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Sorrow reassembles the muscles and bones in her countenance, rearranging the hollows and slopes into a safer expression—something sardonic, or dignified, or both.

He’s still watching her.

She whacks her thigh. “Would you stop doing that?”

His mouth twitches. “I can’t help it. Your face is doing such peculiar things, lifting in places, crinkling in others. I’ve never seen it change structure like this. Tell me, is the smile heavy? Or was it weightless until I pointed it out?”

“You are the most pompous critter in the galaxy.”

“That may have to do with my being—what’s it called? A deity? A pride god?”

“Just watch the flying kiddos, not me.”

“As a youth, I’d try and talk with them.” Envy slants his head, his hair slipping off his shoulders. “Not that they understood me.”

“You never know.” She surveys the tykes that zip through the cove. “What would it be like to live as fully as animals do? To live as unbridled as nature does? Do you think we would thrive or collapse?”

“You sound enthralled,” Envy remarks.

“I must be in a sappy mood,” Sorrow jibes.

“You must be. Either that, or it has to do with present, masculine company.”

“Don’t let this night go to your head. That noggin is already full enough, and I doubt anything else can fit in there.”

“Wanna bet?”

Fates forbid. He’s been granted the dark, expansive features of a river, flawless and vast. Destiny spoiled him, which is saying something considering deities thrive on perfection.

Sorrow is hardly ignorant of her own looks. Despite Envy’s harassment over the centuries, she’s aware that she’s pretty. Yet she doesn’t care about that. For her, it’s a trivial fact, not something to celebrate.

He would say that’s a pity, but it’s not. She’d rather be honest than be pretty.

Then again, it’s not that Envy really thinks her unattractive. She’s just not his type, never has been. He prefers conventional beauty, females and males who resemble doves with lustrous tresses and graceful expressions.

That he’d bumped hips with Sorrow is mind-blowing. Still, it’s not as mind-blowing as the events of this singular, unimaginable night.

She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then hitches her shoulder. “Thanks for this,” she says, the gratitude sloppy on her tongue.

“I’m all ears,” he simpers. “Thanks for what? Dare I say, you’ve experienced a moment of serenity in this cove? Pleasure?”

“Quit while you’re ahead.”

“One more request, and then I vow to hold my tongue, providing you wouldn’t like to do it for me?”

“Dream on.” She shifts in place, suddenly failing to find a comfortable position. “What’s the request? And you had better not say a lap dance.”

“Show me pain.”

Sorrow reels back. Really, there can’t be a more appropriate response.

If she had been drinking something, she’d have spit it out. If she had been eating something, she’d have choked. “What kind of request is that?”

Envy turns away, his eyes landing on a distant point. “You ponder what would it be like to live as fully as nature. Alas,” he mock-sighs. “That means relinquishing control. Thus, what you said about me avoiding pain, the same way you avoid pleasure? Let no one call the God of Envy a coward.”

That’s probably the closest she’ll get to him admitting she was right.

“I showed you a decadent evening,” he says. “Now it’s your turn. Show me pain as only you can.”