Page 65 of Antiletum (The Nocturne #1)

I take a step closer, barely taller even as he sits. Val looks so tired and beaten down. Worse than I’ve ever seen him.

Val rubs his forehead, grimacing before scrubbing his hand over his face. “Fuck,” he whispers. Strained. Defeated. Falling apart all over again.

I attempt to swallow the thickness of my throat. Composing my shakiness the best I can. “After I learned about Rainah, I kept playing through my mind if there was anything that could ever make me want to forgive you. To salvage any chance of us having an amicable marriage.”

Val keeps his face in his hand, using my own method of refusing to look at me, like it might make this easier. I don’t have it in me to tell him that it never does. It hurts just the same .

“The only solution I kept coming back to was the one I kept telling myself was impossible. If, somehow, the deos sent me that person you reminded me of so much. Implanted him straight into your being, on this side of life where I could keep him for myself. If you were him—Sebastian—I could spend the rest of my life choosing to love you and look past your wrongs, every single day. But I convinced myself that the similarities were only my grief-fueled imagination, trying to make reality something it wasn’t. I convinced myself I was going insane.”

Slowly, I sit next to him, our knees nearly brushing. Val pulls his hand away from his face, his expression beneath guarded.

“I was given that impossibility. What I prayed for so often: for the person I chose when I was just a girl to come back to me, a reason to forgive you, and a reason to no longer punish myself for wanting you . Valledyn. All in one. And I ran from you instead. You were right. I’m terrified of you.

Of how easily you could break me. I lost you once, and I nearly didn’t survive. ”

I rub my thumb over my wedding ring. He releases a loud breath while I smile softly at the token. “If I had known you were still alive, I would have done everything I could to bring us together again. Until you were mine forever. No escape. Just like you did for me.”

I lift my head, meeting my husband’s stare.

“I can’t promise I won’t still be angry with you.

Or that I’ll ever fully be able to forgive you.

” Reaching out my hand, trembling terribly, I bring it to his jaw, cradling it in my palm, my wedding ring resting against his cheek while I stroke. “But I want to try.”

“I’m sorry,” Val whispers seriously. “I thought it would be easy between us. Like when we were young. ”

“I’m sorry, too. For all the hateful things I said. For refusing to see you for who you were. For running from you when you begged me not to.”

Val swallows hard, his eyes still reserved. He makes no move to come closer. To touch our knees together. Or take my hand. His arms stay planted over the back of the settee. Whether it’s because he doesn’t trust himself or me, I don’t know.

This reservation from him, a man who disregards the word boundaries at every turn as if the notion doesn’t apply to him… I can’t stand it.

“Are you drunk?” I ask, nodding towards his glass.

“No. I’d only just started.”

Boldly, I throw a leg over his, straddling his lap uninvited.

Val’s jaw is tense, teeth clamped together tight.

But he won’t move his arms, bring them around my body and pull me close like I need him to.

Not even as his black gaze stays pinned on me, unblinking.

Soaking in every angle of my face like it’s the only thing worth looking at in the world.

I trail my hand up his cheek, our eyes locked with intensity. “I choose you. We belong to each other, just as you’ve been telling me.”

Val’s eyes close, his head falling forward to land on my chest, right against my heartbeat. I run my fingers through his hair. But his arms never move.

“Valledyn,” I whisper, knowing now the full importance of that name, why it’s affected him so every time I utter its entirety. Because it’s the one he chose for himself. Keeping in mind the way Blair told me he didn’t share his name from before with anyone, because he is that person no more.

“Look at me,” I plead, picking his head up to face me again. He acquiesces easily. Malleable in my hands, miserable longing alive in his eyes. Those black depths hold a smoldering fire that might burn me alive. “Touch me. Please, touch me.”

And finally, at my urging, he moves. Slowly.

Unpeeling himself from where he’s kept his hands glued to the couch.

But he doesn’t touch me in the way I expect.

Instead of crashing his mouth into mine in a passionate kiss, or grabbing a fistful of my hair or my ass, Val winds his arms around my back, pulling me close.

Tucking me against him. His chin nestles into my neck; I rest my head against the side of his.

Hugging each other.

Simply holding an embrace of two people in love in a way that we weren’t allowed to before. Raw and real. Our true reunion after all this time. Val’s heart thumps against my body. Strong and sure. Mine resounds right back.

His.

I pull away, my hands at either side of his neck. “Kiss me,” I beg. Quiet. Desperate.

He cups my chin, breathing hard, fingers gentle and sure.

He leans forward, capturing my mouth with his.

As knowing and familiar as that night in the graveyard, holding the same air of wanting.

Just as slow and exploratory, savoring each other’s taste.

But it’s deeper than before. Harder. More claiming.

The taste of whiskey on his breath adds to his allure, dark, spicy, and downright sinful.

Val’s arm grips my back as his lips move against mine, pushing his tongue into my mouth with a languid stroke. I open wide, letting him in to devour me whole.

My nipples are painfully hard, rubbing against my clothes with added friction from my piercings.

I let out a husky moan, slowly rolling my hips to grind on Val’s lap.

Removing his hand from my face, I take his ring finger in my mouth, sucking it down to swirl my tongue around his wedding band.

His lips part, a hissing breath blowing past them, watching his finger in my mouth with rapt awe.

Val pushes it down my throat, quick and owning and making me gag, before pulling it out, releasing with a pop.

Liquid heat spreads between my legs, Val hardening beneath me. My tongue pushes into his mouth again, caressing each other in another deep, sultry kiss. Loud, slow, and wet. I bite his bottom lip, one of his rings clicking against my teeth, and he groans for me. A quiet, needy, masculine sound.

“ Touch me,” I tell Val again, my hips rolling into his, needing him as close as he can possibly be. Break me apart and put me back together from within.

Val groans, grabbing a fistful of my hair and pulling my head to the side, deepening the kiss.

Urgency taking over, his other hand wraps around my waist, guiding me to rub over his cock.

I lift my dress, exposing my naked ass beneath, thanks to the fact that I discarded my panties in his en suite.

The air is cold against me, adding to my sensation.

Val moans into my mouth, palming my bare ass and kneading with his big hand. “You knew what you were doing, before coming to find me.”

I answer with a slow nod, rubbing my nose against his, just like owls do—just how he likes.

“You love driving me mad, don’t you?”

I’m all wet and warm, ruining my husband’s soft pants, the only barrier between him and my waiting, wanting pussy.

Val lifts, just enough to pull his pants down and kick them away, his cock falling free, long, heavy, and thick .

He pushes my head down to look at his cock, shockingly huge and laying against his dark shirt that’s melded to his toned stomach. “This is what you want?”

I reach between us, stroking my fingers softly against his hot head, swiping the wet tip before I pull them away. “Yes.”

Val yanks me back down on top of him, but not the way I need.

The ridge of him is nestled between my soaking wet seam.

His flesh is hot on mine as he starts grinding his hips to slide against me.

The head of his cock barely nudges against my overly sensitive clit with every thrust up, throbbing and wanting.

I make a needy noise every time it brushes against my piercing, my entire body tightening in response.

Val pulls me closer, doing it again with more intention. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I whine.

Val brushes a hand over a breast, feeling the ring beneath. Moves down between my legs to my clit, still rubbing all over him. “I fucking love these. Thank you. Thank you for letting me.” He pinches the clit ring between his fingers, plucking at it and making me cry out and squirm.

It occurs to me that I should be thanking him, but he’s stolen my voice with those fingers pulling at my clit.

“You like it.” It isn’t a question and requires no response.

He locks onto my neck, sucking between bites for little bruises to pop up.

I nod my head, Val’s lips still attached on my skin.

Licking me while he marks me with his teeth.

He lets my piercing go, and I’m about to ask him to pull it again when he flicks it hard with his finger, and I scream with pleasure.

“Yeah. You wanted it, didn’t you?”

“I wanted it. I want you ,” I say through heavy breaths.

“Then take me. ”

Val grips my hip tighter, dragging my wet cunt over the ridge of his hard cock. I slide myself all the way to the tip, laying against his dark shirt, trying to fit it inside myself. To hurl us over this agonizing cliff of want that we’ve been toying with since he fucked me at our wedding.

“Ah-ah,” he scolds, playfulness in his tone while I try to wriggle my way onto his cock. Val’s fingers dig into my waist. Hard. So hard it almost hurts. “Not like that, Delaney.”