“Please.”
The sound of her begging is my undoing.
I grip her hips hard enough to brand her with my fingerprints, claiming her as I sheathe myself inside her. Leigh’s hands fly up to brace against the steam-clouded mirror.
“Yes,” Leigh pants. Her palms slide across the slick surface, leaving streaky handprints in their wake. She struggles to find purchase, her fingers scrabbling against the slick glass with each thrust. Each exhale fogs the glass further, but I can still see the way her mouth falls open, the way her eyes flutter shut as I fuck her.
“There! Oh, shit. Right there!”
“You’re everything to me,” I growl. “Say you are mine.”
“I’m yours,” Leigh gasps, her inner walls fluttering around me. “Oh, gods, I’myours.”
Her thighs shake and her muscles quiver. I’m determined to send her over the edge. I reach one hand between her trembling thighs to rub tight circles on her clit, already sensitive from earlier.
Her climax hits like a thunderstorm. The way she cries out my name, raw and desperate, triggers my own release. I press my face into the curve of her neck, breathing in her intoxicating scent as pleasure crashes through us both. Her pulse races against my lips as we shudder together.
Carefully, I withdraw from her. We both wince slightly at the loss of connection.
Leigh breathes heavily, bent over the vanity as I mutter, “Fuck. I could spend forever with you like that. You are perfect. You know that?”
“I can’t feel my legs.” Leigh laughs, the sound all tired and cute.
After checking the temperature, I help Leigh settle into the bath. Leigh sighs as I locate my pants. The last thing I want is toleave after what we just did, but my stomach rumbles. I haven’t had dinner, and though I could feast on Leigh, I need sustenance to keep up with her.
“I like having you here,” she tells me before I walk out the door.
I shoot her a cocky grin. “Yeah, I know.”
She shakes her head, smiling. “I mean, I like how we no longer have to sneak around.”
Same here. Now that I am no longer her guard, I come and go as I please. We’ve spent these last few weeks after her coronation learning what makes each other tick. Like how I love black licorice, but Leigh finds it disgusting despite having no problem eating spicy pickles with cheese, which isn’t as nasty as it sounds.
“Hurry back.”
With a sigh, I exit her room, and navigate the never-ending twists and turns of Rowan Palace. Just as I reach the kitchen on the first floor, I collide with Gianna, who’s holding a box of mint chocolate cookies—my favorite. She doesn’t offer me one. I take one anyway.
“It’s hard to get any sleep around here,” Gianna remarks, and I choke on my cookie. “Even with the storm sounds I conjure, I can still hear you going at it.”
I smile at the disgust in her voice. “Maybe invest in some earplugs.” Or maybe her mother shouldn’t have moved back in with her parents before Gianna checked out of rehab.
I was in her childhood home earlier. The place was a fucking tomb. All that was missing was Elio’s disgruntled ghost haunting the halls. It’s understandable why she’d rather be here.
Gianna had been drugged and treated like a doll her entire life. She’d been born a Nebula, but instead of admitting Maria had an affair, Elio and his wife chose to hide it. Maria di Siena gained a conscience that night at the capitol, when Elio had usedhis magic to cut Gianna’s air supply to keep her from spilling his secrets. He had squandered the family fortune, regained most of what they lost by selling VT on the black market, and forced Gianna to marry a wealthy Epsilon husband. She was proposed to twice but has yet to walk down the aisle.
“I’m not going to stop sleeping with my girlfriend,” I assert.
Gianna raises an eyebrow. “And I’m not leaving until I find my birth father, so I guess we’re at an impasse.”
“Your birth father?” I inquire, and she nods.
“I’m not a di Siena, and I refuse to take my mother’s name after she abandoned me,” Gianna explains. I munch on another cookie. “So, I’m on the hunt for my father, though he probably doesn’t even know I exist.”
I grab another cookie. “Have you asked Maria?”
“Yes, Mama said I ask too many questions and am ungrateful.”
“You’re not one to give up easily, Gianna.” I pluck the sleeve of the cookies from her. “Goodnight.”
