NOVGO.NET Chapter 374: A Nod Between Worlds
Chapter 374: A Nod Between Worlds
The world had been noise for two straight days.
The Cradle’s pressure still lived somewhere behind his eyes—heat that refused to cool, hunger that refused to fade. His body had mended, but his nerves hadn’t caught up. Every breath still felt like it might split him apart again.
Sleep had become a myth. Food, irrelevant. The only thing that remained clear was motion—forward, always forward.
Then came Erin.
Her gaze, her questions, the weight of her suspicion—it had been like standing beneath a star and pretending not to burn.
Convincing her had cost him more than mana; it had cost composure, restraint, sanity held together by wire and pride.
Now, inside the still air of his villa, it all pressed down at once.
Elysia’s presence was the first thing in days that didn’t feel hostile.
The faint rhythm of her breath, the steady scent of clean linen and steel—ordinary things. Human things.
He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed that until she stood in front of him, eyes wide, pulse stuttering just enough to remind him that he wasn’t back in that nightmare of stone and silence.
He drew in a slow breath.
The air here was thin with mana, gentle, almost apologetic after the Cradle’s storms. His body, still running on survival instinct, didn’t know what to do with calm. The energy coiled beneath his skin demanded an outlet—anything to prove he was still alive, still in control.
He watched her hands tremble slightly as she steadied the coat she’d taken from him. The sound of fabric against marble echoed like thunder in his skull.
Something in him snapped taut—not anger, not desire, just the sudden awareness of now. After endless struggle, this was stillness he could touch.
He hadn’t planned to reach for her. He simply moved, the same way his instincts had driven him through the dark of the Cradle—without thought, without pause, because stopping meant collapsing.
His fingers brushed hers. Warm. Real. Anchoring.
Her body went still at the contact. So did his.
“Are you ready?”
When he asked the question….Elysia did not reply…
At least with words.
Her nod was small. A breath. A tremor more than a movement.
But it was enough.
Damien saw it. Felt it.
And whatever restraint he’d been clinging to unraveled in a single, quiet instant.
His hand, still wrapped around her wrist, lifted. Not sharply. Just enough to turn her—fully, wholly—until her body pressed flush against the wall. His other arm slid low, catching her thigh, lifting it slowly, deliberately, until her leg wrapped around his waist.
He pressed in.
Hard. Warm. Every line of his body aligned to hers, chest to chest, hips to hips, breath to breath.
“You nodded,” he whispered, lips brushing her ear.
His voice had changed.
No longer just low—it was thick. Hoarse with a need that had stretched too long, burned too deep. A need that could no longer be called desire—it was hunger. Saturated and breaking.
“So don’t take it back now.”
Elysia didn’t.
She couldn’t.
Not when the press of him was so close now. Not when her core throbbed with memory, with anticipation, with heat that had nowhere to go. Not when his mana curled around her like smoke, invasive and intimate and already inside her lungs.
He kissed her again.
Normally, his kiss would be possessive.
But this time, it was…rather different to say.
“Mmmff…”
His tongue pushed past her lips the second they parted, claiming her breath like it belonged to him—and she gave it. Her arms found his shoulders again, clung, shook—because there was nothing else to hold onto. The ground was gone. Time had slipped.
“Ah—mmnh…”
He didn’t stop.
His hips ground against her with rough intention, his body fully braced, his thigh shifting between hers to part her legs further, even through the clothes that were now only obstacles.
Obstacles he was rapidly done with.
His hand left her wrist. Moved down. Slid beneath her skirt. Fingers bold, hot, unforgiving.
When they found the wet seam of her underwear, the sound he made—raw, low, breath caught between a groan and a growl—echoed in her bones.
“You’re soaked,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.
She flushed.
Not just in her cheeks. Everywhere.
Even now, after the days…It was hard for Elysia to still exactly act normal with everything.
The sound of his voice speaking that, the realization of just how much he could feel—it sparked through her like fire on dry leaves.
He didn’t wait.
Normally teasing Damien was not present this time.
His fingers hooked into the waistband. One firm tug, and her panties were down her thighs, not thrown—just removed. Like they were nothing. Like he didn’t need to look to know where every inch of her was.
And then—
He touched her.
Flesh on flesh.
Hot, slick, open.
“Mmh—!”
Her gasp was guttural. Her head hit the wall, her hands clutching his coat like it might stop her from falling out of herself.
Damien pressed two fingers inside, slow—but not tentative. Deep—but not cruel. And he felt it—the way she clenched, tight and perfect and already shaking around the invasion.
His head dropped to her neck.
“You are clenching like crazy…” he rasped.
She whimpered. No other sound could come out. Her mouth had forgotten how.
He thrusted again—this time with more force. Deeper. Curling his fingers inside her until her knees buckled completely and he had to catch her, his other arm locking around her back as he held her to the wall with the sheer pressure of his frame.
And still—she moved.
Against him.
Helpless. Hips twitching, chasing the rhythm, meeting his hand with heat and tension she couldn’t name.
Damien’s breath broke against her throat.
Then his lips parted.
And he bit.
Not to hurt. Just enough to mark.
Her cry—”Aahh…!”—filled the air like a confession.
His bite deepened just as his fingers did.
“Ahhn—”
Elysia arched with it, the sudden flare of sensation ricocheting from throat to core, a wild jolt that made her hips jerk in his grip. Her body, trembling and open, gave him everything—tension, heat, slick, tremors that started in her stomach and didn’t know where to end.
Damien didn’t slow. Didn’t ask.
He knew.
His mouth stayed at her throat, lips dragging over the skin he’d just bitten—sucking, soothing, possessive. And his fingers—still buried deep inside her—began to move faster. Not erratically. Not cruelly. Just enough to build it. Steady. Intimate. Relentless.
Her sounds broke free in small, helpless bursts. “Nnh… aah… Mmmh—!”
The tension inside her had nowhere to go, and Damien felt it. The way her muscles clenched. The way her body bucked forward like it needed more. He felt the way her breath hitched again, short and hot against his neck.
She was close.
So close.
And he hadn’t even taken off his pants.
His lips brushed her ear. His voice was a low, guttural whisper—barely more than breath.
“My maid…”
That alone made her twitch.
His fingers flexed, curling again right into the spot that made her legs shake—one more time, precisely, perfectly—and he felt her. The way she locked down around him, walls clenching, her stomach going taut like a bowstring.
And just as it started—
He asked.
“Were you lonely?”
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