Page 40 of Drawn into Oblivion

“I’m a-already melting,” she mewled. “Don’t you see how wet you’ve made me?”

He groaned and put his mouth to her again. Sensing he was done teasing her, she grabbed his hair and held on as all the heat in her body pooled between her legs. Every muscle drew taut. She couldn’t help clamping her thighs around his head. The heat and tension coiled tight. She jerked forward, nearly touching her chin to her chest.

“Rosuke,” she moaned as her pulse pounded in her ears. Waves of heat, tall and overpowering. She clutched his head against her, barely able to breathe as he rubbed her clit with his tongue, buffeting her with a flood of pleasure. He pulled his fingers from her, and his lips and tongue and hot breath went everywhere, lapping up the honey that seeped from her.

She was left in ruins when her orgasm receded. She collapsed, warm and perspiring, barely able to keep her eyes open. She felt him panting against her sex, and his slick fingers gripping her hip. Her thighs were trembling. She stared at the blurry ceiling, distantly wondering why it looked so far away.

But then he spread her open and sealed his lips around her clit once more. Only able to gasp, she arched her back as he coaxed a second orgasm out of her, right on the heels of the first. The room tilted beneath her. She choked out his name and closed her eyes, but her dizziness only intensified.

Everything swirled around her as he sucked on her clit, setting off another wave of pleasure that left her twitching. How was he doing this so easily? This wasn’t magic, right? If not, how did he have so much control over her body? By the dueling gods, did she even care?

He didn’t let up, and she came yet again. The ball of magic inside her rolled in tight circles, buzzing and vibrating, reaching out with its graceful, tendril-like arms, wanting to touch something.

“No more—please,” she gasped, feeling as limp and weak as a cloth doll as he pulled away from her. And yet she had never felt so thoroughly sated. Sleep threatened to take her, and all she could do was try to catch her breath while taking stock of every shaking, tingling limb. Perhaps someday she’d learn to walk again.

Rosuke sat back on his heels and clenched his fists until his nails dug into his palms. His loins pained him more than the most grievous sword wound, but all he could do about it was stare at the cure lying before him. She had drawn her knees loosely together, but her breasts were still bare, her cheeks were bright with the fever of her climax, and her eyes were shut in sleepy satisfaction.

He wanted nothing more than to make love to her, even more desperately than his magic did—it was clawing at his insides in reaction to her power reaching out. He assumed Mai was unaware of how magic-users made love, and that ignorance was fine with him. He would hate it if she felt obligated to give him relief. But if ever they did fully embrace—to experience pleasure together as Shumei and Vallen did—the ecstasy of a metaphysical connection would be the closest thing to divine any human could hope to feel. What he wouldn’t give to feel that connection again, and this time with someone he truly cared about.

He knew what he would have to do later if he wanted to sleep that night and thus maintain his sanity for the next twenty-four hours. But he couldn’t tear his eyes away as Mai smoothed her hand down her bare stomach and sighed happily, looking as open and vulnerable as he’d ever seen her. He made a choked noise as he lurched to his feet, jaw clenched. His body was screaming to take her, to risk shattering her contentment and find out how many more times he could get her to come.

He turned around. “You should leave.” He didn’t even recognize his own voice.

“What? What happened?” He heard her sit up and hoped she was covering herself.

“Don’t worry about the room. I’ll clean up.” Thoughts such as carrying the uneaten food back to the kitchen would distract him, and he tried to turn his mind to how many plates he could carry at one time. It didn’t work. He could still taste her on his lips.

“Is something wrong?”

Rather than answer, Rosuke turned around, and Mai saw the same barely restrained expression as when he’d kissed her while she’d lain in bed. The same agony as when she’d touched his erection. He looked at her as if she were prey, and Divine One help her, she was still intimidated by the prospect of letting him eat her—metaphorically, of course. Moreover, her magic was acting up again, reaching out for something, and she was too scared to give it whatever it wanted.

“I… I see.” She kept her dress shut as she stood, and he turned his back to her while she clothed herself. Hurrying, she didn’t try to tie her sash neatly, for the silence between them was too oppressive. When she finished, she walked past him to the door, hoping no one was in the halls.

He moved so fast she could barely gasp in surprise as he whipped her around and pressed her to the door. He dipped his head as if to kiss her, or perhaps suck out her soul, but he stopped a hand’s breadth from her lips and stood there panting.

“Divine One have mercy,” he whispered, echoing her favorite phrase. She cringed with anxiety and confusion as he shoved at the door with frustration, rattling it in its track. “Go.”

Not waiting another second, she slid the door open, ducked under his arm, and slipped into the empty hallway. As she ran back to her room, she could only see the open, raw look in his eyes.

Chapter Thirteen

Mai walked along a dark, narrow corridor she didn’t recognize. A door at the far end was cracked open, spilling light and muffled sounds into the hallway. She took slow, silent steps toward it, drawn to see inside and yet fearing what she’d find.

A noise drew her attention to another door sliding open to her right. Two brownies emerged, a man and a woman both barely dressed. The woman’s face was painted but not in any traditional, formal style. Her cheeks were heavily rouged, her lip stain smeared. The man drunkenly groped her barely covered breasts while holding a small jug of what could only be alcohol. The woman sighed and pouted as she informed him that he’d have to pay again if he wanted more.

Neither saw her, even though she stood two steps away. She was dreaming, she realized, but the revelation did nothing to ease the tightness in her chest. Nor could she stop the slow plodding of her feet carrying her past the two brownies. She heard the man promise to return with more coin and the woman’s tired farewell.

The pressure in her chest was immense as she stood before the door at the end of the hall. Through the crack, she saw undulating shadows on the wall, and the edge of a blanket. She raised her arm without wanting to, and noticed as she slid the portal open that she wore some sort of combat uniform.

Three people were on the bed, their naked, sweaty bodies lit up by half a dozen candles. A woman lay sandwiched between two strapping men—one with shoulder-length white hair and another with long, flaming red hair. The woman was panting harshly, and her cheeks were flushed without the aid of rouge. Fatigue had left her limp and barely able to hold her head up. She had been in that bed for some time.

The white-haired man in front of her tightly gripped her hip and thrust between her thighs with determination. He seemed familiar, but Mai couldn’t see his face. The redhead behind the woman, however, was all too familiar. Though his hair was different, his face was not. Rosuke also thrust into the woman, brow tight with effort.

Mai hunched over in pain, and not just from seeing him with someone else, regardless of time or place or truth. Something in his face, perhaps the slight curl of his lip or the dead, faraway look in his eyes, nearly made her heart break in two. He wasn’t there, not mentally.

The woman gave a weak cry, voice nearly gone from overuse. An odd smoke or mist seeped from her skin, and instead of rising to the ceiling, it flowed into the men on either side of her, who had both paused without seeking their own release. The woman collapsed, still breathing but certainly not conscious.

Rosuke’s eyes focused as he pulled back into himself. He looked straight at Mai. And she saw nothing in his expression of the man she knew.