Riven #2
Something breaks in me then. Not just desire unleashed, but the walls around my heart cracking open.
Not the calculated prince trained since childhood to control every emotion, not the cold warrior who’s killed without hesitation.
Just a man who’s been fighting so hard not to feel this, not to need this, and failing miserably.
I lift her against the cave wall, my hips grinding into hers, my hardness pressing against her through our clothes. The gasp she releases sends a shudder through my body. The temperature between us fluctuates wildly—ice crystals forming and melting as my control starts to fracture.
“I’ve made mistakes. But you’ve changed me,” I confess, the truth spilling out as my hands slide under her shirt, fingers tracing the delicate skin over her ribs, up to the swell of her breast. “From the moment I saw you, you’ve been breaking down every wall I’ve built.
You’re making me want to be better. For you. ”
Emotion tightens in her throat—I can see it, the shimmer of tears in her eyes. “You’ve always been enough, Riven. You just never saw it.”
I pull back just enough to look at her, stunned by her words. No one has ever seen beyond the icy mask of the Winter Prince. No one has ever bothered to look. Naked vulnerability rises inside me—a terrifying openness I haven’t allowed myself since I was a child.
“With you, I want to believe it,” I whisper, my voice rough with emotion I can barely contain. “I try to.”
My hand slides lower, slipping beneath the waistband of her pants.
When my fingers part her, finding her wet and ready for me, I nearly come undone.
I stroke her with all the precision and focus I’ve honed in battle, watching every reaction, every flicker of pleasure across her face.
My eyes never leave hers—I can’t look away, captivated by the trust I see there, the vulnerability she’s offering.
“You’re so beautiful.” Awe threads through my voice as she moves against my hand. Ice crystals form in the air around us, suspended and glittering, responding to the surge of emotion I can’t contain. “Let go for me. Let me see you come apart.”
When her release hits, it’s like watching a storm break.
Her water magic erupts around us, droplets suspended in the air before cascading down the cave walls in rivulets of shimmering blue.
I watch, transfixed, chest heaving as I fight for control of my own body, my own magic.
My jaw clenches against the need pulsing through me, demanding release.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me?” I ask, my voice rough with the emotion I’m struggling to contain.
Even now, part of me is terrified—of feeling too much, of losing myself completely, of what comes after.
But even though I should, I can barely think about the after.
All I can think about is this moment, with Sapphire, and the need to know what it’s like to be one with her, fully and completely.
My hands find the hem of her shirt, urgent now. She raises her arms, and I peel the fabric away, my breath catching as more of her is revealed. For a moment, all I can do is look at her—drinking in every curve, every shadow, and every detail.
Inside me, a war rages. The prince I was raised to be—cold, calculated, and detached—is fighting against the man I am with her. The man who wants to let her in, who’s desperate to be hers, who already belongs to her in ways I’m only beginning to understand.
“Your turn,” she murmurs, fingers reaching for my shirt.
I help her strip it away, exposed now in more ways than one as her gaze travels over my bare chest. For the first time in my life, I’m being seen—not as the Winter Prince, not as my father’s son—but just as Riven. And it leaves me trembling.
We undress each other with growing urgency—hands roaming, unfastening, sliding across bare skin as more and more barriers fall away.
When the last piece of clothing drops to the cave floor, I exhale shakily and lower her down, my body following, covering hers.
The muscles of my abdomen brush against the softness of her stomach, my hips settling perfectly between her thighs, hard and ready against her entrance.
The press of her against me sends electricity racing through my veins, my core aching with need.
Every muscle in my body draws tight with restraint, trembling with the effort not to thrust forward, to claim her completely.
“If we do this—” I stop, struggling to find words for what I’m feeling. How do I tell her this isn’t just physical desire? That what I feel for her has become so much more? “I don’t think I can go back to before. To pretending you’re just—”
She presses her fingers to my lips, silencing me. “I don’t want to go back, either.”
Something flickers to life inside me—that desperate, haunted hope I’ve spent a lifetime crushing. The belief that maybe, just maybe, I could have this. Have her. That she might not be taken from me like everything else I’ve ever loved.
“I’ve spent my whole life guarding myself,” I confess, the admission costing me, scraping against years of training, years of believing vulnerability was weakness.
“And then you came along and just—” I make a gesture with my hand, ice crystals forming and shattering in the air, a perfect reflection of what she’s done to every defense I’ve ever built.
“You broke through. Like it was nothing.”
My words hang between us, raw and exposed. I’ve never been this honest and open with anyone. The terror of it nearly chokes me.
“I’m glad I did,” she whispers, pulling me closer until our foreheads touch.
I kiss her then—wild and hungry, like I’m trying to pour everything I can’t say into the press of my lips, the slide of my tongue.
Like I’m trying to crawl inside her skin, to lose myself where I know it’s safe.
For the first time since my mother died, I’m not afraid of what I feel. Not when I’m feeling it with her.
She arches beneath me, hips lifting to welcome me, to take me in. But I catch her waist with my hand, holding her still. There’s one more thing I need—one truth I have to know before I can surrender completely.
“I need to know this is real,” I murmur, my forehead resting against hers. “That it’s not just another thing that’ll be taken from me.”
The vulnerability in my words strips me bare, more naked than my unclothed body ever could. I’m revealing the deepest fear that’s haunted me since childhood—that everything I love will eventually be lost. My mother. My father’s sanity. Ghost, in the storm. And now, potentially, her.
She cradles my face in her hands, forcing me to meet her gaze. “It’s real,” she promises, blue eyes steady on mine. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
I stare into her, searching for the hesitation—for the doubt—and finding none. Only certainty. Only truth. And something in me settles. Steadies. My breath trembles out as I shift, lining us up, the tip of me pressing against her entrance.
Slowly, I push inside.
The sensation is exquisite—tight heat enveloping me inch by inch. I grit my teeth against the urge to thrust fully forward, to claim her completely in a single movement.
She gasps, back arching, body clenching around me, drawing me deeper. The grip of her around me is almost too much to bear.
“Sapphire,” I groan, eyes fluttering closed as pleasure washes over me. When I open them again, I know they’re blazing with heat—an emotion so different from the ice I normally wield. “You feel like coming home.”
I draw out slowly, then push back in, deeper this time—a smooth, grinding thrust that makes her gasp again.
Each movement is deliberate, controlled, the last remnant of the discipline that’s been beaten into me since childhood.
But now that discipline serves a different purpose—ensuring that her pleasure, her comfort, comes before my own.
I move like I’m committing her to memory. Like I want this carved into me. Like it might be the only time I ever get to have this—to have her—and I can’t waste a single sensation.
She wraps her legs around my waist, pulling me deeper, matching my rhythm. Our bodies move together in a harmony that feels both new and somehow ancient, like some part of me has always known how to love her.
Our magic responds to our mounting passion, forming a tempest around us.
Where my frost meets her water, something new emerges—a shimmering, ethereal phenomenon that feels like our elements recognizing what we ourselves haven’t fully admitted.
Ice fractals dance in the air, catching the light as they form and dissolve.
Water droplets float and freeze, creating a crystalline canopy above us.
“See that?” I say, my voice strained but filled with wonder. “That’s us. That’s what we are together.”
She cups my face, dragging me down into a kiss that makes me shudder—a full-body tremor that breaks my rhythm, forcing me deeper inside her. I find a new pace then—faster, deeper, driving into her with a force that makes her cry out, her nails digging into my back, marking me as hers.
“Come apart for me again,” I breathe, the words a rough plea, ice crystals forming and shattering with each thrust. “Let me feel you.”
I slow just enough to build the pressure unbearably—grinding deep, deliberate, watching her face as pleasure builds. I shift my angle, finding that spot inside her that makes her gasp, and focus there, determined to feel her come undone around me.
Her body convulses around me, clenching hard as she cries out my name.
Her magic explodes outward in shimmering waves that ripple across the cave walls, water and ice merging in a display so beautiful it steals my breath as her climax ripples around me, tight pulses that drag me closer to the edge of my own release.