Chapter 64
By the time we’re back in the room, I’ve finally gathered myself enough to stop crying.
‘I should go back,’ I tell Kyor as we reach the top of the stairs. ‘Apologise.’
‘You have nothing to apologise for. What you should do is get some more rest. I should have insisted you stay in bed, but I knew you’d want the opportunity to see Llinos’s family.’
It’s hard to deny I need sleep. My muscles feel unnaturally heavy, and my eyelids are the same. Yet as Kyor closes the door behind us, my eyes drift down his body and yearning fills me.
‘What?’ He turns back and looks at me with a half-smile quirking his lips. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘Nothing,’ I lie. Then I grin. ‘Well, okay, I was just thinking that the Dowager was right. You really do have a tight arse.’
An easy laugh rolls from his chest. ‘Really? You nearly died, and that’s what you’re thinking about?’
‘That’s always what I’m thinking about whenever I’m alone with you.’
He smiles, lifting my hands and kissing them.
‘You’re voracious. Though I have to admit, it’s the same for me, my love. But you could barely walk back across the ballroom, so such matters will have to wait.’
‘You could always be gentle with me,’ I suggest.
‘Is that what you want?’
I bite my lip. ‘No. Absolutely not.’
He grins. It’s a grin that reminds me of the time I saw him in the temple with Elska and Zelle. The first time I saw him without a mask. The Kyor I get now is the real him. Not the one he shows in public, or in fights, or every other moment of the day. And it causes my heart to throb.
‘We’ll wait,’ he tells me.
I want to disagree. To tell him I don’t need to wait. That waiting is pointless when we don’t know how long we’ve got left together. But as I go to say as much, a yawn escapes.
‘Do you have to go back?’ I ask instead, as I try to undo the buttons on the back of my neck. The angle’s more than a little awkward. ‘Do you have obligations?’
Kyor shifts, pulling me closer.
‘Right now,’ he murmurs, ‘the only obligations that matter are here in this room.’ He presses a kiss to my forehead as he undoes the buttons. ‘Now sleep. Who knows, tomorrow we might get to test out that bathtub.’
Now that’s an offer I can’t refuse.
I wake up to the awareness that my body feels far more like my own.
There is a slight ache to my limbs, but nothing like it was.
Even more helpfully, my mind is far clearer than it has been, meaning the paparvy must be fully out of my system.
I stretch a little, flexing my arms and fingers, only to find the smooth contours of Kyor’s body behind me.
As gently as I can, I turn around to face him. Even with his eyes closed, he’s the most perfect specimen of a man I have ever seen.
‘Thorn,’ he says, eyes still closed. ‘Why are you staring at me?’
‘Just feeling lucky, I guess. You know, that we’re still here. Alive.’
As his eyes open, he traces a lazy line down my arm with his finger.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt as lucky as I do now,’ he whispers. His eyes are wide now, and his fingers move in circles across my bare back. ‘I’m so sorry for everything that led us here, but it’s hard regretting the only thing that’s ever given me happiness. Brought me you.’
‘I understand.’ And I do. I know exactly what he means. All that loss. All that pain. I hated the way Dinah would say that Etta had her reasons, but lying here like this, I can’t discount the possibility that she might actually be right.
For a moment we simply breathe one another in, and then he lifts his hand to smooth my hair behind my ears.
His gaze holds me as I lean forward, pressing my lips against his.
With a gentle laziness, his tongue caresses the contours of my mouth.
As we exchange slow kisses, I feel him harden, pressed against my stomach.
My body pulses in response, though the kisses don’t change at first. They remain just as slow and tender, even as I feel my restraint straining within me with each breath, an underlying urgency to the situation rising.
I did as he asked on the boat and didn’t kiss him farewell, and now I want my reward. I want him all.
My hand grabs a fistful of hair at the back of his neck and I pull him towards me.
‘Thorn …’ The low moan rises from his throat and shatters the remnants of my resolve.
I roll my hips towards his, only for a tremble to quake through me as I brush against his hard cock. Yet rather than responding the way I need him to, his body tenses as he backs away, an expression of concern on his face.
‘We shouldn’t.’
‘Yes,’ I say with more certainty than I have felt about anything I can ever remember, ‘we should.’
He still doesn’t move. ‘Three days. You were unconscious for three days,’ he says instead.
‘And now I am back, given a chance to live.’ As I wonder at his reticence, my thoughts flash to Estel’s sister’s pregnancy. ‘I have a tonic,’ I tell him. ‘Something I took in the slums, if that’s what you’re worried about?’
A low, raw growl reverberates from his throat.
‘No,’ he says shortly. ‘That wasn’t my concern—’
‘Then show me. Make me forget that anything outside of this room even exists. Make me forget it all. You can do that, right?’
The switch is immediate. His lips find mine and his hands tangle in my hair, pulling me on top of him with urgency.
I move my hand down, stroking the head of his cock teasingly.
I pull away from his lips and look into his eyes, a smile tugging at my lips.
‘Unless, of course, you don’t want to fuck me, Kyor?
Which would be very disappointing, because I have a very particular itch to scratch, and if you’re not willing to, then perhaps I—’
With one smooth motion he flips me onto my back, pinning me down with some delicious forearms. ‘Don’t you dare finish that sentence,’ he growls, eyes flashing.
My smirk widens. He’s played right into my hands.
‘Then I’m yours, Kyor.’ I lean up and kiss him lightly. ‘Fucking own it.’
When his mouth lands on mine, I pour all the yearning and fervour that burns within me into the kiss.
The feeling is something feral and fierce that I want to revel in.
His hands move across my body, glancing over my breasts, kneading, stroking, and caressing before pointedly continuing down to the apex of my legs.
His fingers graze lightly over my swollen clit – teasing it – before he strokes those clever fingers of his against my opening.
‘Fucking hell, Thorn,’ he groans low. ‘You’re soaked.’
‘Can you blame me?’ I gasp as my own hand slips down his stomach.
He’s the reason I’m so wet. Just the knowledge of how hard he is is enough to have me drenched.
I moan with anticipation as I finally take hold of him, curling my fingers around his girth.
I need him in me, but I also need so much more than that.
There’s no way I can reach fully around the thickness of his cock with one hand, but the other is too busy gripping the hair at the base of his neck. Still, the groan that rattles from his lips is confirmation that what I’m doing is good enough for now.
‘Oh Gods,’ he gasps. ‘Gods, yes.’ The sound of his voice causes my inner walls to clench and tighten.
I’m well aware that twice now he’s left me shattered and breathless, but this time it needs to be both of us. I need him to let go too.
His eyes lock on mine as he pushes a finger into me and then, with a moan, a second, causing me to gasp.
‘Have I told you that you are the most beautiful thing I have ever encountered?’ he whispers.
‘Today? No.’
He laughs as he kisses down the side of my neck and it’s there again – that smile he keeps hidden from the world. The one that causes my heart to stutter. That smile is the undoing of me, just as much as his fingers and mouth and every other part of his rock-hard body.
His kisses continue, tracing the line along my collarbone before lowering further still.
He slips my nipple into his mouth and my body responds, lapping up every sensation, but it’s not enough.
It won’t be enough until I shatter him the way he’s done to me, until we break together and reform into something else. Something stronger.
In one sweeping movement, I rock my hips and roll him back on the bed so that I’m straddling him. He raises an eyebrow in question.
‘It’s my turn to take control,’ I say with a grin.
His eyes glint as he relaxes back into the pile of pillows. ‘You don’t have to try to take it all,’ he murmurs.
Just the thought of finally exploring his body in full is enough to have me on the edge, but I resist the urge to go straight for the prize. Instead, I start with my hands, sweeping up and over that magnificent torso of his, and then I let my mouth follow their path.
As I place my lips against his chest, a shudder rolls through his body and his eyes close. A satisfied smile takes hold of my face. I didn’t realise how much I wanted to do this until now.
I take my time, kissing a line down his body until I reach his cock, where I run my tongue over the head and savour the low groans that reverberate from him as I taste the precum already beading there.
His hips buck. ‘Thorn … Gods, Thorn!’ His moans turn into a gasp as I take him in my mouth, stretching my jaw to allow for all his thickness. ‘Fuck!’