“She was persistent in her attempts to befriend me and relaxed at her job as she tended to me, and towards the end, when everything felt hopeless, she was the only bit of brightness that remained. But when I found out what the king was doing…” My voice breaks on a too sharp breath, so I focus on moving the cloth over my other arm and then my chest, waiting for the tightness there to ease before continuing. “When I found out how he was hurting her, I knew that I would do anything to get her away from him. To try to protect her so that no one else would be hurt by him in my name. That is why I let him kiss me. Why I invited it.”
“And that act is not one that deserves punishment, Rhea,” he reminds me gently, waiting until I finally look at him. My heart aches at the tenderness in his gaze, at the softness of his expression. I love him. Gods above and below, Ilovehim. “Certainly not from me.”
I shake my head as I stare at him. “I don’t deserve you,” I confess, the words bitter on my tongue.
But Nox lifts the corner of his mouth, just a fraction, as he shifts his body closer to mine. “Funny, I was about to say the same thing to you.” I can’t quite laugh, the gesture too unfamiliar now, but that small blossoming warmth within me grows. And I find myself eager to latch on to it. To let it give me hope that we might be okay. That, one day,Imight.
Lifting my cloth from my body, I reach it out towards Nox, a fluttering in my stomach signaling my nerves. And as I watch his expression shift from that slight playful edge to something morereverent, I decide that surrendering to our love could never be a bad thing. He takes the cloth from me, and I turn around, my breath caught in my chest.
I feel him come up behind me, close enough that the heat of his body battles against that of the shower but still not touching me. In the small pause that lingers, I feel the question that he hasn’t asked. I had given my consent earlier, but this is another step further. This isn’t just permission to see me naked but to touch me. Even if it is just something as banal as washing me and nothing more, Nox needs me to say that I want it, and I need him to know that I trust him.
I look over my shoulder at him, taking in the way his hair is plastered to the sides of his face. The slight stubble that shadows his jaw and the way my ring is nestled right over his heart. “I want you to touch me, Nox,” I say, eyes moving up to his. Infusing my voice with the love I have for him, I add, “I give you permission to touch me however you want.” Turning back, I let my eyes close and force my fingers to relax, even as my heart races.
The first touch comes at my shoulders, his fingers draping over one side while the wash cloth glides over the other, the lavender scent of the soap mixing with the steam around us. And though I let my imagination run rampant at the idea of what Nox might do, how he might touch me, he keeps the press of his fingers light and the graze of the washcloth rhythmic down the length of my back. As the minutes pass, the tension seeps from my muscles until my head is lolling to the side and my chest rises and falls to the even pace of my breathing. And that calm, so tentative and sweet, stays when Nox lowers, the cloth dragging over my backside and down the backs of my legs. It remains when he moves to my front, dropping to a knee as he drags it up my thighs and to my hips. It’s only interrupted when he pausesas the cloth moves over the scarred skin in the shape of a roaring lion.
Looking up at me through wet lashes, he moves his hands to brace my hips and then, slowly enough that I can stop him, leans in until his lips brush against the brand. My hands reach for his shoulders, breath caught as I watch him kiss me there just as affectionately as he does the skin around the brand. My fingers dig into his muscles, half to hold myself as my knees threaten to buckle and half because I’m suddenly terrified this is nothing more than a dream. But then Nox whispers something low against my skin, and my magic curls around my spine as goosebumps flare over my body. And suddenly, I’m not thinking about the brand or the nightmare that followed it, but instead, I’m overwhelmed with the softness of Nox’s lips. With how his grip tightens just a fraction against me. How heat and sensation anddesireflood the apex of my thighs.
Nox keeps his eyes on me as his lips travel to my other hip, his kisses featherlight, and yet I feel themeverywhere. I cradle the back of his neck as he moves higher, his mouth traveling in the valley between my breasts as he coaxes me out of my head completely and into this moment.
Standing at his full height, he looks down at me, and the small smirk returns. “My turn,” he says, seeming to ignore the way my skin has flushed pink in spite of the water, which has now begun to cool. I reach for his cloth, adding more soap to it before positioning him so that his back is to me.
Nox tilts his head back as I begin to drag the cloth over his shoulders, a trail of white bubbles following in its wake. When his entire back is covered with soap, I let my free hand make designs in the suds, watching as his muscles uncoil. My hand sweeps over his right shoulder and then to his left, but as I move lower, something rough catches my attention. And I might have ignored it were it not for the fact that Nox’s hands clench at hissides. Using the cloth, I wipe until his tanned skin peeks through the soap and the barest dance of light from a nearby candle shows the jagged line of a scar.
“What is this?” I ask him, tracing over it with the tip of my finger, my healing magic warming my chest.
“That’s where the shard of dragon stone was,” he answers, lifting his head. “Bahira cut it out, and even though my magic returned to its full capabilities, I guess the mark will always be there.” My throat tightens at the reminder that he had been magically bound, his body caged and his mind poisoned. And he, like me, bore a permanent tribute to how much we had endured in our time apart.
“I’m sorry.” I curl my fingers over the outsides of his arms and lean in, pressing my lips to the scar. Just as he had done for me. “I’m sorry that you suffered.”
He lays one of his hands over mine, squeezing it softly before I resume running the cloth over his backside and down his legs. I move to his front, my mind stuck on the realization that this man had given up so much in the name of our love. Had willingly sacrificedeverythingbecause it all became so easily worthless if I wasn’t at his side for it. And I try, I really do, to make this moment last longer. To return the reverence with which he tended to me and force my gaze to only stay on the moredecentparts of him as I work my way up his body. But all it takes is a single glance, and that heat is coiled at my core again, the faintest memory of us together making my lips part on a rushed breath.
I let go of the cloth as I stand and press my hands to his chest, feeling the way his heart beats in a faster cadence. “Do you remember the day you proposed?” I ask, lifting the ring that dangles from a golden chain and cradling it in my hand. “Do you remember what you said?”
“I do,” he answers, his hands coming to rest on the small of my back. “But humor me and be more specific.”
My lips quirk. “You said that our love was not a beginning or an end—”
“But an infinite constant,” he interrupts.
“Yes.” I lay the ring back down and reach up to brush the soaked strands from his forehead before resting my hand on his cheek. “Forever would be a wish for most people, yet that does not feel like enough time for us, does it?” I ask, pressing myself closer to him.
“No.” His eyes dip to my lips as I rise onto my toes, anchoring myself to him. “It doesn’t.”
“I want forever with you,” I breathe, my thumb gliding over his lips. “I want every second of every day to be spent with you from now until this life ends—and even beyond. This love is more than just that. It is destiny. It isfate, and all I want is to surrender to it.”
The admission flows easily from me. His chest rises with a quick breath as he weaves a hand through my hair.
“I surrender everything that I am to you, Nox. Every version of me is yours.” And because I want it, because I want him, I let everything else fall to the wayside as I close the distance between us and kiss him.
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Eight: Rhea
IhavekissedNoxinnumerable times, but as his lips open to mine, as passion drives our tongues to glide against each other, an exploration of feel and touch and taste, this time feels different.Momentous. Our mouths move together in the way that only two people who know what the other likes can, but there is a tentative softness present. A tether that loops aroundand around and reminds me to slow myself down. To spend time refamiliarizing myself with every part of him.
To remember that this moment almost didn’t happen.
The morbid thought nearly stops me in my tracks, but then Nox is closing the distance that threatens to separate us, chasing after me as he presses his hand into the divot of my waist, his other holding the back of my head. One of my arms stays looped around his neck while the hand of the other spears into his hair, fingers rustling through the wet strands in all the ways I imagined doing when we were apart.
“I need more of you,” I say between the pressing of our lips, despite how there isn’t a single inch of space between us. But, of course, he understands what I want better than I do as he turns the water off, lifting my slick body against his as if it is the easiest thing in the world and stepping out of the shower. All while keeping his mouth on me. His tongue dancing with mine.
