Chapter Seventeen
aching. yearning.
drowning.
his touch is never enough
and yet, it is everything
Excerpt from Beloved,
a poetry collection dedicated to the Lover
Aleksi had always found preparing for bed to be very meditative. There were soothing rhythms in the routines—undressing, washing up. Even the dedicated clothing and space spoke of calming ritual.
But bedtime became decidedly less relaxing when your lovers chose to wander around the room naked.
The night was warm, so they had let the fire burn low. The dwindling light burnished Naia’s bare skin as she pulled on one of Einar’s discarded shirts. The rumpled linen immediately slipped off her shoulder, and without the ties at the neck secured, it bared her nearly to the navel.
It was good to see—for more reasons than the obvious.
Someone should get some use out of Einar’s clothes.
He certainly wasn’t likely to, since he’d apparently decided to remain in his larger, more robust form.
For the moment, he wore only a pair of loose, belted trousers that Aleksi had never seen before.
Probably the only things that fit him.
Aleksi shifted against the headboard as he stretched his legs out before him. “Don’t get me wrong, Einar, because I very much appreciate the way you look right now . . .”
Einar arched an eyebrow. “But?”
“But whatever are you going to wear?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.” Naia stepped up in front of Einar and ran her hands over the breadth of his shoulders, as if taking his measure. “Hilja is taking care of it.”
“Hilja,” Aleksi echoed. “The battle-axe who runs the kitchens?”
“She’s a very skilled seamstress, you know. Made my outfit for the ball.” Naia winked at Einar. “And she is thrilled to be dressing the Kraken.”
Einar caught both of Naia’s hands and drew them to his lips, never once looking away from her face. They had been very intent on one another all evening, often locking eyes and lingering when they touched.
Only one explanation made sense. “No more secrets, then?” Aleksi murmured.
Naia smiled dreamily. “No more secrets.”
“Good. Because we need to talk about what we’re doing.”
That got their attention. They both turned to Aleksi, wearing expressions of confusion mixed with concern.
“Not because we need to define it,” he clarified. “But because I need you to know where I stand.” Even thinking the words should have been terrifying, but they slipped free with the ease of inevitability. “Whatever you need from me, and for however long, you have it.”
Naia climbed onto the bed, facing Aleksi, and settled beside his outstretched legs. “Careful,” she warned. “What if we need everything, and we need it forever?”
“Then that’s what you’ll have, little nymph, you and Einar. You deserve it.” But that wasn’t powerful enough to encompass the truth. “You deserve the world.”
“I don’t want the world.” Naia’s hand was warm on Aleksi’s thigh through the thin fabric of his sleep pants. “Just this.”
Einar walked over to stand by the bed, close enough to reach both of them. He ran his fingers over Naia’s hair, then touched Aleksi’s chin, tilting his head up. “I don’t remember my past, and I don’t know what our futures hold. But my present belongs to you. Both of you.”
Naia pulled him down, into a fierce kiss full of soft moans and flashing tongues. Einar’s longer hair swung loose, nearly eclipsing the sight from Aleksi’s view, and he had to smooth it back.
But Naia abruptly broke the kiss with a gasp. “Sorry, I’m sorry—I can’t—”
Of course. She would not risk having everyone else in the palace, perhaps even on the entire island, bear witness to such a personal moment.
Aleksi gripped the back of her neck and soothed her with a shake of his head.
“Tell me true—would this broadcast of your pleasure bother you if only Einar and I could feel it?”
“No.” There was no dishonesty in her expression, nothing hidden. “It only troubles me that there is no consent in it. People have not agreed to feel what I feel.”
“And if Einar and I did?”
She drew in a sharp breath, and her cheeks turned pink as she lowered her gaze to Aleksi’s mouth. “If it were just the two of you, and you wanted it . . . I would like that very much.”
“Then I have a proposition for you.” Aleksi dropped his hand to her knee and rubbed his thumb over the neatly hemmed edge of the linen that covered her thigh.
“I did not suggest it before because it isn’t something with room for privacy or halfways.
And I would not offer it now, except that I trust you completely, Naia.
And I believe that Einar does, as well.”
Einar silently indicated his agreement with a squeeze of Naia’s bare shoulder.
She licked her lips nervously. “What is it?”
“I can pull you both close,” Aleksi explained softly, “and wrap you in a bit of the Dream. It would be a whole little world with only the three of us in it. It’s intimate, love. Painfully so, with every feeling open to the others. But only to us.”
“No one else?” She was made of eager hope tempered by fear, and it almost hurt to look at. “No nobles or palace staff or islanders?”
“Just us.”
She nearly sagged against Aleksi with relief. “I’ve wanted to be with you,” she confessed. “But I was so scared.”
He gathered her closer. “Scared is something you never have to be, Naia. Not with us.”
“I want it,” she murmured. “But that’s so simple for me to say. I’m the one whose emotions will be laid bare anyway. You and Einar are the ones who’ll be taking a risk. So it has to be up to you.”
“Easy as breathing,” Aleksi assured her. “I would not have brought it up if I wasn’t ready to do it.”
“But . . . Einar?” She looked up at him, her features carefully schooled into a neutral mask that did nothing to conceal her longing.
“Aleksi has already seen inside my heart,” Einar answered. “It isn’t always a pretty place, but I have no secrets left from either of you.”
Aleksi wanted no room for doubt. “Yes or no, Einar.”
For half a heartbeat, his eyes blazed teal—the goddess’s favorite color. “Yes.”
Everything in the room became more vivid as the rush of their acceptance flooded Aleksi. This was a gift, but it was also a responsibility, one that he took very seriously. This was what it meant to be the Lover. Not the sex, or the debauchery, or even the wit and charm.
The care.
He placed one hand on Naia’s cheek, the other on Einar’s, and pulled them close, until their heads were touching. Einar’s lips grazed his jaw, and Aleksi could feel Naia’s breath on his lips.
He reached for the magic inside him. He twined it with how he felt about them, then infused it with all the protectiveness and, yes, possessiveness, that burned within him. The magic expanded, slipping around Naia and then Einar.
He could tell the moment that it enveloped them both. They went rigid and then relaxed in turn, almost as if they were melting not just into the Dream, but into him, and into each other.
Naia opened her eyes, placed her hand on Aleksi’s bare chest, and curled her fingers until her nails bit into his skin. Einar hissed in response, turning his mouth to Aleksi’s ear. “I can feel how much she likes touching you.”
Both things sizzled through Aleksi’s veins. He covered Naia’s hand and held it to his skin, pressing harder. When Einar groaned and bit his earlobe, Aleksi finally released her hand and shuddered as the pressure slowly eased.
Naia was breathing faster now, her gaze locked on Aleksi’s. “Einar? Until I say so, you don’t touch.” At the other man’s growl—and Naia’s soft gasp—he continued. “You watch, and you feel.”
Einar blazed with challenge, a hot mix of colors that reminded Aleksi of dancing flames. The moment stretched out, tense and fraught, until Einar’s teeth grazed Aleksi’s jaw in one last, quiet challenge.
Then he slipped from the bed and stalked to the vanity. He grabbed the heavy wooden chair in one hand, lifting it as if it weighed nothing, and dropped it with a clatter a few paces from the foot of the bed.
With his eyes burning that dangerous teal, he sank into the chair . . . and watched.
Aleksi pulled Naia onto his lap, settling her with her back pressed to his chest. She arched, rubbing the soft fabric that still smelled like Einar against Aleksi’s naked skin.
The shirt had ridden up, baring her parted thighs—and more.
The low collar gaped open, nearly sliding off her nipple as she reached back and gripped Aleksi’s hip.
This was what Einar saw, the rucked fabric and clutching hands and skin. His hands clenched into fists, every visible muscle tensed at the effort it took not to lunge for them.
Aleksi licked Naia’s shoulder, then rumbled in her ear. “Do you feel it yet?”
She shifted her hips, grinding against his erection with a husky laugh. “I believe I do.”
He swatted her thigh. “Not that, naughty little nymph.” This time, he sank his teeth into the spot where her shoulder curved up into her neck. “Do you feel Einar’s hunger?”
“He . . .” The word trailed off into a shiver that tightened her nipples beneath the gauzy white fabric. “He wants to touch us. But not as much as he wants to see what you do next.”
Einar’s chest heaved. His eyes glowed. He sank lower into the chair, and his borrowed pants strained over the muscles of his strong thighs. “Perhaps I do. But my patience will not last forever.”
“Promises, promises,” Aleksi murmured, sliding his hand up the inside of Naia’s thigh.
Instead of touching her, he slipped his hand beneath the oversized shirt, skimmed over her hip, and traced a path up her spine.
When his hand emerged from the loosened collar, he grasped her hair and pulled her head back.