Chapter Seventeen
Kai
Of all the royal luxuries Kai had experienced here in Dhalias and even in the Silver Kingdom, nothing compared to the luxury of waking up like this.
Turning in his half-conscious state and rolling into the warm divot of the mattress, finding a soft, familiar body stretched out along his own.
He reached out and found her waist easily, like finding his way home in the dark.
And when she shuffled back and curled her body into his, their contented sighs were a harmony.
It was peace and perfection. It was all he had wanted, for weeks now; this simple moment of rest with the woman he loved.
It was untouchable. He was nearly angry with his own body when it inevitably ruined the moment, fully awaking to the day and the reality of Adeline, pressed against him as she was, her curls tickling his skin and the swell of her ass nestled in his lap.
“Oh,” she said, and in that one word, he could hear the smirk in her voice. She sounded bright and rested and far more like her usual self than she had for much of last night. “Good morning, Your Majesty.”
“Sorry, I—”
He was cut off by his own sharp inhale when Adeline made a slow half circle of her hips, grinding herself deliberately against him.
“Sorry?” she repeated innocently.
“Not in the slightest,” he rasped, and she rewarded him with a giggle and another roll of her hips.
He groaned and twitched beneath her—and between one moment and the next, she was not teasing him any longer.
Not giggling or making little remarks. Perhaps she was distracted.
Perhaps it was because his hand had found its way between her thighs; because she was too busy rocking against the heel of his hand as he cupped her, her undergarments growing damp beneath his palm and each of her movements dragging her curves over his aching cock.
As much as he’d enjoyed their peaceful waking embrace, he couldn’t find it in himself to be disappointed in the turn of the morning.
Because this was familiar too; this endless, unsated need for each other was where they had left off so many weeks ago.
If he had any say, it was where they would pick back up, too.
“I want to start my day inside you,” he whispered, and felt her breath stutter where his arm lay across her midsection. And Mother damn him, if he wasn’t emboldened by it, knowing he could still do this to her. Knowing she would hang on his every word—and that he had so very much he wanted to say.
“Just as I used to. Do you remember?” he went on, lowering his voice so that she arched desperately into him. “How I’d stretch and fuck and fill you every morning? How you would feel me between your thighs all day?”
He withdrew his touch, and her whimper tightened every muscle in his body; he was not sure which of them sighed in relief when he slipped his hand down the front of her undergarment.
Both, perhaps. Fuck, she was so warm and wet, her quiet panting breaths such a mesmerising symphony that he nearly lost his train of thought.
He swallowed, struggling to find his way back as he stroked her, slowly, everywhere but where she wanted it most.
“And I’d go about my day knowing you were still slick with my come, and Adeline—” He breathed out her name on a tortured, shuddering exhale and felt her shiver in his arms. “It nearly drove me to madness, more than once. But then I’d find my way back to you by evening, and do it all over again. Every night. Every morning.”
He framed her taut bud between two fingers, teasing but not touching, and she loosed that frustrated groan he’d been waiting for.
“I remember,” she gasped.
“You asked me to stay last night.”
She nodded, distractedly.
“What if I wish to stay every night?
Kai finally swirled both fingers over that swollen bundle of nerves, and his cock jolted at the desperate pitch of her moan. Adhlas, he couldn’t do this much longer. His mind was already bowing to thoughts of flipping her onto her stomach, parting her thighs, making her cry out his name, but first—
He made himself stop and rise to his knees, a feat made all the more difficult by her reproachful whine. She rolled onto her back, searching for him, and he moved seamlessly with her, parting her thighs with his knee and leaning down to pin her chest with his.
“What if I want this every morning? This, or Adhlas, just to wake up beside you, to be with you—”
“Yes,” she breathed. She reached between them and found the button of his trousers, holding his eye as she twisted them open. “Stay every night. I want every night with you, as long as we’re both here.”
He caught her wrist before she could dip her hand lower, even if it physically hurt to stop her.
“More than that,” he said, far steadier than he felt.
Desire was coiling urgently in his belly, tension in his chest, and where they met, he ached for relief in more ways than one.
Not just in finding his release, but in finding an answer.
The question was one that had played on his mind since his visit to Nua Laune.
“I want to stay with you, wherever you are, for good. I want this to be our life from now on.”
Adeline stilled beneath him, momentarily stunned, and then her lashes fluttered, as though she might blink away the heady heat that weighed on her eyelids.
“Kai, I thought—isn’t this the whole reason you came here? You’re leaving for Nua Laune—”
Her gaze dropped from his, and he released her wrist so he could take her chin and guide her eyes to his.
“My people are leaving for Nua Laune. What if I wasn’t? What would that mean for us?”
“I can’t ask you to do that,” she whispered.
But he saw it; the bright flicker in her dark eyes, the hope that lit them no matter how quick she was to smother their light. Kai leaned in, brushed his nose against hers, and felt the wistful gust of her breath against his lips.
“You could ask anything of me, Adeline,” he whispered back. “But by my own reckoning, I am not going to Nua Laune. So I’ll ask you again: what does that mean for us?”
His heart thundered rapidly in his chest; far too many beats for the few short seconds of silence.
“It means—”
She cupped his face and guided him back so she could meet his eye. Her voice was tremulously soft, each word an effort, but she held his gaze as she spoke, and word by word that hopeful light crept back in.
“It means we get to have this. It means you at my side, and in my bed, and—”
He kissed her.
And when her palm slid down his chest again, he urged her on with his grasp over hers, fingers entwined as, together, they slid her hand down his trousers and around his cock.
The next few moments moved in such a blur it did not occur to him that he was still fully dressed, that she was still in her nightgown.
She must have hooked her undergarments to one side, because he was sinking into her already, and the silk of her nightgown clung to her nipple when he wrapped his lips around it, the arch of her back driving him deeper into the welcoming heat of her body.
They moved with the same fevered desperation as they had the night before, as though it had been years since they’d had this chance, and many years more before they’d feel each other’s touch again.
It was all Kai could do to hold back for the few minutes it took to make Adeline shatter, and then he came, groaning through his teeth, to the feel of her fluttering endlessly around his cock.
When they’d both caught their breath—when Kai could think straight again—he got to his knees, and slowly, methodically undressed himself, and then Adeline.
And just as he would have all those weeks ago, he made damned certain she would feel him all day long.
???
Walking through the Imperial City was an event for the senses.
Summer was at its height, and nycta bushes bloomed everywhere, spilling from rooftops and exploding in the gaps from one building to the next, a riot of greens and purples and pinks so thick that the air was seasoned with their scent.
So sweet that Kai could nearly taste them as he walked beneath their scattered canopies, honeybees humming in his ears—and an undeniable spring in his step.
Ridiculous, really.
He still had the Sealgair to worry about. Still had to convince Daithí to take his people in. Still had to find a thoughtful, careful way to break the news to his people that, despite all the trust they had granted him, he could not join them in Nua Laune without compromising their safety.
There was still so much to mend and settle, and yet knowing he had left Adeline in her bed, sleepy and smiling and sated from having come no less than seven times since last night—
Well. Kai couldn’t fault himself for walking a little lighter as he made his way to the shore.
The pale stone roads were warm beneath his soles and blindingly bright, shimmering where they caught the midday sun and forced his eyes to narrow.
He turned past the docks, where fishermen called to one another in rough and rapid tones, wafting the briny smell of the ocean as they unloaded their wares into wooden carts that creaked with each deposit.
The streets beyond them were a cacophony of noise, of carriages rolling uphill, and horses clipping, and merchants hollering enticements to passersby.
But the shore, when he approached, was quiet.
Empty, too, just one long stretch of powdery, golden sand and the high tide lapping away with its gentle froth.
Not a soul to be seen, despite the letter that had found him in Adeline’s bed less than an hour ago, Urgent inked across its folded side and underlined with three bold and even scores.
Despite himself, Kai had huffed a dry laugh as he unfolded the letter, knowing at once who had sent it and how little it affected his bright mood.
Even Simon had seemed uncharacteristically amused as he handed it over.
“Your friend is rather grouchy in the mornings,” he’d said jovially.