Page 78 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)
His touch wandered with teasing precision, until his fingers found the tender skin of her thighs and coaxed her closer, drawing her to the very edge of the chair, until there was no space left between wanting and having. His hands cradled her hips, grounding her as he leaned forward.
The moment his mouth met her, her entire body arched in response, a shudder of pleasure escaping her lips. Her head fell back, and her nails curled into the fabric of the armrests, clutching them as though they were the only things keeping her tethered to the earth.
Ash, beneath her, trembled with devotion. Every breath, every motion, a vow made not in words but in touch.
Within seconds, her fingers found his golden hair, tangling through the silken strands as she pulled him closer, guiding him with a hunger both primal and precise.
Her breath caught, rising into a cry as he slipped two fingers inside her, moving with a rhythm he had learnt through tender study, each motion designed to unravel her completely.
She cried out his name, a broken hymn that echoed between them.
Ash did not hesitate. In one seamless motion, he gathered her into his arms, lifting her from the chair and carrying her to the bed with the reverence of a man cradling something sacred.
He drew the dress over her head, and for a breathless moment, he simply stared, drinking in the sight of the wyverian princess stretched out beneath him, bare and luminous, waiting for him with fire in her eyes and moonlight on her skin.
A slow, adoring smile curved his lips as he shed the last of his clothing and joined her, the space between them dissolving like mist at dawn.
Mal slipped her arms around him, and before Ash could utter a single word, she rose to meet him, her lips pressing against his in a kiss that stole the very breath from his lungs.
The moment their mouths met, the world tilted, and he was lost, spinning through fragments of memory and feeling, all of which crashed back into him with searing clarity.
Her tongue brushed his, and in that instant, colour flooded back into a world that had dulled in her absence.
His hands found their familiar path over her skin, relearning her contours with a reverence born of longing.
Her nails bit into his flesh, marking him, anchoring him in a moment that was both fierce and tender.
They did not think of curses or kingdoms, of battles yet to be waged or blood already lost. They did not pause to consider whether what they felt had been theirs to begin with, or whether it had been woven into their hearts by the threads of a curse.
The thought that their love might not be real at all, but an illusion cast upon them by fate’s cruel whim, never quite crossed their minds.
Tonight, Ash would give her the sky and silence the stars, if only for a fleeting hour. By dawn, they would walk into the wastelands, and fate would stir once more. But for now, she was his, and he would make her forget the weight of the world.
‘Don’t think,’ Mal murmured, her voice low and steady, the sound of command cloaked in velvet. The moment she felt the tension ripple through his body, she reached for him with quiet certainty.
Ash obeyed, swallowing the weight of worry that had crept into his chest.
‘I missed you,’ he breathed against the shell of her ear, his voice barely a whisper lost between them.
‘Me too,’ she replied, a ghost of a smile brushing her lips.
‘How much?’ he asked, not teasing, but yearning.
A spark ignited in her gaze, something wild and wicked and wholly his.
Without a word, she slipped her hand beneath the veil of space between them and took hold of his length with a touch that was both knowing and merciless.
Her fingers moved with deliberate care, each motion drawing a gasp from his lips, each breath a confession of pleasure.
The rhythm she set was exquisite, slow and assured, until Ash could do nothing but surrender to the storm she conjured with every measured stroke.
‘Mal…’
‘Hush now, husband.’ Her voice was soft, coaxing, as she guided him down onto his back with the reverence of a queen claiming her throne. She resumed the rhythm of her touch, every motion deliberate, every brush of her fingers a promise.
With a wicked gleam in her purple eyes, she took his hand and guided it between her thighs, placing his fingers where she needed him most. Together, they moved, an intimate dance of skin and breath and want, moans escaping into the quiet, laced with reverence and fire.
‘If you k-keep this up…’ Ash's voice fractured, each word trembling on the edge of restraint as his body tensed beneath her.
‘Yes?’ she purred, tilting her head, that sinful smile blooming across her lips, one he’d dreamt of a thousand times.
‘Then I’m going to lose it,’ he groaned, ‘and come all over your hand, Mal.’
That wicked smile only deepened, a siren’s grin drenched in mischief, as her hand moved with greater purpose.
Ash groaned, the sound low and ragged, his own fingers responding in kind, their pace matching the rising crescendo between them.
The moment that shattering pleasure seized him, he didn’t pause, didn’t think.
He caught her by the waist and turned her beneath him, burying himself inside with a single, desperate thrust.
The climax struck like lightning—raw, powerful, consuming.
The exquisite grip of her around him was too much, and he came undone with a cry torn from somewhere deep.
Mal clung to him, her mouth finding the flesh of his arm, sinking her teeth into him to stifle the sound of her own ecstasy.
Her fangs pierced skin as her eyes fluttered shut, while his body moved against hers, chasing every last flicker of pleasure until they were both left trembling and breathless.
‘Don’t stop,’ she breathed, her voice rough with urgency, her hands grasping at him, dragging him deeper into her embrace.
Ash’s eyes widened, astonished by her need, even as her body still trembled from release.
But the sight of her—lips parted, eyes heavy with desire, ignited something feral within him. He did not soften; he did not stop.
‘You’re mine,’ he growled, the words a vow etched into the curve of her skin. His mouth descended with fevered hunger—first to her breast, his teeth grazing her nipple, then up to her earlobe, and finally claiming her lower lip in a kiss laced with possession.
‘And you are mine, husband,’ she whispered, her voice thick with longing.
‘Then come for me again, my queen,’ he whispered, each word a prayer on his breath as he drove into her, deeper, harder, the rhythm of his body desperate to match the thunder of his heart.
His hands found her thighs, lifting them with reverent strength, tilting her hips so he could bury himself fully, entirely within her.
The shift made his control falter, the tight pull of ecstasy curling low in his spine.
‘Let me feel you, Mal,’ he said, his voice raw, as if her pleasure were the only truth left in the world.
The moment her release claimed her—her mouth parting in a silent cry, her back arching like a bow drawn taut—Ash followed, undone by the sheer beauty of her unraveling beneath him.
His climax tore through him with the force of a storm, brought forth by the sight of her face alight with pleasure, a portrait of rapture he had painted with his own hands .
And then she smiled.
It was a smile that shattered him. Soft, adoring and unguarded.
A look of such love, such awe, such quiet devotion, as though he were the sun and stars and every sacred thing she’d ever believed in.
No one had ever looked at him like that.
No one had ever given him something so freely, so fearlessly, and had it returned in kind.
He couldn’t fathom a world where he wasn’t tethered, heart and soul, to Mal Blackburn.
And yet, perhaps because he knew what loomed ahead, what fate had carved for them both, it made the sight of those beloved purple eyes ache all the more. Knowing what must come. Knowing how easily it could all be lost.
Ash kissed every inch of her skin as though it were sacred scripture, his reverence whispered through each brush of his lips.
He worshipped her, body and soul, and claimed her through the long hours of the night.
He did not permit sleep to take her, not when he could make her forget the weight of the world, if only for a little while.
Not when he could draw his name in cries from her throat, over and over, until it echoed like a hymn within the canvas walls of their tent.
And when at last they collapsed, bodies slick with sweat, hearts still racing, they lay tangled in one another’s arms, breathless and sated. Together they watched the crimson moon retreat beyond the horizon, its blood-bright light fading into shadow, as the hush of dawn crept in.
The beginning of the end had come and they faced it in silence, wrapped in each other and in the fragile peace between storms.