Chapter 7
AMEIRAH
The silver disc of the moon sat low in the sky, its cool ray of light chilling my skin as I stretched out on the flat rooftop of a familiar tower in Red Manniston. I was on the rooftop garden of the Diamond. I was home.
The stone was cold under me, bleeding through the delicate fabric of my sheer underthings, but I stopped caring about that one second later as Varidian covered my body, his skin as hot as the sun and his clothes conveniently absent.
I couldn’t remember how I’d got here, couldn’t remember what led to this moment with my husband’s body pressing mine into the rooftop as his lips found my shoulder, my collarbone, my throat, but I didn’t care.
“Are you real?” he breathed against my skin, dragging his mouth up my jaw. “Am I dreaming?”
Dreaming. That made sense. He wasn’t truly here, or rather, neither of us was.
“It must be a dream,” I agreed. “I know when I fell asleep, I was in my bed in Morysen.”
“Morysen,” he groaned with disgust, his kisses finding my cheek, the corner of my eye, my temple. “I should never have sent you there. What was I thinking?”
I knew he was an illusion conjured by my subconscious, but why should that mean I didn’t berate him?
“Yes, what were you thinking?” I demanded, irritation breaking through the heady warmth of him wrapped around me and the slow burn of my arousal. “I’m furious with you for sending me away. I want a real kiss,” I added when he kissed down the other side of my face.
He drew back a few inches to look at me, and when topaz blue eyes locked on mismatched brown and violet, I felt the contact in my chest. My heart soared, flew. My breathing became unsteady. This felt too real.
“Is the kiss at all related to your fury at me?”
“Not one bit,” I replied, sinking my fingers into his hair and pulling out the tie until silken strands fell like a dark curtain around us, my free hand exploring the muscles of his back in a proprietary way. Mine. This man, infuriating as he may be, was all mine. “Kiss me anyway.”
“As my wife commands,” he agreed and brushed his lips to mine in a teasing whisper of a touch.
I tightened my grip on his hair and realised that was exactly what he wanted when he smiled a moment before I took a true and deep kiss for myself.
His groan travelled down my tongue and settled low in my body.
I kissed him with a ravenous demand, my hunger endless yet matched by his greed for me.
For long, long minutes we lay there on the rooftop, surrounded by olive trees and sweet-perfumed flowers, hands making desperate reacquaintance with each other’s bodies, relearning what made gasps cut the silence, what made groans vibrate between us.
Our kisses never ended, never slowed, only grew more frantic with each second that slipped past.
“Ameirah,” he gasped against my mouth, his hand on my thigh as I made room for him to settle between my legs, the fit of him against me divine. “Fuck, dearling, I missed you.”
I gentled my fingers on his hair, brushed through the strands with care, the aching emotion in his eyes making my chest hurt. “I missed you, too.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand.
I can’t breathe right unless you’re at my side.
There’s a constant ache in my chest, forever begging to be soothed by your presence.
Every moment of every day, I think about you.
What you’d say if you were with me, if you’d be smiling or issuing those delightful threats of murder.
I delude myself into feeling the press of your hand against mine just so I can put one foot in front of the other and keep walking.
But the fantasies are ghosts compared to the real thing.
Your scent has already begun to fade, and what if we’re apart so long I forget your scent and—why are you crying? ”
I didn’t have words for the swell of emotion in my chest. Instead of answering, I angled my face up and kissed him, slow and tender and sweet this time.
I hooked my leg around his, aligning my core with the desperate hardness of him and rolling my hips slowly, the sheer fabric like whispers, like nothing at all between us.
I felt everything, and I knew he did too when he bowed his head and screwed his eyes shut, his chest expanding with a rough breath.
“I love you,” I murmured. My throat was painfully thick with emotion, everything he’d said landing on my bruised soul like healing touches, kissing away the pain of abandonment. “I’ll postpone shouting at you until we meet in person.”
“Very generous,” he said in the same emotion-rough tone as mine, his palms splayed over my waist, one exploring higher until his warm hand cupped my breast. The other guided my thigh wider, baring me to him as he stroked the length of his cock along me.
My breath caught, a sharp throb coursing like fire through me. “Varidian.”
“Good, wife?”
I groaned. “You know it is. Don’t stop.”
“This, exactly this, is what I think about every sleepless night. Not just the cold of the bed beside me where you belong, but how much time we’re wasting apart when I could be hearing you gasp, when I could watch your chest heaving so beautifully, when I could watch your eyes turn heavy lidded.
Fuck, just like that,” he breathed when the next roll of his hips made my eyes flutter.
The sensation, the fire, the shivering pleasure of it was almost too much after a week apart.
“Varidian. Is this real?”
His teeth scraped his bottom lip, the next stroke of him through my heated flesh as good for him as it was for me. My underthings had soaked through so badly that my need coated him, too. “Nothing has ever felt this real, my love, my beautiful wife, my dearling Ameirah.”
“Careful, you’re beginning to sound obsessed again.”
“I am,” he said with a breathless laugh, kissing me once, twice, three times, like he couldn’t help himself. “I am thoroughly and unapologetically obsessed with you. Tell me I can touch you.”
“You already are.”
He groaned loudly, as if I was tormenting him.
His head landed on my chest, and he remained there for a long moment, just breathing, soaking in the warmth of me as I ran my fingers through his hair.
“You know what I mean. Ameirah.” When I only smiled, he said, a whine almost certainly in his voice, “Dearling, please.”
I grinned, a little trill of power going through me. I kissed the top of his head and said, “I do so love it when you beg, husband.”
His groan was deeper, guttural.
I caught his hand and placed it between my thighs, the slide of our fingers so slick even through sheer lace. “Touch me anywhere, everywhere, wherever you wish.”
“Since this is a dream,” he said, gravelly, “you can’t get mad at me for this.”
A tug at my underwear was the only clue I had before the delicate fabric ripped, and there was indeed a flash of irritation through my chest, but it was overcome by sensation and bright sparks of pleasure as his fingers made a thorough exploration.
It wasn’t gentle or slow; it set me on immediate fire.
My hips jumped off the now-warmed stone of the roof, my mouth parted, eyes locked on the wicked blue of my husband’s.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” Varidian groaned, his stare roving over every part of me he could see, returning always to my face as I gasped, moaned, and arched beneath him.
“We should live here forever, locked in this dream, driven utterly mad by so much pleasure that our hearts struggle to take it.”
“Sounds dangerous,” I managed to gasp even as two fingers slid inside me, stroking with intimate knowledge of my body. He took advantage of my parted lips to kiss me, deep, licking, devouring.
“You,” he panted between demanding sucks. “You are dangerous.”
The compliment gave me butterflies, painted a lazy smile across my face as I reached between us and wrapped my hand around the swollen hardness of him. His exhaled curse felt like another compliment, like the highest praise.
“Slowly,” he warned. “Fuck, Ameirah, it’s already too much.”
I returned my mouth to his for another deep kiss, giving myself over to the madness and beauty of it, not realising just how mad it could drive me until his thumb found my aching clit at the same time his fingers moved within me.
It took three strokes, a filthy kiss, and the feeling of him throbbing in my hand to send me crashing over the edge.
Pleasure hit me so completely that starlight fractured across my vision, my head thrown back, neck arched.
Varidian’s teeth scraped down the exposed skin, sending a bright flash of ecstasy through every sense in my body.
“Insanity,” he breathed against my skin. “It would be pure insanity if—”
I was surely insane because the second air slammed back into my lungs, vision returning and gracing me with the sight of my wild-eyed husband, I wanted more, immediately.
He breathed my name like a prayer as I guided his fingers from me and gripped his cock.
He snarled my name like a curse when I took him inside me.
Light illuminated the sky above us at his first thrust, the movement seemingly beyond his command.
“Losing control, dear husband?” I asked, thoroughly smug.
His answer was a groan, buried in the juncture between my neck and shoulder. Another flash of lightning shot across the sky, and I smirked, sliding a broad touch down his back to give his ass a possessive squeeze.
“Deeper,” I purred, and oh god, Varidian did not disappoint.
“I am never leaving this dream,” he said. Fingertips pressed into my thighs as he took me with deep strokes, the pace just fast enough to send me spiralling towards another release but slow enough to deny me the frantic joining I craved. “I will live here forever.”
I meant to retort something witty and dry, but his hips shifted to a new angle and robbed me of all speech.
A feral moan replaced all words on my tongue, and my back arched.
The heat of his hands on my body, the friction of his body on mine, the intense light in his eyes as he watched me writhe… I couldn’t take it.
“Varidian,” I panted. “Please.”
“Mm? Is there something you want, Dearling?”
I bared my canines, so close to the edge and closer still with every thrust, every touch. “I want a kiss, and I want you harder, and I want—”
He gave me everything before I could even finish, his mouth slamming into mine like a battle, the crash of his hips into mine a declaration and a blessing, making true, limitless pleasure shoot through my veins. When his thumb swept firm circles over my clit, I was gone.
Lightning shattered across the sky, across my senses as pleasure gripped my body, demanding Varidian follow me over the edge.
His cry merged with my moans, merged with the rumble of thunder as his magic blasted out of control.
Wind joined the lightning, a welcome coolness that fell in raindrops against my heated skin.
Slowly, bit by bit, I drifted back to the rooftop, back into my body. I was utterly weightless; surely I would have drifted away if not for the weight of Varidian atop me.
“Ameirah,” he groaned, his head on my chest. “I genuinely think you’re trying to stop my heart.”
I snorted softly. “I like your heart beating, thank you very much. But I don’t mind if it skips a beat or two.”
“How are you so good at this?”
“At what?” I stretched under him, enjoying the feeling of him still inside me, and stroked my palms down his warm back. My fingertips traced scars from battles long past.
“Ruining me,” he replied. “You excel at it.”
“It’s my favourite pastime.” I smiled, sweeping my hands up his muscled back to sink them into his hair. That thick, glorious hair. I’d never tire of feeling it spill over my skin.
“Of course reducing me to a trembling mess is your—” His whole body stiffened, relaxed muscles tensing all at once, and his head snapped up to stare at the sky. “How long?”
“What?” My heart quickened, confusion clashing with alarm as Varidian gently slid out of me and sat up, scanning the stormy sky. Lightning flickered as if in answer, another bolt only seconds behind it.
“How long has the sky been like this?”
“A few minutes,” I replied, trying to cling to lazy satisfaction.
I rested my hand on his shoulder, muscles built by years of wyvern riding and warring pulled taut beneath my palm.
The last time I’d seen him this tense, he’d told me the lightning soul lived inside him and then he knocked me unconscious and sent me to Morysen out of some deluded attempt to keep me safe. “What’s wrong?”
“I think it’s a warning. She’s trying to reach me and—”
Silence stole his voice from me, and I lunged forward as if I could catch him as he physically vanished, until where he’d just sat there was nothing more than a ray of moonlight on the rooftop.
Gone.
But the panic in my heart remained, and I had a feeling it would live there until I set eyes on him again.