The Hunt

[Jay Carpenter]

Once her finger sparked his ribs he grew deaf to the meaning underlying just how long five years stretched for her.

An ever growing grin happily invited her closer, beckoning with every rise of her chest to shrug off the restraints from her yoked shoulders until she was practically frozen with the anticipation.

He wasn’t.

"Sure you can."
On the same breath his lips found hers without giving her the chance to think about it. She was as easy to encircle as his imagination mused all day. And he kissed her gently as exploring glass. Not as some fragment of perceived deilcacy. Certainly not in honor. Nythadri proved more than once the potential for a less than fragile composition. But he was mindful of the slender neck he pulled inward. Desiring with the firm hand to soothe forever any fear from surfacing ever again. And to exaggerate the delay of anticipation; to trap attempts at half-hearted escape from otherwise unyielding arms; escalate what she felt.

His heart raced with relief when she melted under him. As though feeling the permission for more, intensity soon took over. The need to feel that watery shift pressed as a firm new skin thrilled him. If only to imagine the feel of its coming absence. He turned into a slave of her merciless taunts, along ribs and chasing his back, praying silently that she not stop there.

For what she saw in his hands. For the way she slid from the saddle. For her trust. For her wit and charm. For the way her sinful lashes rimmed her striking eyes. For the banter on her lips and the curl to her hair. Light, those curls could finish him. He lost the seconds, lost the stars and forgot the way the water lapped around their bodies. If only for another moment to seek the rest of what he did not know about her; absorb that mirage in the desert he could never quite visualize but wanted so badly to find.

With the help of his guiding hand tangling her hair, she tilted her head toward those pinpricking white glimmers smiling from above and Jai pressed his lips beneath her ear. Pulled her in with the small of her back and was first firmly aware of the drenched shift completely flush against him. Then the spare curves of everything underneath. It stole his breath.

"Take saidar."


He paused from the pleasant attentions to her neck to wind a whisper in her ear. It was not a suggestion.

A visceral breath quickly followed as he delved himself into the Power's fury. Dangerously near to being overwhelmed with the sensation, he strained to control being ripped under the tide of Saidin. Everything exploded to life in that instance. Every pebble of skin under her pulling hands yearned for another pass. Every forgotten ache exploded with sensitivity when nails trailed their vicious tunnels. Every muscle she found flexed beneath her vibrating touch. All the more malevolent when she played his movements with the rapturing pressures of a musician's command. The bruises yielded. He yielded; flinching a thrill across his stomach at her unafraid exploration. Across skin marred with the proud scars she traced and over humanity's blued beauty.

Fighting the urge to drown in such sweet waters, he feverishly returned every taunting stroke. Ribs. Waist. Hips. Tempered only by the contrast of conquering and submitting to the torment of being conquered. He barely held back gripping her to pain while saidin erupted with violent passion. To not devour her until there was nothing left but fire and light. Light. It was overpowering.

Designs formed fast in his head. Fueled by her unabashed teasing at his waist and legs leaving a shudder against her hungry lips. Of peeling away her filmy shift. Of lifting her from the sea floor and carrying her smoothly from the water. Of having every intention to buffer her back from the sand with the coat still blanketed somewhere out there. And so remain tangled in skin until neither could stand to hold back a moment longer. He lifted her thigh to wrap around his waist meaning to execute exactly that.

Melting, quiet and slick as ice, she peeled skillfully from his arms instead. Such was his surprise, those plans plainly decorated a panting, curious, playful expression. He thought at first she meant to give a teasing chase by floating back into the arms of seawater and so make him follow. To blaze the vein of jealousy for the sea's fortune.

Something to her expression, glowing hot as the copper sun with Saidin roaring full clarity stopped movements forward. Still now but for the panting in his chest. A slow, sharp thought piercing his gut: torn was plain on her face as those designs were on his.

The memory of her last words plucked what thread of honor remained on the edge of his control.

"You can't?"
Breathlessly wondering now what she had meant.