Estrella
Anwen dives at me, the ribbon tying us together tugging at my skin, and I lean closer rather than away. Our mouths crash together. Those beautiful rings scrape lightly against each other. My emotions threaten to overflow yet again, a cup being filled over and over again. When he first described this wedding, I thought it sounded lovely. I had no idea how truly, totally spectacular it would be. Just us, alone under the Goddess's eye.
He licks along the seam of my lips, and I open for him. With my free hand, I begin fumbling at the folds of my dress, the folds of the tunic and pants he wore in proper Sundrop style. There is no rush-we have years upon years of falling into the same bed or escaping the palace to return to this place ahead of us. But the idea of being separated from my mate by even a few layers of fabric suddenly feels painful. I squeeze his hand within the ribbons holding us together. This is how close I always want to be.
The folds crumble quickly under my practiced hands. Fabric loosens. Slivers of skin peek free, burning hot where we touch. Anwen starts to pull back, clearly trying to help.
'No.' I sink my teeth into his lower lip. 'Don't go any further.'
'I love you,' he says through mind-link, his voice tinged with amusement.
The feeling of him, inside my head for the first time, crashes through me in a bright wave. I release his lip to laugh with the sheer delight of it.
Anwen, always the opportunist, seizes his chance to shove away the long strips of fabric separating us. The ground beneath my back offers up the barest hint of the day's warmth. Before I can grow cold, I pull him close again.
'I love you too,' I reply.
He smiles against my wanting mouth.
Pleasure courses through my limbs as I tangle myself with him. Wrap one leg around his, ensnare my free fingers in his hair, tighten my grip on our entwined hands. Our chests press so close that I can only inhale when he exhales, filling the space he leaves behind. Even though his cock stiffens against my leg, even though I can feel wetness forming between us, I don't do anything but kiss him. Chase his tongue back into his mouth. Savor the spark when he nips my lip. Swallow his breath and move with him like the moon and the ocean waves.
This, I truly could do forever.
Anwen breaks the kiss first but only to drag his mouth along the line of my jaw. I arch up into him with a moan. He nips my earlobe then begins to kiss down my neck.
I stiffen. He's so close to the sickly scars Avi says I'm likely to have for the rest of my days. I know Anwen believes them impressive-how many can say they've had a brush with wolfsbane and survived?-and I've conceded they could be politically useful. Only. but
'Don't worry,' Anwen says.
'How can I not?' No one has touched them other than Avi. Not even myself. They feel like someone else's body, foreign territory I cannot invade, especially now that I am home.
'Because I love you,' he says simply, hesitating a breath away from the scars. 'There's no part of you I won't love, no matter how it becomes part of you.'
'Even my stubbornness?' I smile.
He huffs a laugh against my neck. 'If that was a dealbreaker, the deal would've broken already.'
I shove him gently. But his words make sense. We've both changed so much in only the few short weeks we've known each other. If we are truly to complete each other, to spend the rest of our days together, it would be ridiculous to expect we will always be exactly as we are right now. We have to be able to bend, to grow with each other. Perhaps that is why the Goddess split us, at the beginning. So that we might learn how to grow in order to do it once we are reunited.
'All right.' I shut my eyes.
Anwen's lips brush, feather-light, over the still-taut skin of my neck where I know the sickened veins lie. I shudder. The sensation is... different. Muted, yet sharper. Just on the edge of painful, but not quite unpleasant.
'You okay?'
I nod. 'You may continue.'
He laughs again, but his next kiss is harder. The feeling crests into pain, and I yelp.
Anwen stops instantly, worry painting his face.
'Gently,' I pant.
He nods and runs his free hand over the scars softly. Once again, it returns to muted near-pain. I lean up and capture his mouth again.
Anwen responds eagerly, his fingertips lingering on the scar. He traces down its length, making space for his hand between us. It's a teasing reminder of what I endured. What we both endured. I may never understand how he ran through the castle twice while feeling what I did. I will certainly never stop being grateful.
He strokes it rhythmically, slipping to either side now and again to toy with my breasts and tease my nipples to peaks. The agonizing memory alchemizes into something sweeter under his touch. There is so much to be grateful for-too much to simply lie here and receive.
I roll us over, pressing his back to the sand, and drop deep kisses on his neck. Early stubble scrapes my cheeks. Salt clings to his skin, mingling with the taste of him on my tongue. Anwen moans and clutches my hand inside the ribbon. I rock my hips against his, feeling his hardness.
'For luck,' I tell him, 'we should keep our hands bound for at least the first orgasm.'
'Happily.' He wrenches our joined hands up, over his head, knocking me off balance.
I flatten even closer to him, and my breasts land within reach of his mouth. His talented tongue plays over my nipples. I reach back to line up his cock with my entrance. There is so much time between us and dawn. I want to feel him.
We moan in harmony when he sinks deep inside me.
I begin moving my hips wildly, savoring every inch of his skin on mine. He offers all the feverish warmth the desert night denies. My breasts bob in and out of his reach, but he holds my gaze whether he can taste me or not. His blue eyes are as rich and deep as the sky above, no sign of the ice I saw in him so long ago.
Anwen folds his legs so his knees press into the base of my spine. The change in angle drives him even deeper-and allows me to roll my hips against him, chasing friction without ever moving out of the reach of his mouth. My full weight rests on him. Our limbs twist in complex knots. He pulses inside me, already racing toward the apex of pleasure, and my clit scrapes against his coils of hair. A throaty moan pours from my lips, more than such gentle pressure would usually elicit.
The burst of pleasure ricochets through me, and Anwen jerks his hips, pulling another wild exclamation out of me. We become an endless loop, linked in explosions of want. My desire drives his, just as his hope gave me the strength to stand when I was certain Floyd had already killed me.
We will share all the sweetness of life just as we share the pain.
Tonight, though, we simply erupt over the precipice together. My vision goes white, and my limbs shake as pleasure greater than anything I've felt before overwhelms me.
A few moments later, I blink my eyes open to find myself on my back, staring up at the sky. Anwen pants heavily next to me, and the ribbon still keeps our hands entwined.
'Wow,' he says.
I nod. Tears slip down my cheeks once more.
'Estrella?' he asks.
'That night, at the peace ball... I did not believe I could ever feel like this again.'
'Like what?'
I turn onto my side and look at our bound hands for a long moment. Then, I drag my gaze up to his face. His smile softens the angular lines of his face. The man I first saw when he woke me from my nightmare, the man I fell in love with, has completely consumed the one I first met. The one I still turned to after Father died. Because this man was always inside him, even if he hadn't yet found the way to him.
'Happy,' I say.
Anwen gathers me to his chest, one-armed and awkward. 'I figured I'd find out what "happy" was when I took the throne.'
I don't need to ask what throne he's talking about. The moment when I honestly believed he was using me for my title feels so silly now.
'I don't think I would've, if you're curious,' he adds.
'But now?'
'Now, I'm looking forward to my coronation.' He grins. 'But I'm already pretty sure I'm the happiest motherfucker alive.'
I smile back at him.
'Or I will be, when we take this ribbon off.' He rubs his arm against the ground as if itching it. 'Have we gotten all the good luck we need out of it?'
Something in my chest squeezes. When we untie ourselves, we will return to our normal lives. To being royals, leaders, people others depend on. Our wedding will end, and our life will begin. Our wonderful lives, which I'm looking forward to. But-
'Let's leave it,' I say. 'Just a little longer.'
'Whatever you want,' Anwen agrees.