8. Chapter 8 #2
And the control goes. His hand closes around my good wrist and presses it into the mattress beside my hip, and he starts to fuck me properly, deep and even and hard, and he doesn't take his eyes off mine.
Soren reaches down between us and finds my swollen clit.
"Soren—" I can't finish it.
"I know," he says against my ear. "Let it go."
That finishes me. I go over with Luke buried to the hilt and Soren's fingers still moving and Luke follows a few strokes later, saying my name against my mouth.
Soren takes his time.
He moves me himself while I'm still boneless — turns me carefully onto my right side, fits himself in behind me, settles my left arm along the pillow where nothing can drag. Then he puts a hand flat over my sternum and holds it there until my heartbeat begins to slow.
"Tell me what you want," he says against my ear.
"You."
"Say the rest of it."
He won't move until I've said it out loud.
So I tell him exactly how I want him to touch me, and his breath leaves him hard against my neck.
Then he lifts my top thigh with one hand and pushes into me from behind, slow, and keeps going until my body has to stretch around him.
"Oh—"
"Yes." His mouth is at the back of my neck. "Take it."
He keeps the same slow pace, pushing deep each time. His forehead presses to the back of my neck, and except for his breathing, he's almost silent.
Torres has come around in front of me, kissing me, my good hand wrapped around him now, stroking while he groans into my mouth.
"That's it," Soren says once, low. "There. Stay exactly there."
He gets his hand down between my thighs and holds it still, two fingers, and makes me grind against them on every stroke, so it's my own movement doing it.
It takes a long time and I don't want it to stop. When it finally goes through me I'm shaking so hard he has to hold me still. He comes with his mouth against the back of my neck, saying my name.
Torres finishes across my hand and stomach soon after, swearing into my hair the entire time, then collapses sideways and says, "Okay. Okay. Good. That's— yeah."
When we finally stop moving, Torres disappears into the bathroom and returns with a warm cloth, and cleans me up himself, carefully.
Luke goes and gets the pasta Declan left, and the bread, and comes back with all of it on one plate because I guess we are sharing.
Soren rebuilds the bed around my left side — pillows under the arm, one behind my back, one at my hip — and then gets in behind me.
"You're doing it again," I tell him and he just nods and kisses my head.
We eat cold pasta in my bed and Luke gets sauce on my sheets and is visibly appalled by himself.
"Leave it."
"I'm going to think about it."
"Luke, nothing about this evening is tidy."
Torres laughs so hard he has to put his face in the mattress.
Somewhere in there I fall asleep and wake to Soren and Luke quietly arguing about the correct way to make coffee.
Later, when I think the others are asleep, I turn my left wrist over on the pillow.
Four arcs.
“He’s waiting for you,” Luke says.
I look over. “You’re awake?”
“So are you.”
I run my thumb across the fourth mark. “He keeps coming over to sit with us. He brought Freya those maps and stayed to argue about them. But then we’re alone for thirty seconds and he turns back into Prince Ardent.”
“He doesn’t know what you’ll let him be.”
“I’ve kissed him, Luke.”
“And then he spent months being an ass.”
“He did.”
“I told him so.”
That makes me smile. “How did he take it?”
“He agreed.” Luke shifts onto his side to face me. “He thinks he behaved badly enough that wanting you doesn’t give him the right to ask for anything. And he won’t treat the mark as permission.”
“So he’s waiting for me to make the first move.”
“Yes.”
“I want him.”
“I know.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“You don’t need my permission.” His fingers close around mine beneath the blanket.
“But if you want to know whether I trust him with you, I do. Ander can be cold when he’s trying to get everything exactly right.
He’ll stand there thinking through every possible consequence while everyone else assumes he doesn’t care. ”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is. He’s one of my closest friends. I’m allowed to say that.”
Torres lifts his head on my other side. “For the record, I’m also awake, and I support anything that makes Prince Ardent lose control of his vocabulary.”
“Nobody asked you.”
“I know. I’m being generous.”
Behind me, Soren shifts closer. “Do you want Ander, or do you want the mark finished?”
“Ander,” I say. I don’t have to think about it. “I want to know who he is when he isn’t trying to be a prince. I want him to be ordinary with me.”
“Then make sure he knows that,” Soren says.
“How much clearer do I have to be?”
Torres drops back onto the pillow. “Use small words. He’s pretty, but nervous.”
Luke laughs quietly. “Ask him to walk with you. Somewhere with no Council, no records, and nothing he can fix for you. He’ll understand.”
“And then Sophia will develop another theory.”
“She already has one,” Torres says. “It has several parts and at least one diagram.”
Luke turns down the lamp. Soren’s arm settles over my ribs, and Torres keeps hold of my hand beneath the blanket.