“No.” My net tugs, but I won’t press him any further on this. There will be time to recount the details of our lives to one another, to heal the trauma and to soothe away the pain. But not until we’re both ready.
He extricates himself and stands from the bed. “Come here,” he says, walking toward the barrier that separates his room from the drop-off below. “I want to show you something.”
I join him, watching as the ocean below churns, the reflection of the moon dancing on its surface. He points to something in the distance, but all I see is the endless expanse of the black ocean.
“What?” I ask.
“Watch the surface closely,” he whispers, then turns his palm upward, fingersmoving slowly.
The waves begin to thrash, but something writhes below. Dark, scaled figures, a mass of serpentine bodies growing with every passing second.
“What…are…those…?”
“Sea snakes,” he answers, then drops his hand. In a flash, the snakes dip back below the surface. The idea of that many sea snakes hidden below the surface has my lip curling.
“How did you do that?” I ask. He must have summoned hundreds of snakes, all in a matter of seconds.
“Mother and Father used to keep us locked in our rooms for days, sometimes weeks. The only thing I had to do to entertain myself was practice my magic and watch the sea. One day, I tried to force the waves to move, but a snake answered instead,” he says.
My heart breaks for him. The more I learn about the Serpent Princes, the less I blame Marik for the way he turned out. But then I remember the male Asmo became, and my sympathy disappears.
“Do you remember when you told me you were a terrible male?” His jaw clenches, but he nods, stony gaze still locked on the sea. I face him, looping my arms around his neck. “You’re a good male, Asmo.”
His gaze still doesn’t meet mine, but his eyes turn glassy. I stroke the mating tattoo on his neck, the snake head just below his ear.
“I—I don’t deserve you,” he says, his voice low and thick with emotion.
My net doesn’t stir, and I squeeze my eyes shut. How could he believe that? “No, you don’t deserve anything that happened to you.”
His hand grips the small of my back, and he pulls me flush against him. He dips his head, pressing his lips against mine with a tenderness that threatens to split my heart in two.
Did they damage your heart so terribly, Asmo? Did they kill what’s mine?
He places soft kisses down my neck, my skin erupting in fire and ice with every brush of his lips. He lifts my shirt over my head and drops it to the floor. His fingers trail over the mating tattoo, to the space in between my breasts. He leans down and presses a kiss to the blackened space over my heart, and it bucks in my chest.
When will our hearts stop bleeding? Will they ever stop?
He drops to his knees, placing torturously slow kisses along the flat plane of my stomach. It twists, butterflies and dragons and fireflies taking flight.
I cup his jaw, forcing him to look up at me, and he does. Like I’m the sun, the moon, and all the stars in the sky.
“What are you doing?” I whisper.
The crook of his smile.
“Worshipping you.”
The truth in his words.
He trails his kisses downward, and I squeeze my legs shut, anything to ease the throbbing. He doesn’t miss the motion, his smirk only adding to the slickness between them. He stands and scoops me into his arms. He tosses me on the bed, then peels my pants off and throws them behind him haphazardly.
“You deserve to be worshipped. Every day,” he says as he stares at my slick center. He lowers himself, parting my legs further, and places gentle kisses on my inner thighs. Every kiss only exacerbates the throbbing.
Finally, his tongue grazes the sensitive bundle of nerves, and my eyes roll to the back of my head. Every expert movement of his tongue takes me higher, each brush sending me one step closer to the edge as he feasts. I fist my hands into his hair and clench my thighs together as he hits the perfect spot.
“I—don’t stop,” I pant as the wave reaches its peak. With one more flick of his tongue, my hips buck as it crests. I smother my moans in the crook of my arm as it washes over me, my muscles relaxing as it recedes.
I open my eyes. Asmo stares at me from the edge of the bed, straining in his pants. I push myself up and reach for him, but he grabs my wrist and spins me around, securing me against him. His erection pressed against my backside makes me wet all over again, and his hand splayed against my stomach doesn’t help.
