Page 57 of Veil of Night & Flames

He smiles. “Because I told myself the same thing.” He flashes a warm smile that quickly heats up when he turns and kisses me, deep and unhurried. And the part of me that’s been telling myself that I don’t miss him goes quiet and stays quiet. And the part of me that has been telling myself that I will not want him goes silent too, so that all that’s left is the warm sand under us and the orange sky above and his mouth and his hands and the delicious craving that has been mine since the night before the betrothal.

He undresses me without hurry—the sleep shirt eased over my head and tossed aside, the shorts down my hips, his fingertips trailing along every inch of skin he uncovers as if memorizing the route. The vial on its chain stays at my throat, and he kisses the spot it touches with something close to reverence before his mouth moves on.

There’s something cocky in the way his hands move over my body—as if he never once doubted that I’d step through and into his arms.

And as his lips trace a slow line between my breasts to my belly, I have to admit that I’m okay with being that transparent.

Then his mouth slides even lower to the soft skin below my navel, and all thought leaves my head because now it’s just need and want, and I’m arching off the sand in anticipation, following the path of his mouth and knowing exactly where he intends to land.

“Patience,” he murmurs against me.

I laugh, breathless. “That’s rich from a man who built a doorway into my closet because he couldn’t wait.”

I feel him smile against my skin. “The lady has a point.”

And then his mouth is on me, slow and certain, and whatever I was going to say next dissolves into a sound I don’t recognize as mine. For that matter, I’m beginning to think this body isn’t mine, because he is definitely proving he knows it better than I do, knows exactly what to do with his mouth and his fingers, where and how much and when to ease off just long enough to make me beg before he gives it back.

I fist my hands in the sand. I say his name. I beg him to fuck me, to take me, to do whatever he wants to me, so long as he doesn’t stop this brilliant waterfall of pleasure.

And though I beg, he takes his time—patient and certain and utterly without mercy, drawing it out until the wanting is almost unbearable, until I’m trembling and slick and so far gone I can’t remember why I was ever angry at him.

He slides one hand up my body to cover my breast, his thumb working a slow circle that has me writhing, while his mouth keeps its gloriously maddening rhythm below. The breeze off the water lifts my hair across my collarbone, and I can feel the warmth of the sand at the small of my back where his hand isn’t, and the contrast of it—the cool air, the warm sand, his hot mouth—undoes me one nerve at a time.

When I come, it’s with his name on my lips and his hands holding my hips still, and he works me through every aftershock until I’m boneless and shaking and reaching for him.

“Now,” I manage. “Please. Now.”

“Now,” he agrees, low and rough.

He rises over me, and the sight of him—silver eyes, dark hair fallen forward, the coat of shadows tossed casually in the sand—would be enough to undo me a second time if he weren’t already reaching for me.

He pushes into me slowly, deliberately, like he wants me to feel every inch of him claiming me, filling me.

For a breath, neither of us moves. The stretch of him, the weight, the heat of his chest against mine as my body adjusts around him.

And as his weight settles over me and he starts to move in a slow and wondrous rhythm, I forget the ordinary college girl I’m supposed to be. I forget the man I love in the Real, who almost died and whose blood his brother shares. I forget all of it. There is only this. There is only him, filling me with deep, devastating thrusts, every stroke deliberate, like he intends to feel all of it, like he has nowhere else in any realm he would rather be.

But when I wrap my legs around him and lift to meet him, his control frays, and there is nothing patient left in him at all.

He braces a hand in the sand beside my head and drives into me, and I take all of him, greedy and shameless, my nails dragging down the muscle of his back, the warm sand shifting beneath us with every thrust.

His mouth finds my throat, my jaw, my mouth—open and hungry and barely catching breath between kisses. I’m full of him and surrounded by him, and right then, I belong to him. Utterly. Completely.

Then he says, “Cora,” in a voice so wrecked and reverent against my skin that I shatter a second time and feel him follow me over, his whole body going taut, his breath ragged in my ear, his hand fisting in the sand beside my head as if he needs something to hold on to that isn’t me.

I’m breathing hard as I slowly come back to myself, his weight on me, his eyes locked on mine as we hold each other on the sand.

Finally, he tilts his head, then breaks the silence. “Will you tell him?”

I want to smack him—way to screw up a truly exceptional fuck—but I don’t call him out. Instead, I simply shrug as I try to hold on to that glorious post-sex buzz while the question preys on me. The truth is, I don’t have to say anything. I already told Chase I wouldn’t give Adric up. And I told Adric the same thing about Chase. I never said I would tell when and if.

Except…

I sigh, because of course I have to tell. If for no other reason than that I owe both these men honesty.

What I don’t know is if honesty will be the thing that costs me Chase. And that’s really not a price I want to pay.

I’ll tell him,” I say. Ignoring Adric’s frown. “And I’ll tell you when I sleep with him, too.”