29 Imogen #5
“In my carriage,” he groaned. “With your gown hiked up between us.” Another thrust and thank the Gods this time it was faster.
“In my garden, among the flowers.” His thrusts were coming harder; he lowered one of my legs from his shoulder, pushing it up and out.
His next thrust was deliberate and deep.
I gasped, my body rushing with sparks. “Mmm. Where else?”
That dimple. That smile. “On my throne.” He picked up his pace. His voice was like the night for how soft and overwhelming and dark it became. “You spread wide upon it, me before you…”
He trailed off then, finally released my other wrist, and took my hips into his hands instead.
He lifted me, stroked me, made love to me with desperate abandon.
Every barrier blurred as our skin slicked with sweat, as our breaths sawed, and we held on to one another like we were the only two people left in the entire Gods-forsaken realm.
I’d fallen asleep almost instantly, my body pressed to Theo’s from toe to head. But it had been a short sleep. The fire still burned when I opened my eyes to the sight of him dozing on his back, staring up at the ceiling with heavy-lidded eyes. He looked troubled, lost deep in thought.
“What is it?” I whispered, pressing a kiss to the corner of his tight jaw.
He shook his head, gave a half smirk. “Was waiting for you to wake so I could take you to the bed.”
But I felt the weight that was upon him. It pressed down on me too.
What I wouldn’t give to see him unburdened. Ungracefully, with our hands roving over each other’s bodies, we made it from the floor to the high, soft bed. We closed the bedcurtains, leaving only the one at the foot open so the fire could still reach us.
We didn’t speak this time; instead we used our lips and our tongues and our hands to try and say what our words could not.
I forced him into the mattress, placed myself above him, and set my hands into his hard chest as I slid him inside me.
Eyes locked, breaths fast, I ground into him, until my head fell back in a deep, trembling moan.
Until he gripped my hips so tightly, lifted and thrusted toward his end, that we finally collapsed beside one another in a sated and sweaty heap.
He made fists of my hair and kissed me all over.
His words were heavy breaths. “Love.” Another kiss.
“You’re threaded through me like sinew,” he said into my neck.
“You’re the Godsdamned pulse in my chest…
” He searched my face with torrid eyes as he dragged his fingers through my damp hair.
“You think loving each other is the dark end of all things—” He gave a slow shake of his head.
“Loving you is not the end, it’s the beginning of everything. ”
We lay in a tangle, his touch gentle, our breathing slow and easy, but there was an image I couldn’t shake, hovering just beyond our spent pleasure.
The image of his throne. And me upon it. I’d never seen his throne room, but I imagined it was like all the rest of them. Vast and intimidating. Lofty, wasteful, an entire chamber that was meant to lift a single man up and make all the rest of them small.
And suddenly, I understood. I felt the full burden of my responsibility, of my crown and unknown future, as surely as if it were a stone dropped upon me from a great height.
I didn’t want it. I knew it with such shocking surety, with the same surety that I knew I wanted the man beside me.
And I did. I wanted all of him. A full long life with him.
But I could not fathom living as a queen, in his kingdom or my own.
I sat up quickly, eyes stinging. Theo set a hand to the middle of my back. “What?”
I shook my head. “You’ll think I’m being selfish.”
He froze. Slowly, he sat up too. “Why would I think that?”
“Because it is selfish.”
“Tell me.”
I put my face in my hands for a moment, then brought my knees up to my chest and held them tight. “I don’t want a crown. I don’t want that to be my life. I am so, so tired and worn so thin. I fear I will never become whole again—if I ever was to begin with—if I go back to Seraf.”
He moved closer, blew out a long breath. “I felt this way too when I took the throne.” He set a soft kiss to my temple. “It gets easier. You get comfortable with it in time.”
“Comfortable or numb?” I knew what his duty had done to him, how it had buried vital parts of him so deep that he’d hardly recognized them when they tried to resurface.
He was quiet for a long moment. “Both, perhaps.”
“I’ve done that already,” I said, weakly. “I won’t do it again.”
Worry widened his green eyes. He swallowed hard and spoke tentatively. “It’ll be easier together.”
I believed that would be true… and still… I could only nod absently.
Theo pulled me back into the pillows. Wrapped his strong arms around me. “We slay one monster at a time, Imogen.” He kissed my head, my cheek, and pulled the heavy quilts up around me. “Sleep now.”
There was unease in his low voice and fear in the unyielding way he held me, as if he thought I might slip into the night’s shadows while we slept.
Loving you is not the end, it’s the beginning of everything.
I closed my eyes, counted his breaths, and prayed to the Gods he was right.