Chapter 1430
The sound rose like breath from the earth itself - a chorus of wind and water, rustling leaves and unseen voices. The island’s song wove around them, through them, within them. Each note vibrated in their skin, their bones, their centers, setting off waves of heat that danced from spine to fingertips to thighs and deeper still. Jude stood at the center of the clearing, the mask in his hands now dull and quiet, but the energy it had awakened hummed through him still. The women formed a ring around him, not kneeling now, not bowing. They stood tall, radiant, alive with pleasure and power and something no language could name.
Lucy was the first to step forward. Her lips glistened, her body flushed, and her breath came shallow and quick as she pressed herself to him. She whispered, "We don’t stop now. We don’t go back." Her hands slid down his chest, and he caught her hips, pulling her against him, hard and urgent. They kissed deeply, hungrily, like their tongues were learning each other all over again.
Zoey was next, her fingers sliding over Lucy’s back, stroking down Jude’s arm, her mouth brushing his neck, her body flush against both of theirs. "Let’s burn," she murmured. "Let’s burn and bloom."
The others joined them in a slow, spiraling embrace, hips brushing hips, breasts pressed to backs, thighs slipping between thighs. A dozen hands explored Jude’s body, and his explored theirs in return. Nothing was rushed now. The frenzy had passed. This was ritual again - holy, slow, inevitable.
They moved to the soft grass beside the pool, a tangle of limbs and mouths and heat. Jude lay back, his head in Sophie’s lap as she kissed his forehead, his chest, his lips. Emma straddled his legs, her fingers wrapped around him, stroking him slowly as Grace lay beside him, her mouth at his throat, her fingers in his hair. Natalie pressed her body to his side, moaning softly as her hand moved between her thighs in rhythm with the island’s hum.
One by one, they joined.
Lucy mounted him first, slow and wet and full. Her moan was a note in the song. She rode him with her eyes closed, mouth open, breathless and trembling. Her release came in waves, shaking her, filling the space with the sound of her surrender. She collapsed against his chest, still trembling, still clenching around him, whispering his name again and again.
Then Scarlet took her place.
Then Layla.