13. Steam and Surrender #4
“Three years,” he murmured, dipping his head and speaking the words against the wet curve of my throat, “I dreamed of having you somewhere soft and warm and entirely mine. With no war waiting beyond the door.”
“Technically,” I managed, even as his mouth traced fire up the side of my neck, “the war is still…”
“Do not…” he growled, pulling me closer and lifting my ass, making my legs slide instinctively around his waist beneath the water, “…finish that sentence.”
So, I didn’t.
He kissed me instead, and there was nothing slow or unhurried left in it now.
It was all heat and want and years of waiting.
His hands sliding up my spine, gripping, holding, pulling me flush against him until there was no space left between us at all.
The water lapped at us, warm and rocking, and I gasped against his mouth as I felt exactly how much he wanted me pressed hot and insistent against the cradle of my hips.
“Atlas.” His name came out as a plea.
“I have you… always,” he breathed, one hand sliding between us beneath the surface, finding me, stroking until I was trembling and clutching at his shoulders and entirely past the point of clever words.
“Eyes on me, my beauty… oh, there she is,” he added as I threw my head back to gasp, then looked at him once more.
I held his gaze, molten and dark, as he lifted me just enough and then, with one slow, devastating roll of his hips, seated himself fully inside me for the second time that day.
The sound I made echoed off the marble.
There was no patience left in either of us. He set a deep, relentless rhythm, the water surging around us with every thrust. His mouth swallowed every cry he wrung from me while his hands held me exactly where he wanted me.
Every roll of his hips sent the water surging over the lip of the bath, the heat of him scalding where the cooling water lapped at my skin.
And through all of it, he kept his eyes on mine, watching me unravel for him as though it were the only sight in either world worth witnessing.
He spoke against my mouth between kisses, low and rough and wrecked, my name and the word mine threaded through a string of broken praise in a language I didn’t know. Yet, I understood it all the same.
When the scars on my wrists flared warm against his shoulders, he groaned like a man coming apart. And again, I felt the bond between us draw tight as a bowstring, his need and mine wound so close together I could no longer tell which of us was being dragged toward the edge first.
“Let go,” he commanded, his own control fraying, his voice gone ragged. “I want to feel it. Now, Alexandra.”
I shattered with his name on my lips, the climax rolling through me in waves that left me boneless and gasping.
He followed only a heartbeat later, burying himself deep with a groan torn from somewhere in his chest. His arms locked around me like he meant to hold me through the next apocalypse and the one after that.
We stayed there, unmoving, tangled and breathless in the rocking warmth, his forehead resting against mine, the petals drifting slow circles around us on the disturbed water.
“Well,” I said eventually, when I trusted my voice. “I take it all back. The bath is definitely yours.”
His laugh rumbled through me, warm and pleased.
After a while, he reached for the sponge resting on the marble lip, dipped it, and began, unhurried, to wash my shoulders.
His touch was achingly gentle now, the soft cloth tracing slow circles down my arms and across my collarbone.
It was as if he were memorizing every inch of me all over again.
I closed my eyes and let myself sink into it, feeling impossibly cherished in the hush between us.
Then he gently turned me and ran the sponge down the length of my back, and I went still. But he didn’t.
He followed the ruined line of the scar Riley had left there, slow and careful and without the slightest hesitation.
Then he leaned down and pressed his lips to the very center of it, once again.
To the thing I had spent a whole night hiding from him.
And something in my chest cracked open and quietly healed, all at once.
Because I understood in that moment that I never had to hide it again.
That he had already seen the worst of me and stayed.
“You make a very good lady’s maid,” I teased, my voice thick, recalling Thalia’s earnest offer to wash me. “I might have to replace mine.” I lied because I was starting to adore Thalia.
“Oh, is that so?” I felt the rumble of his laugh against my back.
“Mm. Although she has a much better laugh than you.”
“A crime I shall have to live with.”
He pressed one last kiss to my shoulder, then gathered me back against his chest, his chin settling atop my head as the water stilled around us. And when he spoke again, there was something in his voice I had no defense against at all.
“I look forward to introducing you to my kingdom tonight.”
And gods help me, despite the banquet, despite the hall full of strangers, despite every terror still waiting beyond that door, in that warm and petal-strewn moment, I almost looked forward to it too.
Almost.