind?”
I stepped closer. “I never asked for this.”
“Yeah, well, neither did I.” He stood, water dripping from his hands and from the sharp ridge of his collarbone.
“But here we are.”
There was a pause, before he added, “Do you even care what this is doing to me? What you’re doing?”
I flinched. “Of course I care.”
“Then prove it,” he growled.
I should’ve walked away.
I should’ve explained to him that it was too complicated, not ready, and I didn’t want to break him more than he’d already been.
But I didn’t.
So I stepped up to him and placed my hand on his chest, directly over the rapid beat of his heart.
“You want the truth, Caspian? I cannot stop thinking about you. About us. But I’m scared. You burn too hot.”
His breath hitched. “Then let me burn you.”
It was a desperate, furious kiss… hard, no softness, no questions. Just heat and the crushing weight of all the things we didn’t say.
His hands reached for my hips, and I was lifted up like I was weightless. He drove me back against the tree; my legs were around his waist; his mouth was tasting, biting, and claiming my neck.
“You don’t get to run after this,” he growled, voice grizzled.
“Not from me.”
“I’m not running.”
His muscled hands slid beneath my dress, fingers rough with desire, and I gasped as he ripped through the fabric, exposing me to the moonlight.
There was nothing soft about what he did to me… but everything about it felt like worship. Like punishment. As if he had something to prove Not just to me, but to himself.
“I hate that I want you so much,” he whispered against my skin.
“Then show me.”
The forest melted away. The world narrowed to hands, mouths, skin and silent cries sucked away into the dark. He filled me as though he had been waiting for this moment his entire life… like he would carve his mark into every part of me to ensure I never forgot who I belonged to.
And perhaps I did, if only for a moment.
I forgot Darius. I forgot Lucian.
There was only Caspian. Angry, shattered, gorgeous Caspian.
When it was done, I was curled against his chest, panting and hurting… and the silence in the room between our bodies was no longer cutting, but soft. Heavy.
“Still you will leave,” he murmured.
”I don’t know what I’ll do,” I confessed.
“But I didn’t lie. I wanted this. I wanted you.”
His fingers ran through my hair, jaw still clenched but eyes not so hard any more.
“Then don’t act like it didn’t happen tomorrow.”
“I won’t,” I whispered.
“I couldn’t if I tried.”
He kissed my forehead, while wrapping an arm possessively around my waist as if to make sure I wouldn’t disappear on him. And maybe I would.
But not tonight.
Tonight, I was his.
***
There was still a storm in his eyes, but his chest rose and fell under me and I knew he wasn't okay. Not even close.
“You think I’m done with you? Caspian murmured, his lips scraping threateningly against my ear.
“Not by even f*****g close, Selene.”
My breath caught.
His fingers clenched on my waist, and he spun, gently bringing me to the forest floor as his body consumed mine. The moss was cool where it supported my back, but his body was fire above me… and it was a flickering shadow in the moonlight.
His eyes devoured me… hungry, unrefined, raw. The warrior within him was not hidden now.
“You want to burn?” he murmured running a finger along the inside of my thigh.
“Then burn.”
His mouth joined his hands… kissing me, rough and reverent until I was shivering like a helpless mess underneath him, my fingers gripped his hair, my hips bucking up to seek out the warmth of his mouth. He took his time, driving me to the edge when I was already gasping his name, my legs shaking against his shoulders, the world splintering into stars.
Then he got up again, and came crawling over me like a raving lunatic.
“You taste like sin,” he grunted, and then he slammed his lips to mine before I could answer. He kissed the way he fought… hard, demanding, relentless. He ground his hips against my legs and when he entered me again it was deeper than the last time. Rougher. Hungrier.
I gasped into his mouth, the sound ripped from a primal place, and he swallowed it like a vow. His pace was brutal and perfect, and I felt myself spiraling all over again.
“Say it,” his voice was ragged against my throat.
“Say you’re mine.”
I scrabbled at his back, fingernails cutting into the muscles under his skin.
“I’m yours.”
“Again.”
“Mine, mine, mine, Caspian… oh f**k, I’m…”
He chuckled with delight and pounded into me more aggressively, more forcefully, until I couldn’t do anything but scream his name and hang on for dear life.
Time melted away.
There was only heat, sweat, and pleasure… so intense it left me trembling in his arms, my heart thumping like I had just jumped off a cliff. And maybe I had.
He sank down on top of me, folding me into his arms, our skin wet with sweat, his lips grazing my face.
“I meant it,” he whispered.
“I don’t share. I won’t.”
I looked up and he met my eyes. “Then fight for me.”
His jaw clenched, the possessive heat in his eyes multiplied tenfold.
“I already am.”
***
There was silence in the forest, a deep silence that the echo of our breathing filled. Caspian’s arm was still around my waist, pinning me to the earth… and to him. For a moment, I indulged in it. The afterglow. The calm.
But peace did not last long.
Because now that the smoke was clearing, the questions were coming.
I turned my head a little and saw the fragments of my tattered clothes, the deep, bruise-black sky, the subtle tick of tension that never left Caspian’s jaw.
“Do you regret it?” I said, not so loud as I intended.
Caspian’s head shot around to me. “What do you think?”
“I believe you’re afraid,” I said, not blinking away from the dare in his eyes.
“You make it seem like this was a claim. Like you can s*x me into submission, threaten me into holding on. But it’s a little more complicated than that.”
He pushed himself to a sitting position, running a hand through his rumpled hair.
“You’re goddamn right it’s complicated. Because I meant it, Selene. You’re mine. And I don’t give a f**k that you think someone else does.”
I rose to my knees, dragging the shredded cloth I tried to tangle around me, but his hand shot out to halt me.
“I’m not done,” he growled.
“You can’t just shut me away again.
“l**t isn’t a substitute for loyalty, Caspian,” I warned, but my voice didn’t sound as steely as it should have… shaky, thick with something I didn’t want to name.
“l**t?” he echoed in a sour tone.
“Selene, I’m not just lusting after you. It’s obsession. Rage. Need. You’ve burned your way into me, into every damn piece of me, and it’s literally driving me mad.”
He pressed in so close, his breath tickled my lips.
“I don’t care about the bond. I don’t care what fate says. I chose you. And if I need to fight Darius, Lucian or the gods themselves for your safety, then I will.”
I looked at him, unable to speak.
Because there was something else beneath the anger in his voice, something buried in his words.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For me.
“You’re under the impression that you can protect me from what’s coming?” I whispered.
His jaw clenched. “I will protect you. Even if it kills me.”
And there it was, for the first time, I saw it… Caspian’s heart, raw and unguarded, bleeding at my feet.
The proud warrior adored me.
And I didn’t know if that would save us …
Or destroy us both.
- Writer
