Blood of the Covenant (bxb)

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Climb

Tyler's POV

When Ethan parks the truck, there is a feeling of doom in us. I was feeling attractive and strong after the piercing and defying bigotry in my own snide way, but that vanishes once we are back at the packhouse. The feeling of dread is palpable in the cab of his truck.

No adulting.

"Tag," I say, hitting Ethan's shoulder before I jump out of the truck. I dart off into the forest, ducking branches and jumping over ferns.

Don't shift! I tell him over the mindlink.

Tyler! he laughs. But I hear him chasing after me.

Sh! No cheating, I say, quickly making a right turn into an area of thicker trees. There is good visibility in the bright winter daylight, so I hurry up a slope to lose him. I'm about five minutes deep and feeling pretty proud of myself when I feel a hand on my arm.

I turn to see Ethan smiling at me, panting a bit, though not as hard as I am.

"What do I win?" he asks.

I kiss him. I don't waste time with pretext or teasing. His lips part, his tongue meeting mine. I forget who I am, what I am, where we are. His hands slide up and down my waist. I grab fistfuls of his hair.

Get rough, I request before I can stop to think about whether or not this is a good idea. I peek open my eyes as the kiss abates to a slower, gentler one.

Ethan's eyes open just a bit, too. Rough?

Yeah. Be... macho.

Suddenly, my feet vanish from beneath me. It's a startling thing; to be supporting my own weight one moment and under the control of someone else in the next.

Ethan has grabbed me around the waist, half-pushing and half-carrying me to pin me against a tree trunk. He is gentle, making sure I don't get scraped or slammed against the bark, but he presses me there with a breathtaking force.

I relent to it, to him, remembering how I agreed to let myself get caught up.

Ethan moves his legs between mine, grinding against me, holding my head in place as he kisses me deeply. I'm dizzy and lost in my own body, so far gone in the sensations of him that I don't think myself capable of rational thought.

I touch his chest, his neck, his shoulders. His lips trail down to my throat and I make a truly embarrassing moan of pleasure when I feel him kissing and sucking just under my jaw. He laughs low in his throat, the deep chuckles sending shivers up and down my spine.

There is something truly, deeply satisfying about letting him take control, about doing what he wants. I realize with a moment of sudden clarity that I now understand BDSM. I never have before. What could be sexy about domination or submission? How does that belong in a healthy, loving relationship? But now I get it. I'm such a simp for Ethan I'd let him do whatever he wanted in order to feel his touch. I trust him not to hurt me, to bring me only pleasure. He could ask to strip me naked and tie me to this tree in the freezing weather and I would seriously consider it.

Thank goodness Ethan doesn't seem the sort to harbor dark desires. If he did, he could get me to do some pretty humiliating stuff before I thought twice about it.

But he is a boy. A man. All men like feeling powerful... right? Most men I've met, anyway.

"Ethan," I whisper. "You drive me so crazy, yêu. You wouldn't believe the ideas you give me."

Ethan stops. I freeze for a moment, mortified, wondering if my feeble attempts at dirty-talk turned him off so much he couldn't bear to touch me. I reach for him before I notice that he isn't looking at me at all. He has his hand on my chest, his other finger to his lips, looking around the forest.