Cold air caresses my back for a handful of steps, and then he’s gently laying me down, a gasp escaping me as my heated skin hits the cool blanket. Nox crawls over me, and I shamelessly take in the sight of him, my gaze scouring every divot of muscle and inch of naked skin. He braces his weight with one arm, and then his lips are on mine again, and I’m lost. Adrift in a starlit sea not made of sadness or loneliness but ofus, and how easy it is to let myself drown in it. In his love.
My legs fall apart, and he sinks his hips deeper into the space created, his cock already hard as every single drop of awareness hones in on the silky heat of him teasing my core. “Fuck,” he rasps, moving to kiss my jaw. Teeth and tongue working the skin there before he draws lower. I arch my neck to give him access to everything. Anything. It’s all his to do whatever he pleases with. “I want to be patient with you, but I fuckingneedyou,” he says desperately, his lips paying homage to that need as he slides farther down until his mouth is hovering over one of my breasts,his heated eyes lifting to meet mine. “So you have to tell me what you want me to do. Command it of me, Rhea.”
Gods, how am I supposed to function with him looking at me like that? When the hunger in his gaze is matched by the desire that burns low in my belly? But I know what he means, because that same ardent need feels fragile within me. It forces me to toggle between asking him to take his time andbegginghim to fuck me. My magic ignites, both halves alive and writhing until I’m sure glittering light will spill from my palms.
Unable to form words, I lace my fingers through his hair again and press his head down until his mouth closes over my peaked nipple, and then his tongue is swirling around it and every thought eddies as the world beyond him fades.Yes, this.I moan quietly, my hands gripping any part of him that I can reach. My only reprieve from the dizzying desire he coaxes comes when he kisses across my chest, his tongue then toying with my other side.
“Nox,” I whisper.Scream. A noise somewhere in between as my hips buck beneath him, evidence of my wanting him undeniable as it slickens the skin between my thighs. There is only this, onlyhim, as I swallow down a sound that I’m not wholly positive won’t come out as a sob. Soon enough, he’s hovering over me again, lips swollen and eyes glazed. I expect him to keep devouring me, the feral acuteness with which he stares at my own lips like a cursory warning, but I watch as he reins himself in. As his fingers trail over the side of my face and down to the now sensitive skin at my neck. Not in question or hesitation, but in that worshipful awe that leaves me breathless.
“There is no part of you that I don’t revere with everything that I am,” he says, exhaling slowly. “But we don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready for. We could stop here and now, and that would be enough, Rhea.”
My chest aches as I look at him, as I take his face into my hands and draw him in for another intoxicating kiss. He lowers his body until his weight is just enough to blanket me in his warmth—his scent. Despite our history, my stomach flutters as if this is our first time together. But I meant what I said. I want to surrender myself to him. I want to fall apart with the safety of knowing he’ll be here still when I resurface. I want to claim him as mine because for a moment… For a moment, I wasn’t sure that he would be. And as if I need to make us both aware, make any gods listening sure of the way I feel, I give voice to that vow. “You are mine,” I promise, my lips ghosting over his while my power flares again.
“And you are mine,” he counters, those four words uncompromising, my body shivering under the magical pull of them.
“Show me,” I whisper, utter need pulsing through me as I take his hand and press a kiss to his palm before laying it over my chest. My ring dangles from that golden chain around his neck in the space between our hearts, and my throat tightens at the sight of it before I move his hand over my breast and then lower, the calloused evidence of his training scraping my soft skin until he’s right where I’m aching for him. Bare and open and unrestrained, I implore him. “Show me that I’m yours.”
Though I trust him implicitly, for a brief moment as his fingers graze that sensitive bundle of nerves between my legs, panic flares. The flash of a still opened wound in my mind makes my muscles tense, and I berate myself for the reaction. The king had never touched methere, had gotten close, yes, but—
“Sunshine.” Nox’s mouth hovers over mine, his hand frozen in place as he waits for me to open my eyes. I hadn’t realized they were pinched shut. “It’s just you and me,” he swears, dark gray eyes spotted brilliantly with glowing silver drawing me in. “Just us.”
I nod, bringing my hands to his shoulders. His back. His hair. Letting his body be the pillar I moor myself to. He must sense me relax—sees it, perhaps—because his fingers are moving again, a gentle exploration that makes us both groan. I let myself get lost in the sensation that rises as he dips his head into the crook of my neck, hot kisses painting my skin as my body surrenders to his ministrations. My breaths grow labored, a wave building within me and guided by every torturously languid stroke he makes. My toes curl against the blanket, knees squeezing his hips, and I must moan his name because he’s begging me to say it again. “Nox, I—” My words are cut short as my release barrels towards me with an intensity that knocks air from my lungs.
“I know,” he says, mouth moving against mine before his tongue dips in and matches the movement of his finger. “Let go, Rhea. Come for me.”
I can’t deny him. I’ve never been able to. So my body obeys his command, my back arching as the sweetest pleasure rolls in, taking every ounce of uncertainty that might have remained hidden within secret corners of my body—my mind—and replacing it with the euphoric high that washes over me. My nails dig into his skin unbidden, but Nox only groans as if my pleasure is all he needs to receive his, and then he’s panting over me, his cock hard on my thigh as he rests his forehead against mine.
“I love watching you like this,” he says between deep breaths, his hand shifting so that it rests at my hip, opposite of the brand.
It takes a minute for me to regain feeling in my body; so many weeks deprived of his touch leaves me overexposed with awareness in the wake of it. But when my vision focuses back on him and I replay his words in my head, I realize that I might want to watch him unravel too. That maybe his pleading for me to command him is only partially to put power back in my hands.Maybe it’s also because he’s craving the safety of surrendering tometoo.
“What is it?” he asks, hand coming to cradle the side of my face as he studies me.
“Nothing, I just—” I rise onto my elbows, capturing his mouth again before guiding him to lie back, his hands reaching for my waist as my knees brace his hips. Leaning forward, my hair curtains us, and I take my time tracing the outline of his face. His jaw and lips. Those eyes—the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. “I missed you, Nox. Every moment of every day.” One hand plants on his chest while the other reaches between us, a thrill rising when he groans as I wrap my fingers around his cock, beginning to stroke him.
“Fuck, Rhea—” His neck arches, head tilting back as his jaw flexes and the speed of my hand increases. I had wanted this moment to arrive faster, had wanted to finally fill that void within me with everything made of him. But this, watching him begin to unravel slowly, is worth the wait. Worth the self-imposed torment. “Gods, you have no idea,” he pants, lips peeled back as his heart races beneath my palm. I pause pumping my hand to roll my hips over him, his cock glistening with my desire, before I resume the motion again, a smile tugging at my lips at the satisfied sound he releases.
He snaps his head back up to look at me, and even beneath the darkness of the room, the golden light of the candles scant here, his eyes glow with unbridled longing. And for a small eternity, he just watches me with ragged breaths, that reverential expression tugging at my heart. The muscles in his stomach clench, his fingers tightening on my hips, but he drinks in the way I become flustered at the mounting craving that braids its way through me. Then he’s sitting up, one hand bracing his weight behind him while the other weaves back into my hair.
“I missed you too,” he finally says, tilting my head to the side so that my lips slant over his. “I missed you sofuckingmuch.” He kisses me hard, making up for that lost time. As if we have more than enough of it now.
But I know that we don’t and that reality is waiting just beyond this door. That waiting is a luxury we do not have. So I lift higher on my knees, my inner muscles clenching in preparation as I position the tip of his cock right at my entrance. My thighs shake, and my hands tremble, and I might laugh at the nervous energy that rolls through me if I wasn’t so utterly lost in the way Nox looks at me. How he's always looked at me. As if I’m a goddess walking amongst mortals. As if I’m more than the flesh and bone that makes me. More than the magic that fills me.
The first inch he consumes shocks me, air stilted in my chest as my lips part and my fingers curl into the hard muscles of his shoulders. When my eyes try to fall closed as my body consumes another inch and then another, he calls my name on an uneven rasp. “Rhea, watch what you do to me,” he begs, and what can I do but let my eyes flutter open to take in his gaze as it falls to where our bodies are joined. I sink even deeper, molding to the shape of him as he demands another inch, then even more, until I can’t feel where he ends and I begin.
It’s just him and me and this all-consuming, ever-present, maddening love.Infinite. Destiny. Fate.
Chest heaving, I breathe through the fullness of him seated to the hilt, once again torn between taking our time and wanting him to make me forget my own name. I aim for somewhere in the middle as I rock my hips, my back arching at the blinding lust that pools within me. Time becomes lost to our movements. To the sound of sawing breaths and whispered benedictions. Magic rises at our joining, mingling in the space around us, and something in me splinters at the feel of it. The easing of a fearthat has sat heavily on my bones since that horrifying moment on the beach. I had always thought of our magic as two sides of the same coin, and I was afraid—soafraid—that something had changed in our time apart. That this integral part of us both was no longer suited for each other. But as wisps of black and glimmers of white dance around us, that fear ebbs away, and once more, I surrender to the knowledge that Nox is mine. In every way. In every form. And I am his.
He draws me to his chest as he lays back, never severing our connection but changing the angle at which he enters me. I moan at the feel of him, at how deeply he hits me, the change in position giving him leverage to pull me down onto his thrusts. I want to kiss him more than I want to breathe, so I fuse my mouth to his as he drives into me, my body softening around him. Every part of me pliant to his will, and every part of him desperate to fulfill my own.
Quicker than before, release rolls in on a fast-moving tide, pulling me under and sending a spike of panic through me because I don’t want this to end. But my body craves the peak that Nox and I are climbing together. “I love you,” I croak, my vision flashing as need pulses through me.
The words make Nox groan as his hips fall out of any sort of rhythm, his arms banding around me to hold me close while he hits harder,deeper. “I loveyou,” he promises. “Rhea—” He groans again as I meet his next thrust. Each of my breaths become shorter than the last as I’m finally pushed off that ledge, left freefalling as my entire world shifts. He slides a hand down to my low back and holds me in place, my muscles clenching so tightly around him that Ifeelthe moment he finds his own release. His body unraveling beneath mine as shared breath caresses our lips, my hands still clutching at his shoulders.
When I claw myself out of that sated haze, Nox is there, heavy-lidded eyes staring at me. Devotion written all over hisface and evident in the content smile he gives me. I force my limbs to move, reaching up to trace his lips with my fingers. “I love your smile,” I tell him, heat rising to my cheeks when it widens.
“And what else?” he asks, leaning up to kiss me. Though hunger is present in the movement, it’s softened as he glides his hands up and down my back softly, the featherlight touch drawing out goosebumps. I smile as I lean back, though it quivers at the feel of him still very much inside of me. We both let out a sighing moan before I carefully slip off of him and lie on my side, Nox mirroring me.
