Page 75 of Laced in Longing

She remembers many of her rejections and has apologized for that exactly once. I did not permit a second.

Because I would live through it again. All of it, every rejection, every hundred-year stretch of watching her live and die without me. If someone offered me a version of this where she said yes in her first life and I had all of eternity from the start, I would refuse. Take our current situation every single time. This exact woman with her scars and her snarky mouth and bare feet in the dirt. A thousand lifetimes carved her into something that fits against me like our two halves were cut from one piece.

She was promised to me. But that is not why she is mine.

Even if the Bright Gods had never promised her, I would have found her. I would have followed her longing through every crowded city on that miserable little world until I stood in front of her and refused to move.

I know this the way I know my own name.

“You’re staring,” she says around a bitten lip.

“I am.”

“You do that a lot.”

“And I intend to continue, my flower. You are too beautiful to not be stared at.”

She turns to face me fully, there in the middle of the path with the arch of black roses bending over her head, and her chin tips up as her eyes narrow. Half challenge and half invitation.

I cross the distance in two strides.

My hands find the backs of her thighs and lift; she clings to me without hesitation, her legs locking around my waist, arms around my neck, and her mouth is already open when it meets mine. She kisses me like she’s been waiting a thousand years, and perhaps she has.

“Hold on,” I mutter against her lips.

Incoherent words leave her mouth as I carry her to the arbor post at the fork of the path, thick oak sunk deep in the ground, and press her spine against it. She makes a sound that shoots straight to my cock.

“Do that again,” I breathe, grazing my teeth across her chin, “and you’ll not like who I turn into.”

“Is that a promise or a—” I bite her lower lip only for her to laugh.

Her tongue slides against mine. She tastes of the tea she drank an hour ago and of herself underneath it, so sweet and floral. It’s a combination that drives me crazy. Fingers grab my hair before tugging hard, the way she learned I like within the first week. I shift my grip to hold her weight with one arm and slide the other hand between us.

Fuck me—the lace is soaked through.

I groan into her mouth, unable to help myself, and drag the fabric aside. Slick. Hot. So ready, and I haven’t even touched her yet.

“You wore this for me,” I say against her jaw.

“You asked me to wear it, don’t get—” Her words break when I press two fingers into her. “Oh.”

“What were you saying?”

Her answer doesn’t come until I pause my movements. “I forgot.”

I hum and work her open with slow, deliberate pressure, savoring the way her head drops against the post and how tightly her thighs clamp my waist. And the sounds she makes? They’re a drug. I need them. Thank every deity ever that she doesn’t hold them back. No, she gives me everything.

I cannot wait another moment—I’ve no interest in pretending otherwise.

She whines when I remove my fingers, but angles her hips when she realizes I mean to free my cock. There is nothing in this world or the next as delicious as this moment: when the tip slips inside her wet heat and we both sigh from the relief and anticipation. We enjoy it for a heartbeat before I fill her in one long stroke. She screams as her hips rock against my pelvis.

“Fuck,” she breathes.

Her channel is tight and slick and gripping with impossible strength. It pulses with each breath, and my forehead drops to her shoulder as my hips still. Every time. Every single time it undoes me, the way she takes me, the way her body welcomes what it was built to welcome.

Ecstasy.

“Move,” she growls against my mouth. “Ash. Move, or I swear⁠—”