Posey
Aris pants against my neck. Pleasure like I’ve never known washes through me. Toe-curling, mind-numbing bliss that I drown in for several seconds until the room comes back into focus, and I remember myself.
His eyes are dark and hooded in the firelight. The curtains are drawn to the storm beyond, and it’s still nighttime, I think. Aris is leaning over me, one hand resting between my thighs, and his other hand is still splayed against my back to keep me upright. His gaze holds mine in disbelief before he dips his head to lick the wound he just left clean, the puncture marks fading into scars under his tongue. His mark on my skin feels like I’ve been branded by liquid silver. It feels heavy and amazing.
“You should hate me,” I whisper, closing my eyes and leaning my cheek against his. I’m so tired. I’ve never felt exhaustion like this before. My fingers ache to the bone. All I did today was build the helmet, repair every gem, turning silver into diamonds and moonstones to hold his power, without him there to test each jewel. It worked regardless. Now I know why.
Mates. I did this to my mate. I broke his heart and let it fester like that for months.
“I wanted to,” he admits, then leans back and straightens to look down at me, at my tangled hair that he brushes off my shoulders. “Now I understand.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“You were.” His voice is so soft and reassuring. It’s maddening, actually. He should still hate me. I took advantage of him this summer. Used him for my heat. And now, here? Knowing he was pining, yearning, that he was breaking apart in my presence, and I didn’t run away like I should have? I didn’t want to. I wanted him. It’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever done.
“Shhh,” he whispers, pressing an open-mouthed kiss to my forehead while I unravel. I press my hands to his chest, bunching the fabric of his shirt while tears roll down my cheeks. We stay like that for a long time. Me, resting on the edge of the bed, my cheek pressed to his chest, reckoning with what I’ve done to us. Him, leaning down, whispering soft reassurances into my hair. His mark settles on my neck, a lick of heat reminding me how close he is, how close his body is to mine again.
He only pulls away to run a bath. His hands are firm but all business as he helps me out of the shirt. I shy away even though his ensuite is dim and beyond the frosty windows it’s as dark as my soot stained fingers after a day spent doing alchemy, and I instantly regret my involuntary flinch when he touches my arm to turn me toward the water.
He leaves the room, which smells like him–his soap. His shampoo. His aftershave and toothpaste. I want to drown in this moment to keep it safe. I’m afraid to leave the bath even after it grows tepid, and I’ve untangled my hair. I don’t know what I’ll find behind that door because my entire future lies beyond it.
I’m his mate. He loves me. He wants me and my body. He wants us.
But there’s so much we need to talk about.
Wrapped in a towel, I slowly open the door into the bedroom, which is warm and dim. He’s sitting in that winged-back chair facing the bed, his head tipped back and eyes open to slits like he was sleeping until he sensed my presence.
I stand here, unsure of what to do or what to say.
He scans my face before saying in a rough, almost choked whisper, “Come here.”
The floor is warm and soft beneath my bare feet. His hands are steady and firm on my waist when he pulls me into his lap so I’m straddling him, only some thin fabric separating us.
His fingertips have their own electric current. Just the act of brushing my hair away from my neck makes my chest tighten.
“Did it hurt?” he asks, his voice low and gravelly. His thumb traces the half moon scar, and his eyes lift to mine. I nod weakly, and he leans forward, pressing a kiss to my mark, which ignites. I shiver as warmth rushes down my spine to flood into pure, molten heat at its base, tingling and impossible to ignore.
“We need to talk,” I whisper into his hair.
His wry smile against the mark makes me quiver. “About the skulls? Or the helmet? Or the fact you went into the caves when I explicitly told you not to?”
The column of my throat bobs when I force myself to swallow. My body feels electric, like one innocent touch from him is enough, but his tongue against the side of my neck is indecent.
“We have time,” he breathes, then gently bites down over the mark again like he can’t help himself. “You need to eat something and sleep.”
I grip his shoulders, sighing into the sensation of his mouth against my skin. That same hunger from this summer pulsates through my muscles, the heat settling in my bone marrow. I don’t want to eat. I really don’t want to sleep. A whiny, pitiful sound leaves my trembling lips when he kisses down my neck to my chest and stops, breathing hard, his grip on my waist tightening.
He’s so restrained. Tension pours from his body with every kiss and nip of his teeth.
“I never thought I’d touch you again,” he says against my skin, and it’s my undoing.
A choked sob escapes my throat, and his mouth is on mine in an instant, shushing me, pulling me closer until we’re flush, and his heat envelopes me.
I hesitate for a moment before kissing him back. Everything else vanishes. It’s just me and him. His hands ghosting up my sides. His tongue gliding over mine in deep, exploratory strokes. I wrap my arms around his neck, my fingers curling in his hair. Touching him again is like coming home. It makes me want to weep, to pray, to fucking smile for the first time in months.
But he sighs against my parted lips and breaks the kiss. His eyes are dark silver in the fading light of the dying fire. “You need to sleep.”
I nod, but the last place I want to be is anywhere other than his lap. I can feel him straining between us, his cock rigid and full, pressed against my stomach.
He angles his mouth over mine but doesn’t kiss me, like he’s doing everything to talk himself out of it, of this in general. “I need to sleep, too.”
“Then come to bed.”
He smiles, shaking his head. “You’re killing me, Posey.”
His hands drop to my thighs, drifting upward under the towel.
“You’re too thin,” he murmurs, dropping his mouth to my collarbone. “I’m going to get you something to eat.”
“The spirits–”
“Have made themselves scarce after I felt something was off and came back here and found out you were being attacked by wolves in the forest, ten miles north of here. They’re hiding from my wrath, I think.”
He nips at my skin, grunting at the effort of keeping his hands still at the juncture of my thighs and hips.
“Do you know how to cook?” My head falls back when he kisses just above my breasts.
“No.” It’s breathy, and his fingers twitch before gripping me harder, like he’s on his last nerve. The towel slips a few inches, revealing the slope of my breasts, and a resounding growl vibrates through him. He meets my eyes briefly. Hunger deepens the silver until it’s as dark as raw iron. My arms slowly unravel from his neck.
He tilts his head while I reach for the towel.
“Posey...”
Fire warmed air makes my skin prickle, but the look on Aris’s face has me shivering despite the heat.
He leans his head back against the chair, lost in a trance. His eyes track the movement of the towel as it unravels, leaving me in just my skin.
“Fuck.” His mouth barely moves. He hisses out a breath and adjusts his hips, grinding against me, the motion making my chest bounce ever so slightly.
I take his hand and guide it to my breast. My heart leaps, blood thrumming through my veins at the sensation of his heat against my skin.
“Can I touch you?” The words are barely audible, but the desperation in my voice is loud and clear. This summer, when he’d held my wrists above my head, it had been in an effort to keep himself under control.
I angle my hips to meet his, and he grunts, hissing through his teeth. I do it again and again, chasing the friction of his cock through the rough fabric of his pants, making a mess of both of us. He grips my hips, his eyes narrowed to slits and focused on my breasts. His breath comes in sharp, shallow rasps as I lose control of myself, my rational brain slipping into oblivion. And the noises that leave my lips?
“Please?” I whine, and he exhales deeply, his eyes shut and his body so tense I can feel every hard, bulging muscle beneath his shirt.
“I’m not going to last,” he replies with a short, rough chuckle, like he’s in pain. “If you so much as touch me, I’m going to come.”
“I want you to. You haven’t. Not once when we’re together.” He pulls me closer to press an open-mouthed kiss to my cheek, slopping and frantic just like I feel while I writhe on his lap.
“Do you know how often we do this in my dreams? Every night, Posey. I imagine you here, in my room, in my bed, every single Goddess-damned night, and now I have the real thing, and I can’t….” He hisses the last words while I pull down his zipper. He nips my earlobe. “Greedy.”
His hand roams to my ass, and he adjusts my weight on his lap with a soft sigh. Then, his mouth is on mine again, hungry and hot.
He doesn’t let me take what I want, though. He pulls my hands away from his zipper and holds my wrists behind my back, kissing me slowly, thoroughly, until I’m warmed to the bone. The raging fire, his heat, his mouth… It’s like being lulled into a trance. I’m sleepy. My body feels amazing and soft, and I just want him to let me give him something he’s been going without.
He licks the mark again, shivering, pulling me as close as possible until my breasts are flush with his chest. “I dream about this. Every. Single. Night.”
He cups the back of my head and tilts my face to the side to gain more access to my neck.
“I’m obsessed with this spot, right here,” he whispers into my skin before biting over the mark again, grunting, groaning, his body vibrating. “I love when you wear your hair up so I can see your neck.”
I feel like I’m floating in a warm pool. His body relaxes with mine. This has nothing to do with sex, and I quickly realize it, some of that overwhelming desperation flickering away to make room for something great, and it nearly brings me to tears.
“I regret not telling you before,” I say into his hair. His hands drift up my sides. “I feel like I wasted so much time we could have spent together.”
“Do you want this?” His tone drops, darkening.
“Of course–”
“Not sex, Posey. That’s not what I’m asking. I’ll fuck you. I’ll lay you down and ravage you, but I want more than that.” He leans forward slightly, his hands steadying me as we drift, and he rises, carrying me to the bed. His sheets are warm and soft, and they smell like him. He lays me down, his arm braced beneath me, his eyes like quicksilver.
I smooth my hand against his cheek. His stubble scratches my palm. He closes his eyes and leans into the touch.
“I want this, too. I want to stay here with you. I think I can be the kind of Luna you need.”
He opens his eyes, leans in for a kiss, but my hand drops to the mattress, and within the space of a heartbeat, I drift into a deep sleep. It’s endless. I don’t dream. I don’t hear voices, and my sore fingers don’t wake me up in the middle of the night incessantly.
I wake up to warm sunshine for the first time in weeks. The frost on the windows has begun to melt, and streaks of gold wash over the bed, where Aris is tucked beside me, his body curled against mine, our fingers intertwined.
I close my eyes again. I’m not in a rush.
For the first time in my life… I get to live.