The Fire

I guided you to the rug before the fireplace. A massive thing, thick and soft, woven in deep burgundy and gold, spread across the stone floor before the hearth where the fire roared and crackled, throwing waves of orange heat across the room.

I lowered you onto your back. The wool was soft beneath you. The fire warmed your skin from one side, the candlelight from the other. I shed my clothes quickly. Shirt, trousers, everything. Your eyes tracked down my body with open hunger that made my pulse stutter.

I lowered myself over you. Not between your legs. Not yet. Along your side, one arm propped beside your head, the other hand tracing the line of your jaw. I looked into your eyes. Held your gaze.

"You are mine," I said quietly. Not a question. A fact. As simple and true as the snow outside, as the stone walls around us, as the fire that burned.

Your eyes glistened. Your lip trembled.

"Yours," you whispered.

I kissed you. And this kiss was different from the others. Not hungry, not devouring, but slow and deep and aching. The kind of kiss that says I would burn this castle to the ground for you. The kind that says you are the only warmth I will ever need. The kind that undoes you more thoroughly than rope or wax or teeth.

I shifted over you, settling between your thighs, and you wrapped your legs around my hips, drawing me in. I reached between us, positioned myself, and with one slow, steady, inexorable push, sank into you.

We both broke. You arched beneath me, your mouth falling open, a low keening sound rising from your throat. I dropped my forehead to yours and groaned. A rough, broken, helpless sound. Because the feel of you around me, hot and wet and tight, was almost too much to bear.

I stilled. Buried to the hilt. Your inner walls fluttered around me, adjusting, drawing me deeper. Your hands found my face, cupping my jaw, your thumbs stroking my cheekbones the way I'd stroked yours.

"Move," you whispered. "Please. I need you to move."

I moved.

Slowly at first. Long, deep strokes, nearly withdrawing entirely before sliding back in to the root, grinding my hips against yours so that my pelvis pressed your clit with every thrust. Your fingernails dug into my shoulders. Your breath hitched with each movement, soft desperate sounds punched out of you in time with my rhythm.

The fire crackled beside us. The candlelight played across our joined bodies. Outside, the snow fell and fell.

I built the pace gradually. Still deep, still deliberate, but harder now, faster, each thrust driving a gasp from your lungs, each impact sending a jolt through your body. You met me thrust for thrust, your hips rising to meet mine, your legs locked around me, pulling me deeper, deeper, as though you wanted to crawl inside me, as though any distance between us was unbearable.

"Don't stop," you gasped. "Don't. Please. Don't stop."

I braced myself on my forearms, my forehead pressed to yours, our breath mingling, our eyes locked. I could feel you tightening around me. That telltale clench, that desperate grip. I knew you were close.

"Come with me," I said against your lips. "Look at me. Don't close your eyes. Come with me."

Your eyes, wide, wet, blazing, held mine. And I felt it. The moment the wave crested. Your mouth opened. Your body went rigid. And then you shattered. Your cunt clamping down on me in rhythmic, pulsing waves, your entire body shaking, a sob tearing from your throat that was my name, just my name, over and over.

And the feeling of you, the sound of you, the sight of you coming undone beneath me in the firelight, it pulled me over the edge with you. I buried myself as deep as I could go and let go, a groan ripping from my chest as I came inside you, pulsing, hot, pouring into you as you milked every last drop from me, our bodies locked together in the oldest rhythm, the oldest prayer.

I collapsed against you. Carefully, shifting my weight to my side so I wouldn't crush you, but keeping myself inside you, unwilling to separate, unwilling to break the connection. Your arms wrapped around my back and held me with a ferocity that made my eyes sting.

We lay there. Breathing. Tangled. The fire warm on our skin. The candles burning low. The snow falling silent and endless beyond the glass.

You turned your head and pressed your lips to my temple. Then my cheek. Then the corner of my mouth.

"Stay," you whispered.

I pulled back just enough to look at you. To trace the line of your face with my eyes. The swollen lips. The tear tracks. The flushed cheeks. The candlelight caught in your hair like a crown.

"Always," I said.