I start babbling, tears pouring down my face.
Begging him.
Begginghim to let me come.
He does not.
The shadows pull back just as I start contracting—snuffing out the orgasm like a flame.
But that doesn’t stop me from pleading.
Tears stream down as I beg him again. And again. “Please! Oh moons, please!”
The pulsing between my legs slows, but my ears are ringing, the need is so loud.
He says nothing, and the shadows haul me back into the air.
“No! No! I can’t take this anymore!”
The words tumble out. I don’t even realize I’ve said them—until the shadows freeze.
Oh no.
“I didn’t mean it,” I say quickly.
“Do not tell any more untruths, little liar.” Veyrion picks up the time glass with another weary sigh. “You said no. That you couldn’t take any more.”
“I was out of my mind. Please don’t?—”
He flips the glass.
Very deliberately.
Even though it held over half my time.
Horror threatens to collapse my mind. “No, no!”
“Yes, princess. Say all your nos now, while we wait for the glass to reset. But I wonder…”
He rises from his throne. Walks over. Stops just short of touching me.
Then his shadow cuffs lift me higher into the air until we’re eye to eye.
His are back to glowing now, brighter than ever as he strokes the back of a talon over my cheek and asks, almost gently, “Will you be able to survive another round?”
No.There is no way I can get through even another moment of his torture.
Out loud, I say, “I have to. For the garden.”
“The flowers you are growing on the terrace.” His rebrightened eyes flicker. “They are truly that important to you?”
I snivel, pitifully. “It’s all I have left. The only thing that will let people know I was here.”
He falls silent.
For a long moment, there’s no sound in the room but my ragged breaths.
Then he says quietly, “I will remember you, Sallie Rose. No matter what I have done—what I have told myself about your inferiority these last two days—I have not been able to remove you from my head. You are even there when I sleep. Tempting me, compelling me, shining brighter than the moons above.”
