Chapter 12 #2
Inside, candles burned and the setting felt surreal.
Silk cushions in crimson and midnight blue.
Wine and fruit on a low table. But it was the ceiling that stole my breath — or rather, the lack of one.
An enchantment showed the sky with impossible clarity, and as I watched, golden-tinged stars faded, replaced by silver ones.
Two skies, overlapping. Two realms bleeding into each other.
"When both moons align," Hakan said softly, "you can see them both. The light realm's sky and the shadow realm's."
I turned to find him watching me, vulnerable beneath the arrogance.
"You did all this for me."
"For us." He closed the distance, hands finding my waist. "I wanted somewhere that was neither realm. Just ours."
My heart pounded. "Why tonight?"
His jaw tightened. For a moment I saw him reaching for his mask, then deciding against it.
"Because I'm done waiting. Because I've wanted you since we were children. Because if I don't have you completely, I'm going to lose my fucking mind."
Heat flooded through me.
"I know what people say about me," he continued, rougher now. "The rumors. The women." His fingers tightened. "They're not entirely lies. There have been others. Hands. Mouths." A muscle jumped in his jaw. "But never this. Never all of it."
I stared at him. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying I've never fucked anyone, Ada." The words came harsh, angry — at himself. "Every time it got that far, I couldn't. Because they weren't you. Because some desperate part of me was waiting, even when I told myself you'd never want someone like me."
My mind reeled. Hakan — arrogant, devastating Hakan — had been waiting. For me.
"Everyone said —"
"I let them say it. Better to be the court whore than the lovesick fool pining after the Light God's daughter." His hands trembled against my waist. "But I wasn't noble. I was a coward. Too afraid to reach for what I wanted."
I grabbed his face. "You absolute idiot."
"Probably." He pulled me closer. "Is that a problem?"
I answered by kissing him.
Not gentle. Not controlled. This was hunger unleashed, months of wanting crashing together. His tongue swept into my mouth and I moaned, pressing so close I could feel every line of his body.
"Ada." My name came out wrecked as he walked me backward into the wall. His forehead dropped to mine, breath ragged. "If we do this, I'm not going to be able to let you go. You understand that?"
"Good." I yanked at his laces. "I don't want you to."
He made a sound low in his throat — not a groan but something feral, something that vibrated through my ribs — and then his hands were on my bodice, yanking the laces apart with fingers that shook.
The fabric loosened, slipped, caught on my nipples before he dragged it down.
Cool air hit my bare skin and I shivered, but Hakan's gaze burned hotter than any fire.
"Fucking perfect." His thumb traced one nipple, rough callused skin against the sensitive peak, and I watched it harden under his touch like my body existed solely to respond to him.
His other hand gripped my jaw, tilting my face up so I couldn't look away.
"Eyes on me. I want to see your face while I ruin you. "
When his mouth replaced his hand — hot, wet, the scrape of teeth — my knees buckled. He caught me with one arm banded around my waist, pressed me harder into the stone, and sucked until I gasped his name.
"There it is." He bit down on my nipple, just hard enough to blur the line between pain and pleasure, then soothed the sting with his tongue. "Louder. No one can hear you up here. It's just us and the sky, and I want every fucking sound you make."
His shadows stirred. I felt them before I saw them — cool tendrils sliding up my calves beneath my skirts, wrapping around my thighs, spreading them apart.
Not asking. Taking. His mouth never left my breast, tongue circling, teeth grazing, while those shadows climbed higher, pushing my skirts up around my hips.
His hand followed. When his fingers found me through my smallclothes, slick and swollen and aching, we both groaned.
"Soaked." He stroked me through the damp fabric, pressing the heel of his palm against my clit until I jerked. "You're fucking dripping, Ada. All this, just from my mouth on your tits?"
"Don't get cocky."
"Too late." He shoved the fabric aside and sank two fingers inside me without warning.
The stretch — the sudden fullness — tore a whimper from my throat.
His thumb found my clit and circled it, slow and deliberate, while his fingers curled.
He read every gasp, every shudder, every involuntary clench of my thighs, adjusting his rhythm like he was studying me — cataloging every reaction for later use.
"You're so tight." His voice had dropped to gravel, his breath ragged against my throat. "So fucking wet. I can feel you squeezing my fingers." He thrust them deeper, crooking against a spot that made my vision blur. "That's the spot, isn't it. Right there."
I couldn't answer. Could only grip his shoulders and ride his hand, chasing the pressure building low in my belly.
"Hakan — I'm going to —"
He withdrew. Both fingers, his thumb, his mouth — everything, all at once — and the loss was so sudden, so devastating, that I nearly sobbed.
"Not yet." He brought his fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean, watching me with dark, hooded eyes. "Not on my fingers. I want you to come on my mouth first."
He lifted me like I weighed nothing — one arm under my knees, the other around my back — and carried me to the silk cushions beneath the impossible sky. But he didn't lay me down gently. He dropped to his knees and set me in front of him, then pulled his shirt over his head in one rough motion.
Gods.
Starlight carved shadows into every ridge of muscle, every scar, the dark trail of hair disappearing beneath his waistband. Beautiful. Dangerous. Mine.
"Like what you see?"
"Come here and find out.”