I spin him and push the hair off his brow. “I know you would. But even the brilliant High Prince of Autumn has his limits.” I lean in, brushing my lips over his. “So just love me instead.”
Something shifts in Farron’s eyes, golden and predatory. He pulls away from me and shoves the papers off the table. They land in a clattering heap. Then he takes my shoulders and pushes me on top of the mahogany. “I’m going to do more than love you, Daytonales,” he says. “I’m going to take you.”
66
Farron
Somehow, we find our way to my chambers, a trail of clothes in our wake. Everything else is lost to feverish kisses, hands in hair, and the drum of my heart against my ribs.
Dayton slams my door shut with his foot, his fingers busy on my face, then my neck, then my ribs. My chamber is lit with orange glowing orbs that hover in the corners, casting dusky light throughout the room. The true fading sunlight is concealed by heavy curtains.
We’ve both lost all our clothes by this point. I run my hand over his sun-kissed skin, marveling at the patchwork of scars over his chest, how they only make him more beautiful.
The bed is too far, so we collapse on my large chaise, the one right beside the bookshelf. Rosie and I have spent several nights cuddled up on it together, forgetting the world.
And that’s what I want to do now.
Forget all the things that tear at my mind, that steal the joy and replace it with fear.
I won’t let that happen to me tonight. Dayton won’t let it.
He collapses on the chaise, arms spread over the back and legs far apart. He grins up at me like a king. His cock bobs triumphantly.
A growl rushes up my throat, and I slam my body against his, pressing our cocks together. His salty sweet skin is as addictive as a drug, and my teeth nip at his throat.
He laughs and pulls me back by my hair to steal a kiss from my lips. “Tell me what you want, Pup,” he murmurs when we finally pull away.
“I want to take you in a way no one else has,” I breathe.
His eyes shine. “I want to give you that.”
Elation surges through my chest, and a genuine smile appears on my face. This … This is safety. This is home.
“Let’s take it slow, yeah?” Dayton says. “I want to enjoy every piece of you tonight.”
We fall back together on the chaise, me on his chest, and we take it slow. Kisses long and languishing. Hands feeling skin as if for the first time. His hard length presses against my stomach, and bursts of nervous anticipation bubble through me, even though it’s Dayton. My Day.
We spin so we’re both lying on the chaise, arms wrapped tight together. Needing to be closer, I press my leg over his hip. I can see it all in my mind’s eye as we kiss: the sand and sea, long days spent in the Summer Realm, that cocky grin that turned so serious when I showed him too much of my heart.I knew it,I think. We’ve always been that special time between the turn of summer to fall when the leaves change as bright as the beaming sun that hasn’t yet been chased away.
How’d we end up here?A cursed castle, our realms in disarray, a demon lurking at our doorstep.
And yet … Would I trade it? It brought him to me. Brought me Rose.
“Doesn’t it matter to you?” he says slowly.
I turn to look at him, his blue eyes shimmering like a sea before a storm. So much emotion bubbling beneath the surface. I graze his jaw with the back of my knuckles. “What matters, Day?”
“That Rosie and I aren’t mates. She was… disappointed, I think. But you haven’t said anything.”
“Who says you’re not mates?”
He gives a humorless chuckle. “If there was a bond there, it would have awoken already with how much we’ve been through. With how much I—” His voice cracks. “With how much I love her.”
I sit back and stare at the man below me. A year ago, would I think this man a stranger? Physically, he’s the same, long golden hair splayed around his chiseled face, the cord of muscles in his chest, those plush lips. But the vulnerability etched into his features, the words of love so easily offered on his lips… That is all new.
No, I decide. I would know him anywhere. I always knew this version Dayton lived within him though he only showed me fractured glimpses of it through all the long years.
“No, Daytonales, it doesn’t matter to me.”
