Chapter Forty-Eight Irian
Chapter Forty-Eight
Irian
Irian kissed his wife, her lips soft as velvet and her breath sharp with desire.
His wife. His wife.
Even in the darkest chapters of their love story, he had thought of Fia so.
When he had believed her dead after the Ember Moon, she had still been his wife.
When her anguished words had sundered the magic binding them before the Longest Night, she had still been his wife.
When she had clawed him and fought him and surged over him with eyes of silver, she had still been his wife.
Fia had always been—and would always be—Irian’s wife.
But to hear the words spoken aloud, to inscribe the vow anew over all that had been written and erased, again and again, felt like a new covenant.
An oath made in the language of old stories, inked upon the parchment of their fevered skin, and sealed in defiance beneath the syzygy of savage stars.
She is mine. I am hers. Come what may.
Irian dragged Fia closer and she melted into him, slipping her hands over his chest and tangling her fingertips in the hair growing long at the nape of his neck.
His tongue slid against her soft lower lip, delving between her teeth and forcing her mouth open on his.
His arms caged her as she crashed against him, fingers fumbling on the buckles of his armor, grazing beneath the hem of his undershirt, and rippling the muscles of his torso in their wake.
Irian had never been much for intoxicants—self-possession his sharpest weapon and his strongest shield.
But the allure of Fia’s sweet mouth on his was headier than human ale, the temptation of her soft body pressed to his more ambrosial than áthas.
He was already drunk on her, and he wanted more. Always more.
She drew back an inch. His lips already missed the imprint of hers. “Why the rush?”
“You said we had but an hour.” Her heartbeat slanted beneath his palm. How he had missed her. Missed this.
Her head tilted. “That is plenty of time.”
He growled, low in his throat, and flipped her onto her back upon the softness of their cloaks. “Not when I plan to make you come at least twice.”
Kneeling over her, he swiftly finished the haphazard job she had started on his armor, undoing the last few buckles and tossing it down.
His shirt followed. Fia propped herself onto her elbows to boldly admire him, and he could not help but return the favor—the lantern light shivering over her dainty chin and the ripeness of her parted lips and the sleek angles of her collarbones winging above her shift.
He folded himself over her, drawing her arms above her head as he kissed along the column of her throat.
Wedging his thigh between her knees, he deepened his weight between her legs.
She gasped, bucking her hips, and ecstatic heat surged to life inside him, tightening the muscles of his stomach.
“Only twice?” Her laugh was raw with desire, ragged with affection. It made him delirious—to be wanted, in the same way that he wanted. To be loved, in the same way he loved.
He smiled a little as his fingers found the ties of her bodice. He unlaced them, deft. “It has been months.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “It has.”
But when Fia’s dress cascaded away to bare her graceful arms and trim waist and perfect breasts, he made no move to touch her.
He longed suddenly to memorize her—to map the shape of her lips upon his skin, to imprint the color of her mismatched eyes upon his heart, to engrave the curves of her body upon his darkest reaches.
To carve her very essence onto the marrow of his bones, so that when the world unraveled, he would still hold every piece of her inside him.
Not in a thousand lifetimes will I ever let you go.
Only then did he touch her, splaying a hand that felt too rough against the softness of the skin above her heart. “Once, I lost you. Twice, I have wed you. Forever, I will love you.”
Fia bit her lip with pleasure but could not hide faint melancholy. She laid her palm over his hand, until their heartbeats aligned. Hand to skin. Skin to hand. “Forever is a long time, Irian.”
“A moment or an eternity—it is more than I hoped for.” The words slipped easily from his mouth. He meant them. “You are more than I hoped for.”
Fia’s eyes widened, and he knew she remembered—as he did—another night. Another cloak laid upon another floor. Another farewell.
“We have had enough of bitterness,” Fia murmured. “And there will surely be more to come. Let tonight be sweet.”
She was right. Tonight should not be a goodbye.
“What have I told you, colleen?” He forced away solemnity, allowing his mouth to quirk sideways. “About calling me sweet?”
Irian drew back onto his knees, lifting Fia with him.
She let out a faint sigh as he settled her in his lap, slinging her legs around his tapered waist. His hands eased her dress the rest of the way down her arms to pool around her hips.
A sly little breeze followed the path of his hands, pebbling her flesh and peaking her bared nipples.
She gasped, and he dared to palm her breasts, pushing them up as he bent his head to roll his tongue over the sensitive flesh.
Arching into the touch, she tangled her hands in her own hair; the starstone ring shone like a blinding star against the night sky of her glossy dark head.
Fia settled her weight deeper into Irian’s lap and swept her hands over his rigid chest, the flexed lines of muscles ridging his stomach.
His trousers strained; her fingers on his waistband fumbled to free him.
He groaned, dropping his head to her shoulder as she began to slowly stroke him, nearly losing himself to the ecstatic thrill of her deft, delicate touch.
His hands found the hem of her dress; he shoved it over her knees, over her thighs, all the fabric puddling around her waist. His fingers dug into her rear, pulling her abruptly closer, as he pressed his length against the damp fabric of her underclothes.
Anticipation pulsed through him. He could not resist her.
Sudden shyness flicked Fia’s eyes up to the bright glass lanterns fluttering in the lilac-scented breeze. “Should we dim the lights?”
“Let me look at you. Let me touch you. Let me taste you.” Irian shook his head. “Let me devour you with all my senses.”
Fia did not argue, merely bent her head to capture his bottom lip with her mouth.
He pushed aside her underthings to where her pleasure blossomed.
He slipped one finger inside her ready wetness, then another.
She gasped against his mouth, rocked against his touch.
Murmured meaningless words like please and more and yes.
Her easy, sweet surrender to him unraveled a measure of his control, and he suddenly could not bear to be anywhere else but inside her.
She made a noise of complaint when he drew his hand away. But the rest of him was already nudging against her, his proud length seeking her heat. She braced her hands against his chest, then eased down onto him with aching slowness.
Irian held himself perfectly still, his eyes locked on Fia’s face and his arms bracing her weight.
He clung to the last of his restraint as they fused—face to face, chest to chest, belly to belly.
No longer just themselves, but something more.
Something whole. Then the sensation of her around him—glorious wetness and agonizing tightness and wonderful warmth—finally shattered him.
His hands tightened on her rear as he closed the last inch between them with one powerful thrust. Together they fell, like the seasons or the rain or the stars unlatched from the high heavens.
It was a descent they both made willingly—a dissolution, an unraveling, a splendid undoing.
A controlled dive into the depths of each other.
Fia fractured, her sharp cry of release belling between them.
Her legs strangled his waist as she rode out the waves of her climax, and he fought not to follow her over the edge.
Not yet. Petals rained around them, soft as memory and sweet as song.
Irian buried his face between her breasts, breathing in the euphoric scents of crushed moss and new leaves.
When Fia softened against him, he rolled briskly atop her, covering her with his frame as he thrust even deeper inside her.
She drove him on with her heels in the small of his back, her hands on his shoulders, her lips dragging perilous kisses against the column of his throat.
“Colleen,” he growled, even as he kept his pace careful. Exacting. Excruciating. There was already so much heat, so much want, so much yearning between them. Any more, and he was sure to lose himself. “You are not making this easy on me.”
Her laugh was little more than a gasp. “You have never enjoyed easy, my heart.”
“When you put it like that…” His thumb brushed over her lower lip. “I never do refuse a challenge.”
She parted her mouth and drew his thumb between her teeth, swirling her tongue over the tip.
All the iron will of him hardened—he pushed ever deeper inside her, driving her toward another peak.
She arched against him, writhing and bucking as the lantern light splintered over their sweat-slicked bodies.
The garden sighed a midnight melody, buoyant and breathless as it blossomed in profusion, scenting the air with a thousand luminous flowers.
“Wait.” Fia could not catch her breath. “Wait for me, and I will come with you. One more time. But you must give me a moment.”
Painstakingly, Irian slid out of her. He braced her stiff fingers between his hands as she shuddered, kissed gently down her neck as she gasped and moaned. His need for her was a clamor he could hardly deny. But he would never demand anything of her she was not willing to give.
“Colleen,” he murmured against her salt-damp skin, when at last she stilled. “Can you take me now?”