His hands tighten at my waist. Not as a question.
He lifts me in one smooth motion, water cascading from us in silver sheets as he carries me from the pool. My arms loop instinctively around his neck, my body still humming with the heat we stoked beneath the open sky. Our discarded clothes lie scattered in our wake—boots half-buried in grass, linen darkened with water, forgotten without regret.
The blanket waits where we left it, spread over the smooth, pale stone. It has been bathing in the growing warmth of the sun all this time, drinking in the light while we surrendered first to curiosity… and then to desire.
When he lowers me onto it, the heat beneath me is immediate—stone warm from the day’s slow climb, the blanket holding that heat like a promise. The contrast steals a quiet breath from me.
He follows, bracing himself above me for just a moment, eyes searching mine with a reverence that nearly undoes me more than the hunger did. The falls thunder on behind us—no longer the stage of our fire, only its distant witness now.
This—here—this is where he intends to keep me.
His hand moves gently up my thigh, lifting it so my body rises to meet his as he shifts into place. I hear my own heartbeat thrumming in my ears, echoing the electric pulse that tightens the space between us as he moves to join us.
A moan escapes my lips as he eases into me, slow, stretching fullness making my breath stutter as my body opens to him inch by aching inch.
The fullness of him inside me draws a broken sound from mythroat, my fingers digging into his shoulders as my body learns his shape again in slow, burning increments. Every nerve seems to wake at once, fire threading through me in deliberate, intoxicating pulses.
I am no longer trembling from uncertainty. I am trembling because I want him.
The sensation ripples through me in slow, molten waves, each breath a vow, each tiny movement a quiet thunder beneath my skin. I am no longer only feeling him—I am feeling everything again. The warmth of the stone beneath us. The sun on my shoulders. The pulse of life answering mine.
For a moment I am utterly undone by it.
Then something steady forms beneath the quake. Not collapse. Not loss.
Power. I stop yielding and begin to rise.
The trembling ebbs into something steadier, stronger. I draw in a slow breath, meeting his gaze as heat curls low in my spine. My hands slide along him as I shift, gathering my balance, lifting myself with deliberate intent.
He follows my lead, moving beneath me as I claim my place.
With him held deep within this shared motion, I tighten my hold, rocking my hips in a slow, unfolding rhythm that is mine to set. The pace is no longer something happening to me—it is something I choose. I feel him respond instantly, tension winding through his body as mine rises to meet it.
Power hums through me—not the kind that demands, but the kind that knows.
Brilliant sun gilds me in cascading gold, and his hands find their way to my hips. Following the cadence I set in motion, he lifts me through my rise and meets me with a deep, driving thrust as I fall.
A growl vibrates through him as I descend again, the sound torn from someplace deep and unguarded. The world narrows to breath and motion, to the way sunlight fractures across his shoulders, to the way his hands steady me as if I am both precious and unstoppable.
The rhythm builds between us—slow at first, then sure—each rise and fall a shared knowing. I feel his strength answer my will without resistance, our bodies speaking in a language older than crown or vow.The gold of the afternoon wraps around us like a hymn, heat meeting heat until it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins.
When his thumb finds the place that so often leaves me undone, teasing and unhurried, my breath stutters. The world tilts. Every sensation sharpens until even the air feels too alive against my skin. I gasp his name like a plea and a promise, both. Power coils low in my spine, not summoned—answered. Each measured movement draws the fire higher until my body is nothing but ascent and trembling light.
He murmurs my name, his touch coaxing, steady, relentless in its patience. I shatter slowly at first—tremor by tremor—then all at once, heat flooding through me in blinding waves. The sound that tears from my throat is no longer mine to contain. I cling to him as the crest overtakes me, pulse and breath and fire spilling together in a rush that leaves me weightless.
He follows me into the breaking, his own restraint finally giving way as the rhythm between us turns wild and irrevocable. For a breathless stretch of time, there is nothing but motion and sound and the echo of our names in the open air.
And then—stillness.
I ease into the serene hold. The forces at play do not feel distanced, merely languid and hushed. Spent and shaking, I fold into him as the sun continues its slow descent, the world altered in some quiet, irreversible way.
Chapter Forty-Six
Iwanted to stay there forever. In Vale’s arms, in raw wilderness unfolding in new ways around me.
We basked there for a long while, sweetly savoring the shared embrace. We also knew if we did not return before nightfall, the guards would come looking. Their diligence and the safety of the secluded valley granted us a great deal of freedom, but even that has its limits.
“It looks like the fresh air did you some good.” Sincerity from Ace is always far more disarming than his jabs.
