So she tried to think of things that would relax her.
Lex's suggestion thundered through her mind. Not to mention what had happened the day before on that porch and on the boat. She could still feel his lips against her knee, trailing up her arm... His hands wrapped around her backside, tongue sliding on her throat. Perhaps if he had been back, she would have gone and crawled in his bed, gave in to their dance, and took him like she so desperately wanted to—tug on her heart be damned.
But as he wasn't home, the memory of the night at the banquet would have to do.
She sat up in the bed and pushed herself against the headboard, allowing the pillows to cradle her open legs, and she closed her eyes, stretched the muscles of her neck, and gripped the sheet over her chest.
She could still see that night in her head as clear as it had been while living it. More clear than any memory of every day after. Possibly her most explicit memory. It was a night she held on to as she held on to sunlight as a healing source. The freedom she’d felt those nights, not just with him but with everything going on in that castle. No judgments. No titles. Not him attempting to swoon her or impress her in any form.
It was all completely effortless.
She remembered how he'd come to her room with food, insisting he was only there to talk and help her sober up. He'd proceeded to go through every single one of the trinkets around her room, tossing some of them aside and making fun of her for having so many suitors knock on her door in the last few years. They'd laid together on the lounge chair, legs entwined, while he read from her poetry books. It was that memory that made her smile as well as squirm in her seat.
"Princess, these poems are filthy," he had mocked her.
She reached up and snatched the book from his hands. "Don't ruin my poems with your mockery," she argued.
He grinned. "You're a romantic, aren't you?"
“Oh,I’ma romantic?” she mocked. She fought the twist of her lips and the blush on her cheeks as her head tilted in his direction. "Says the one reading such filthy poems aloud to the woman he's not even supposed to be in the same room with."
Her brow raised slyly at the softened smile that spread over his features then, and she stood from the chair, intent on placing some of the books back. She'd just reached to put the one on the top shelf in the opposite corner when she turned, only to find Nadir sitting on the edge of the chair, elbows pressed into his knees, fingers steepled beneath his chin. He was staring at her, heel tapping the ground, and she knew he was battling with himself again.
"I really shouldn't be here," she heard him breathe. “I—“
Whatever his words were, she didn't hear. He stood. Fast. Muttering words she didn’t understand under his breath and looking around for his shoulder pad, she realized that he was finally deciding to leave before things went too far. Nyssa's heart fell at the embarrassment of thinking someone like him would ever truly be interested in her.
She went over to the bottle of nyghtfire she’d stashed in her dresser and pulled it out. She poured two glasses and then crossed the space back to him. Nadir's throat bobbed when she pushed the cup in his hands.
“To wanting what we can’t have,” she cheers’d him.
He let his shoulder pad slowly fall back onto the mattress as he watched her take a small sip. She couldn’t help biting her lip when she pulled back, embarrassment flooding her.
Just as she looked down and started to turn away, she saw him snap back the nyghtfire and heard the glass shatter on the floor when he threw it over his shoulder.
“Fuck it.”
He grasped her arm and hauled her back to him, lips slamming against hers, and she had to grip his waist to stay upright. The cinnamon taste of nyghtfire on his tongue and the salt of his skin made her knees weak. His lips were frantic against hers, arms hugging and hands grasping her back and the bottom of her tulle dress.
She’d never felt so wanted in her life.
Her heart fled at the desperate way he kissed her, as though if he let her go that she would disappear from before him. Every sweep of his tongue against hers had her nearly moaning in his mouth. He bent low, getting a better grip on her, almost picking her up off the ground as he stretched and clenched that tulle. She pushed her hands beneath his shirt, separating from him a moment to pull it off.
Fuck, he was perfect.
He went to kiss her again, but she pushed slightly on his chest.
“What?” he asked breathlessly.
She allowed her gaze to wander over him, memorizing every flex and ripple of his sculpted body. The broad shoulders and narrow waist. His muted olive-colored skin against her own pale hand. The way his body would have held around her perfectly. She reached out and traced the lines between his heaving abs, and he flinched with her touch, visible goosebumps rising on his flesh. She wanted to memorize him. Know every scar and line of his perfect body.
“I… Did the ocean carve you from a rock?” she heard herself mocking as she ran her fingers over the veins in his forearm and eyed the one at the vee of his hips. “How are you this… how—”
Nadir scoffed and bent again, his lips pressing to her throat and making her ramble cease with a soft gasp. That mouth… He was sucking on her skin, and with every brush of his tongue, she limped further into his abyss. She felt his hands traveling down her sides, and then the tightness of the strings on the back of her dress loosened. It fell to the floor, leaving only the corset and tiny creme lace undergarments covering her torso.
Nadir paused and gawked down at her, mouth agape. “You’ve been wearing that all night and I’ve been telling you jokes?” he managed, voice cracking.
“I literally threw myself at you earlier,” she reminded him.
