Chapter 45 Esther #2
Soft with the promise of peace.
Nythir stepped toward her, voice low.
The castle had quieted around them, settling into a rare, fragile stillness.
Esther realized she wasn’t bracing for the next disaster.
For the first time, she allowed herself to exist in the aftermath. Allowed herself to feel the exhaustion, the joy, the grief, and the relief without trying to organize it into duty.
She turned toward Nythir, already knowing she would follow him anywhere.
“Come with me.”
Her heart tripped over itself.
She followed.
They went to her chambers—quiet, dim, moonlight spilling through the window like a blessing.
She closed the door behind them.
Nythir turned toward her, expression unguarded, vulnerable, fierce.
“You nearly died,” he said softly.
“So did you,” she whispered.
He stepped closer until their breaths touched.
“I don’t want to be apart anymore,” he said. “Not for a mission. Not for politics. Not for fear. Not for anything.”
Esther’s heart thudded. “Nythir…”
He reached up, gently brushing a thumb over the faint burn mark on her collarbone. She could have healed it.
He could have healed it.
But she wanted to keep it as a reminder—a scar she would wear with pride.
“You scared me,” he said. “Not because you were in danger—though you were—but because I realized something I should’ve said a long time ago.”
She swallowed. “And what’s that?”
“That I am in love with you,” he murmured. “Utterly. Hopelessly. Permanently. I don’t care if you’re a fugitive or a queen or the girl who fell on me in the woods. I want you.”
Esther felt her heart drop into her stomach and rise into her throat at the same time.
She stepped closer. “Then take me.”
His breath hitched.
“Essie—”
She pulled him down into a kiss.
It wasn’t frantic like before, Draewyn.
It wasn’t desperate, or rushed, or fueled by impending doom.
It was steady.
Warm.
Full of a future, she finally allowed herself.
He kissed her back. Slow at first, then deeper, unhurried with intent.
His hands framed her face as though he needed to memorize every inch of her.
Esther curled her fingers in his shirt and tugged him closer, until there was no space left to doubt, until she could feel his heartbeat thrum hard and certain against her own.
The world softened around them.
Her body melted into his without thought or fear, instinct guiding her where courage once had been.
His mouth traced a reverent path down her jaw, lingering at the corner of her lips as if reluctant to leave them, then lower.
He kissed her throat. Across the pulse he’d spent too many nights afraid of losing.
Her gasp broke the quiet.
Nythir shuddered at the sound, a low, helpless breath leaving him as his grip tightened around her waist, grounding and possessive all at once.
“Essie,” he murmured, voice rough now, nothing careful left in it.
“Nythir,” she breathed back, fingers sliding up to curl at the nape of his neck, holding him there.
He rested his forehead against hers, eyes closed, breath uneven. “Tell me what you want.”
She didn’t hesitate. “You,” she whispered. “Tonight. Tomorrow. Always.”
Her hands went to the fastenings of his tunic.
He went to the laces of her dress. There was no fumbling, only a shared, silent urgency.
The heavy fabric of his tunic whispered to the floor.
Her dress followed, a pool of dark blue at their feet.
The cool air of the chamber kissed her skin, raising goosebumps, but his gaze was hotter than any fire.
He looked at her, standing in only her thin shift, and the raw hunger in his eyes stole her breath. “You’re beautiful,” he said, the words a hoarse truth.
His hands settled on her hips, calloused thumbs stroking the delicate skin just above the line of her undergarments. Every nerve ending there sang. He lowered his head and kissed the scar on her collarbone, his tongue tracing the mark with a reverence that made her whimper.
He guided her backward toward the bed, his mouth never leaving her skin. He kissed a trail down her sternum, over the swell of her breast through the linen, his hot breath seeping through the fabric. Her head fell back. Her fingers tangled in his dark hair.
“Off,” she pleaded, tugging at the fabric of her shift. “Please.”
He obliged, pulling the garment up and over her head in one smooth motion. The cool air hit her bare skin, but only for a second before his warmth replaced it. He stared, his gaze drinking her in, and the sheer intensity of his focus was its own kind of touch. Then his mouth found her breast.
Oh, stars.
His lips closed over her nipple, and a sharp, electric pleasure shot straight to the apex of her thighs.
He suckled, firm and insistent, while his hand cupped her other breast, kneading, his thumb circling the peak until it was a hard, aching point.
She cried out, her hips bucking against nothing, a desperate, empty feeling coiling low in her belly.
He switched sides, lavishing the same attention on her other breast, and her legs trembled. She felt the hard length of him pressed against her thigh, and the knowledge that he was as undone as she was sent a fresh wave of heat through her.
“Nythir,” she gasped, her hands scrambling for the waistband of his trousers. He helped her, unfastening them and pushing them down his hips, kicking them away.
Then he was bare against her. Skin to skin. The feel of him, solid and hot and his, was almost too much. He was beautiful—all lean muscle and sharp lines and the faint, silvery tracery of old scars that told stories she’d learn later.
He lay her back on the bed, coming over her, bracing his weight on his forearms. He kissed her again, deep and consuming, and she could taste herself on his lips, a salty, intimate tang.
His thigh pressed between hers, and she moaned into his mouth, grinding against the hard muscle, seeking friction.
He broke the kiss, his breath ragged against her cheek. “Essie, I need to… I need to feel you.”
“Yes,” was all she could manage.
He shifted, his hand sliding down her stomach, over the quivering plane of her belly, lower. His fingers brushed through the soft curls, and she jerked. He stroked her, a light, teasing touch that made her whimper.
He slid a finger through her slick folds, circling the sensitive nub at the apex. Her back arched off the bed. A sharp, perfect shock of pleasure. He did it again, a little firmer, and her vision swam.
“Please,” she begged, not even sure what she was asking for. “Please, Nythir.”
He positioned himself at her entrance. He looked into her eyes, his gaze holding hers with an anchor’s weight. “Look at me,” he whispered.
Then he pushed inside.
It was a slow, inexorable, blissful stretch.
He was careful, letting her body adjust, but the fullness was overwhelming.
She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders.
He was buried to the hilt, and for a moment, they both just stayed there, joined, breathing each other’s air, hearts hammering in unison.
He began to move.
A slow, deep withdrawal, then a thrust that rocked her into the mattress.
It was everything. The friction, the heat, the sheer rightness of it.
Each stroke lit a new fire inside her. He found a rhythm, deep and steady, each thrust brushing against a spot inside her that made stars burst behind her eyelids.
“Right there,” she sobbed, her heels hooking behind his thighs, pulling him deeper. “Don’t stop.”
He wouldn’t. He was relentless. His pace increased, his thrusts growing harder, more urgent.
The slap of skin on skin filled the quiet room.
She could feel the tension coiling tighter and tighter inside her, a spring wound to its breaking point.
His mouth found hers again in a messy, open-mouthed kiss as he drove into her, over and over.
His hand slipped between their bodies, his fingers finding that aching nub again. A few precise circles was all it took.
The climax shattered her.
It ripped through her with a violence that was pure ecstasy. Her body clamped around him, wave after wave of intense, pulsing pleasure that stole her breath and her sight. She heard her own cry, raw and unfiltered, as she shattered.
Feeling her clench around him, he let out a broken groan, his rhythm faltering. “Essie… I can’t…”
He drove into her once, twice more, deep and hard, and then he went rigid above her. A hot flood spilled deep inside her, and he collapsed against her, his face buried in her neck, his whole body shuddering with the force of his release.
They lay tangled, breathless, sweat-slicked. He was still inside her, and she never wanted him to leave. His lips brushed her shoulder, then the scar on her collarbone again.
“Mine,” he whispered, the word a vow against her skin.
“Forever,” she answered back with a kiss.