She let out a distressed little sound, her hands sliding off the basin as she spun around to face him, without the barrier of quicksilver and fog. She faced him directly, warm flesh rising and falling as he breathed, eyes glowing hot, legs wide on the edge of the mattress, and she could not be expected not to move, in the face of that.
He leaned back, his arms bare and extended, muscles moving under the skin in the shafts of early light that came in throughthe disturbed curtains, and braced himself against the mattress, watching her silently.
It was the final blow to her devotion to punctuality.
She crossed the room in four long strides, climbing onto him without preamble as his arm caught around her waist, dragging her tightly into his lap. His free hand bunched in the hem of her chemise, his head tilting back in her own grasp so that she could claim that mouth of his, desperate and hungry, her tongue pushing in to taste what had been lingering on the edge of her senses since catching sight of him a moment ago.
“Off,” he rasped against her mouth, tugging at the chemise. “Off.”
She pushed herself onto her knees, her back arching as she let him slide the chemise up over her body and over her head, her hair tumbling down over her bare shoulders as he flung it away. She clawed down the open waistband of his trousers, raking pink lines into his hips as he lifted them to assist her, kicking away his own fabric in the process before pulling her firmly back into the seat she had claimed with such urgency.
He pressed his mouth onto her throat, reaching down to guide himself into her, to connect them in the way they needed to be connected. His teeth grazed the delicate flesh of her neck as she dug her fingers into his hair, moving her hips as soon as he had found her entrance and sliding down the length of him, filling herself completely.
“Elias,” she breathed, pushing her knees against his hips, gasping at the perfection of it, her hands slipping down over those bare, sculpted shoulders and grazing over the dusting of hair over his heart as she began to move.
He groaned, kissing her throat once more before leaning back against the bed again, his eyes roving over her like he was going to memorize every patch of skin on her body, his lip caught between his even, white teeth. His hand was big and warm onher hip, following her movements as he struggled for breath, his hips bucking up against hers every now and then, though he appeared to be trying very hard to stay still.
He watched, those dark-blue eyes of his half-hooded, and he studied her, his gaze roaming over her face, her throat, her breasts, until he could not stand it anymore and reared back up to sink his hand into her hair and pull her mouth down onto his again.
He tightened his grip on her hip as he kissed her, pinning her down astride him as he rolled his hips up in slow, agonizing movements that stole her breath, her body trembling in his grip.
“Oh,” she managed, her eyes slipping shut as he continued to move this way, cresting under her like ocean waves breaking on the shingled beach outside.
It built in her like a storm. Likehisstorm.
His mouth was hot and traveling down her throat, over her breasts, tasting the peaks of her nipples, and still, he was anchoring her there, holding her hips tight against his own as he pulsed upward, their breath catching in matching volleys.
She came apart with very little warning, cracking like thunder had cracked during their wedding vows, bright and loud and spearing through her body with a rumble of release.
He met her there, he chose it, clinging to her and following her over the edge into oblivion, until those urgent, desperate thrusts slowed and evened, their grips on one another softening but persevering all the same.
And they breathed together, ragged and then slower, sharing the air between their mouths as they rested their foreheads together, still joined as the final tremors of their pleasure echoed through their bodies.
Dizzy and still somehow not quite sated, she ran her hand over his throat and along the back of his neck, twining in the ends of his hair.
“We will definitely be late now,” she murmured, warm in his ear.
She felt him grin, felt the shape of it against her shoulder as his fingers traced over the bare lines of her back.
“I know,” he said. “Mea culpa.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Elias was ina far more buoyant mood than he could have anticipated on the morning of a funerary rite.
Oddly, he did not feel it inappropriate in the least. In fact, he imagined Willa would have approved most heartily, though perhaps not with a fully detailed accounting as to why.
He had laced his bride into her king’s regalia with aptitude, if not full devotion to timeliness, stealing kisses along her neck and spine where he could, despite her half-hearted protests and swatting.
He had even braided her hair, having become quite accustomed to the pattern required in his military days, though she saw to the pinning of it around her lovely head in the shape of a crown.
His own costume was more of a colorful variation on his usual clothing than anything outlandish, and once strapped fully into it and regarding himself in a mirror, he did not think he would retire it following the festivities.
While the orange cravat and goldenrod waistcoat were a bit louder than he would have chosen for himself, Monica had not been wrong about his suitability to a powder-blue fabric as the primary color of the piece itself.
Though, of course, his eyes might have only been shining so very well from the activities of the morning, rather than the complements of textile.
He gathered the poetry book he had chosen last night, Willa’s letter, and a handful of the keepsake cards he’d unearthed to his chest as they made haste toward the door, though he could not resist stalling the former Miss French one final time, pushing his weight against the jamb and demanding one final kiss before they must emerge out into the world at large.
