Chapter Thirty-Four
VIOLET
It’s evening when we return. We are fortunate that it’s late enough in the season that the sun is still up.
Joon dismisses Mingi and Iseul as soon as we reenter the Western Court, leaving me to escort him to his room. If I am too weary to speak more than a few words at a time, then it is a miracle Joon can hold himself upright at all.
I wait for him to enter, watching to make sure he can make it the rest of the way on his own. “Get some rest.”
He catches my wrist before I can leave. “Will you stay for a while?”
I’m not confident I’ll be able to get back up once I am off my feet, and I need to wash up before I no longer have enough energy. When I asked the same of him, he stayed with me without hesitation.
“Let me wash up first.” I turn toward the door.
“Use mine,” he counters with a yawn. “I want you close.”
“All right.” I sigh. It makes more sense than going to my own apartments for the same purpose.
Joon refuses to budge until I disappear into the bathing room. I emerge a short time later, wearing one of his silk robes that puddles around my feet, to find him collapsed on the bed, still fully dressed.
I trudge over and tug on his arm in a pathetic attempt to get him up. “You should change.”
“I will. I need to gather my strength first.” Joon sighs and rolls onto his side, pulling me with him.
His arms encircle me, holding me against him. I don’t even bother fighting it. I’m too tired, and his firm body, the lines and dips of his muscles that even now tell of his strength pressed against me, feel too good to pull away.
“I am sorry, Violet,” he says into my hair. “If I am honest, I did not expect you to come.”
“I almost didn’t,” I admit.
He stiffens briefly, then asks, “What changed your mind?”
“I…” I didn’t want to leave you. The words are there on the tip of my tongue, but they stick.
But you will, an inner voice whispers.
One way or another, I will have to leave him.
“Everything,” I say eventually.
As if sensing all my unspoken words, he holds me tighter. “All that matters is that you were there.” Joon ducks his head and kisses me. “I swear I will never lie to you again. There are no secrets I have that I will not share with you.”
Blinking, I take in the man holding me and the unfamiliar room. Slowly, everything comes back to me. I don’t remember falling asleep. I hadn’t meant to.
Sun streams through the window. We slept through the evening and all through the night. Though at some point, he must have gotten up to wash and change. The scent of soap lingers on his skin, and his chest is bare.
A groan rumbles from Joon’s chest. “Where are you going?” he mumbles, not bothering to open his eyes. “Sleep more, it’s still early.”
“You need to siphon.”
Joon hums in agreement. Rather than sitting up, he drags me on top of him, smiling sleepily. His fingers tangle in my hair as he pulls my mouth down to his. The kiss is slow and sweet.
His other hand roams over me with a touch that is pure comfort. His tongue traces my bottom lip, coaxing me to open for him. The press of his fingers quickly turns needy, skimming over my breasts and over my ass.
It’s enough to send liquid heat racing through me to gather at my core. And when his hands grip my thighs, I let him part my legs around him, not caring how the robe falls open to expose me. My desire heightens when I feel his length straining under me.
Still, he doesn’t siphon.
“Joon,” I say against his mouth.
His response is to hold down my lower back as he rolls his hips, grinding his cock against me as he slips a hand under the robe to grip my ass.
I shift in a half-hearted effort to gain space so he might focus on what I’m saying. His hold on me tightens as he kisses and nips down my neck. Any resistance fades away.
He hums, pleased by my response. The hand on my ass finds its way between my legs. Fingers graze the extremely sensitive skin along my core, teasing, until I’m writhing.
Then he siphons. Like before, he alternates between pulling the power from me and easing his power through my veins before an episode has a chance to start.
Joon has barely taken any, but before I can comment on it, his fingers slip inside me, turning my words into a moan. There is no hiding how ready I am as he begins moving in and out.
He brings me to the edge of pleasure, keeping me there until I let out a plaintive whimper. His hand leaves me to pull the collar of my robe below my breasts as I tug his waistband just low enough to free him from his night pants. Our need is too strong for us to bother with fully undressing.
With him free, I sit up and gaze at him.
“Take your pleasure.” His hands grip my thighs as he waits for me.
He lets out a breath as I take him in my hand and guide his tip to my entrance.
I sink onto him until every inch of his cock is buried inside me.
His fingers dig into my flesh as my body stretches to accommodate him.
Then, I begin to move, taking my time to savor the way our bodies fit together and the sweet agony of each movement.
His thumb moves to my clit and moves in small circles, sending a jolt through me. His touch makes it impossible to go slow any longer. The sensations he adds to my movements are so intense. I try to escape them, but he follows every shift I make.
My release rips through me in shuddering waves. Before I can come down from the high, Joon lifts me up and slips from me. The world tilts and I’m on my back.
“You are fucking exquisite when you tremble around my cock.” He holds himself above me, positioning himself as he holds me with his intense gaze.
My insides clench with the need to have him fill me again. To move inside me. He doesn’t make me wait long. Driving his hips forward, he enters me hard and fast. My breath snags at the abrupt fullness, of being stretched to accommodate all of him.
His hand travels up to my breasts, caressing and lightly pinching the peak just to hear the sounds he can pull from me.
He moves with a fierce possessiveness. There is nothing gentle about the way he takes me, though he is careful not to hurt. He leans down and kisses his way down my neck to my shoulder and bites down just hard enough to add pleasure to every primal thrust.
He hooks a hand behind one of my knees and brings it up to rest over my shoulder. It allows him to go even deeper.
We don’t bother with words, letting our bodies do the talking. There’s nothing but our moans and the sound of our bodies coming together, chasing away all thoughts of anything other than him.
Joon studies my every reaction. Each gasp and whimper I make unravels his self-control. He speeds up to an almost punishing pace, winding me tighter. It’s not long before he has me gasping from the unbearable need.
I feel his desperation, a mirror of my own, to hold on to this thing we found in each other and fight against the forces that will rip it away. The cruelty of saints to give us a taste of something so coveted and rare, knowing it was never meant for us.
Every time he buries himself, it’s as if he’s trying to claim me so thoroughly that not even fate itself can have sway over me without his permission. And I crave it as desperately as he demands it.
I arch my back as I teeter, suspended over the edge in that endless moment right before the fall. My fingers curl, nails digging into his back as I cling to him. He takes the hint and goes even deeper. We surrender ourselves to the moment and to each other.
It's enough to send me plummeting into the exquisite ecstasy of my climax. My lashes flutter as I fall, and I think I see a shimmering strand between us. But I lose it as he drives into me with increasing force. His rhythm faltering as my body clenches around him and I cry out my release.
Even when my orgasm fades, everything is so sensitive that my body shudders in the aftershock of every powerful stroke of his cock. He lets out a sound from his throat, a groan of part pleasure, part utter possessiveness. He thickens inside me, and I can feel every throb as he finds release.
Gradually, he slows, then reluctantly slips from me. Joon gathers me in his arms as he collapses beside me. He holds me, my limbs tangling with his, as he trails kisses over my neck and shoulder.
“I want countless mornings of waking up just like this,” Joon murmurs against my skin.
Affection swells in my chest. I never dared to want something so permanent before. It would be easy to let myself dream that it could last longer than the brief moment of our lives.
And all the more painful when it never happens.
No matter how much I want to tell him I want the same, I can’t bring myself to encourage something that will only bring both of us more heartbreak in the end.
“You didn’t siphon enough,” I remind him. My voice is lazy. Almost slurring with the weight of sleep.
Joon nuzzles into the crook of my neck. “Have dinner with me tonight?”
The request is so tender and innocent compared to what we just did that I pull back to look at him. His eyes hold more adoration than I deserve.
How will I ever bear to leave him when the time comes?
I push a stray lock off his forehead, running my fingers through the long, black strands that fade to the color of frost at the ends. Soft as silk.
I cup his cheek. He touches me in ways no one ever has—creating a desire, an insatiable need within me I never realized was possible. He makes me long for things I cannot have. He makes me believe I could live a life as ordinary as anyone else’s, one where it is not pointless to give my heart away.
We knew this arrangement would be temporary from the beginning. Already, I fear it’s too late for us. With every look and touch and word, he further deepens his claim on my broken heart, turning our illusion into a star-crossed fate.