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Envy’s glare falters. Then he’s gone, diving in despite his ribs.

Sorrow whips around to grip the lever, missing it as the transport gives an affronted shudder. The boat leans sideways with Envy’s weight as he splashes his way into the vessel.

Sorrow feels her eyes balloon from their sockets.

He stands, glistening and gorgeous. And livid.

She turns to dive, then growls as a powerful arm slings around her waist and hauls her backward. Her spine smashes into his wet chest. Envy heaves, his wound twitching from the impact.

Nonetheless, he recovers swiftly. His torso pumps, as solid as asphalt.

Envy’s head tips toward her jaw, his breath rushing against her throat. His body drizzles all over her. Water dampens Sorrow’s robe, droplets splattering onto her throat and sliding into the neckline, teasing a path from her breasts to her belly.

Jasmine and myrrh suffocate her as his free fingers slide across her hipbones, holding her in place. “Say that again,” he rasps.

“Say what again?” she bites out, struggling to get free.

“All this drivel about seduction and rusted pipes.” Envy’s mouth rides up the curve of her earlobe. “Go ahead, tell me what I can’t do to you.”

“You…you’ve never…you’ll never…” The threat dies on her tongue as he swipes her hair aside and bows his head into the crook of her neck.

His lips graze her flesh into a frenzy. And just like that, her brain scrambles, and her inhalations quicken along with his own, and her center begins to throb.

At the stroke of his tongue against her pulse point, a restrained sigh skids from her mouth. Her lungs seize. Her joints tense. Then both give from the husky baritone of Envy’s voice.

“Go ahead,” he invites thickly. “Tell me to stop.”

“Sto…,” she hisses. “You need to sto…”

“Again. Try again.”

There’s a clench to his words that matches the clench inside her, which flutters at the edges, about to fall apart. His mouth sketches the side of her neck at an agonizing pace, moistening her skin with the contact.

Her insides slump, yielding to the gentle, torturous pressure. His lips punish her, bait her. His slick tongue laps at her nape, the result torrential, causing a flood of sensation that builds in her core. With each flick, she feels that place grow heavy and hollow under the robe. It’s a greedy thing that needs friction, the frustration soaking her to the brim.

Envy’s hands drag from her hips to the robe’s neckline, where they disappear inside. His palms are smooth when they should be calloused from archery, those thumbs gliding down the arcs of her breasts.

Her chest rises and falls. He’s never done this to her, turned her into such a needy, gluttonous, mindless creature. He has never wound her up like this, pulling her inside-out so thoroughly, to the point where her blood rages.

This is seduction. This is pleasure.

And now she knows what that feels like.

The stars glisten above them. The sea swishes against the boat, the vessel heading to who knows where. Distant cliffs spear into the sky, the edifices crowned in foliage, water spilling from the crevices.

Envy’s evil touch is so close to spanning her breasts, but he’s merciless. He denies her, drawing out the sensuous exploration. The cruelty of it causes her nipples to stiffen.

Sorrow squirms. She gnaws on her lower lip while arching, forcing him nearer to the peaks. This only serves to prolong his ministrations and drive her mad, so that a stuttered whine leaps out of her.

She needs to scream. She needs, and she needs, and she needs.

Him. She needs him.

“Say it,” Envy hums into the recess beneath her jaw, tipping her skull farther back, exposing her throat to his searing gaze. “Say it, Sorrow.”

But she can’t. She can only croak, “Envy.”

He hums, his mouth a shock of delirious, open-mouthed kisses up her neck, from her collarbones to her chin and down again. The wet flat of his tongue causes her eyes to roll back. She sags, reaching behind and clutching his scalp for support. Her head lolls onto his shoulder, inviting him to do his best.