Page 26

Chapter Twenty-Five: Rhea

Nox’s breath quickens, my exposed skin warming everywhere he paints his sultry gaze over it.

“You are…” He shakes his head as if the right words simply don’t exist.

I see them, though, in his eyes. The reverence. The longing. The love. Wrapping an arm around my back, he draws me forward until our naked skin is pressed together. My fingers dive back into his hair, the soft strands still damp from his shower rustling between them. He kisses me again, the feel of it still hungry and laced with need but also sweeter. More exquisite.

“That night at the river,” he breathes, his lips ghosting over my own, “took every ounce of willpower I possess. You looked so beautiful bathed in the moonlight, and all I could think about was hearing my name cross your lips in ecstasy.”

“It would have been the wrong one,” I tease. He captures my mouth again, my words melting into a moan that he eagerly devours.

“Were I a lesser man, I would not have cared,” he whispers when we part.

I press myself somehow closer, a rush of warmth gathering at my core when I feel how hard he is. “Were you a lesser man, I would not be so desperately in love with you.”

Nox leans back to let his hooded gaze roam my face, his subtle exhale dancing across my lips. His expression is one of awe—as if what I’ve said has unearthed something buried deeply within him.

“I will never tire of hearing you say that.” Turning, he holds me to him while moving us farther up the bed. With heart-piercing slowness, he lowers me down, his hips settling between my widened legs and his chest perfectly brushing against mine until my nipples peak from our closeness. Gently, he brushes the hair from my face before leaning down to kiss my forehead, my cheeks, my nose, and then finally my mouth.

It is silly to think that this moment might be one that could heal some of the things I feel about myself. The self-loathing. The unbearable guilt. Yet, as he continues to kiss me like I’m precious, his breathing just as unsteady as my own, I wonder if it could be.

“Where do you want me to touch you?” His fingers glide down my neck and across my collarbone, a tingling sensation following in their wake.

My eyes flutter closed, words slow to come to me, but I only need to say one. “ Everywhere .”

Nox makes a noise low in his throat, pressing himself into me at the same moment his hand drags over one of my breasts. It’s guttural, the sensation that floods me as I dig my nails into his back. He slides down my body, the heat of his breath cascading past my neck and then my shoulders. When his lips skim over my nipple once, twice, before closing over it completely, all while he flicks his thumb over the other one, my body succumbs completely to his touch. He moans into my skin, the vibration of it paired with the sliding of his tongue turning my breath staccato.

He kisses his way over to my other side, showing that half as much delicious attention as the first while his hand glides down my stomach, moving over the bunched skirt still at my hips and pausing when his fingers skim the waistband of my undergarments. He doesn’t stop the movement of his mouth, but I can practically feel the silent question he’s asking.

“Yes,” I groan, and that’s all he needs for his fingers to dive beneath the thin lacy fabric.

He brushes them gently over the sensitive bundle of nerves, blood rushing to my ears as I fixate on his touch. It’s the same but also much different from the feel of my own hand. I make a strangled noise when he does it again and again, my stomach clenching low and tight. His mouth leaves my body with a soft pop , the cool air stinging my skin.

“Rhea, look at me,” he rasps, the sound as tormented as I feel because asking me to do anything right now seems impossible. But I manage to open my eyes and arch my neck, meeting his heated gaze. “I want to watch your face when I find out how wet you are for me.” Then his finger slips lower until it’s pressing right at my entrance. He gently swipes through me, just dipping in enough to gather some of my arousal before bringing it back up, where he begins to move his finger in a tantalizing circle. Nox groans, his forehead falling to my chest as he kisses me there. “Everything about you is so much better than I ever dreamed it would be.”

His praise lights me from within, rousing my magic and making it hum in response. I drag my nails up his back and neck until I’m once more gripping his hair, holding onto him as an anchor for fear I might otherwise float away. My panting breaths seem to echo off the walls, and I briefly wonder if I’m doing enough. If I’m doing this right.

But his unhurried touch brings me closer to the precipice of release, forcing me to focus only on him and not on my doubts. Nox reaches up to kiss me deeply, his tongue aligning with the movements of his finger so expertly that it claims my breath while leaving me free-falling, the tension uncoiling rapidly within me.

I bite down on my lower lip, trying to silence the indecent moans clawing up my throat.

He notices, his gaze growing lethal as he leans back and growls , “Don’t you dare quiet yourself. I want to hear every single sound you make, Rhea. Those noises are mine to claim.” As if to punctuate his words, his finger moves faster while his teeth nip at my ear.

The next wave of release peaks, then hangs until I think I’m shouting between my heaving breaths as my heels dig into the bed. I wait for that feeling—the one that ushers in complete relaxation—but with Nox’s body still on top of my own, it never comes. Instead, the ache between my legs pulses stronger .

“When you dreamed of my hands touching you, was it like that?” His voice is pure velvet, sensuous in a way I’ve never heard from him, and it turns me utterly molten .

“This is better.”

A dark chuckle leaves him before he moves to stand.

“What are you—”

My question is halted when he leans over and wraps his hands around either side of my waist, dragging me down the bed until my legs hang off the edge of it. Nox gathers my skirt, and with another look up at me for approval—which I give with a nod—he removes and then tosses it to the floor like he’s personally offended by it. The sight makes me laugh, my hand then covering my mouth in mortification.

“Rhea, I meant every. Single. Noise. ” The cadence of his voice sends my heart skipping and makes my magic press harder at the barrier of my skin.

Lowering my hand, I brace myself on my elbows and stare up at where he stands in front of me, his legs between my knees. “I would have thought laughing at a time like this is a bad thing.”

“Not your laugh. Never your laugh. I always want to hear it.” He leans down and kisses me—first my lips and then the curve of my jaw, my head falling back to give him access to my neck. His sweet words might make me tear up if only I wasn’t so overwhelmed by the way his tongue drags across my scorching skin. Nox travels his way down to my stomach, moving slowly like he has to make sure he savors every place his lips caress. “So perfect.” His voice melts into me, making my toes curl.

Then he lowers onto his knees, the act igniting my blood. My guard. My friend. My prince. On his knees before me . He hooks his fingers into the waistband of my undergarment and, with a restraint I could never replicate, begins to slide them off of me. Time stands still as I watch him, my anxiousness easing a little when I see how quickly his chest is rising and falling too. When I’m completely bare, his eyes fall directly on the spot between my legs. I don’t want to be shy about him seeing me this way, but it’s instinctual to let my knees fall together.

Nox clicks his tongue, shaking his head and sending his raven waves tumbling over his forehead. Placing his hands on my knees, his lips pull to the right as his gaze pierces me. “I told you I would get on my knees for you.” A breathy laugh is all I can manage, words and thoughts wiped completely away by the sight before me. “What do you want, Rhea?” he asks, lowering his body while his hands push my legs apart, his shoulders holding them open.

“What?”

“What. Do. You. Want?” Each word is sharply enunciated, and I gasp again when he plants tender kisses on my inner thigh, moving higher with each one.

For a moment, I don’t know how to answer him. I’ve never been given the opportunity to choose something for myself until the day I allowed him into the tower. That choice had changed everything— everything.

So maybe that is answer enough.

“You.” Vulnerability makes my lips tremble, the air thick with the emotion. I don’t think sex is only about pleasure—it is seeing someone unencumbered. Uninhibited. It is honesty in its purest form. “I just want you.”

He presses a kiss right above where I need him. Where I am already so wet with desire. Reaching across my body, he grabs my hand and forces me to partially sit up. Then he guides my fingers into his hair, his grip tightening around my own.

“You will use me to find your pleasure, Rhea.”

I stare at him as I feel another jagged part of me smooth over. Despite being inexperienced, he’s giving me the power in a moment when he could hold it all. That had always been the case with him though. It was almost as if his pleasure was completely dependent upon my own.

The first long swipe of his tongue is euphoric, the sensation foreign and new but so incredibly divine. I hold my breath and watch him lick another line directly up my center, right to where I’m most sensitive. My back arches when he moans, the need for more friction overwhelming.

“I knew you would taste incredible. Fuck , I knew it.” Then his mouth is on me fully, devouring me in eager and luscious strokes. His eye’s meet mine, gleaming in wicked delight while his mouth and tongue— gods, that tongue —do something far more sinful.

I’m tumbling off the edge of the world, each ounce of control over my body leaves little by little as he kisses and licks and even drags his teeth over me. His palm flattens on my abdomen, my writhing uncoordinated and led purely by the desire racing through my veins. Nox grabs my legs and places them over his shoulders, the action giving me the ability to use him as leverage. With a hand still in his hair, I hold him to me and roll myself against his mouth, groaning as I do.

“ Yes , Rhea.”

My eyes close as tension builds at the base of my spine. How is it possible that each touch from him is better than the last? That my body both craves and is sated by him at the same time? It’s enough to make me crazy—to want to lose myself in this madness he creates. We create .

“Say my name again.” The command in his voice, the dominance in it, makes me shudder as my fingers tighten around his hair. He drags his tongue over me again, and I think I could die from this—from the pleasure of him touching me this way.

“Oh gods,” I moan, my hips bucking against him, but he forces them back down with his forearm. My eyes fly open, a squeak of protest on the tip of my tongue until I look at him. His lips shine with my arousal, and his gaze narrows fiendishly at the apex of my thighs.

“Say.” Lick . “My.” Lick . “Name.” Lick .

I whimper, each flick of his tongue only edging me closer to release. His name. It’s not a stretch to assume he needs me to say his name—his real name—because it had been so painful for us both when I had first learned it. Maybe this is his way of replacing that memory with a better one. Or maybe it is because he really does like hearing me say it. I honestly don’t care if it means he’ll keep touching me like this.

“ Nox. ” It’s hardly audible, but it pleases him all the same.

He hums, releasing his hold on my hips. “Good girl,” he says against me, and gods, it’s too much. His thumb begins circling right above where his tongue dives into me. The pleasure is relentless, and soon my legs begin to shake, my thighs squeezing around his head. “Come for me, Sunshine.”

A scream builds its way up my throat right as my orgasm flares—the intensity of it forcing my shoulders into the bed while my back bows, my body heeding his command. My magic feels like it’s bursting at the seams, rushing up and settling into the spaces between my ribs. Stars fracture behind my eyes—in my very blood —as I ride out the orgasm he ushers in. Nox’s hands caress my stomach, his mouth slowing down while I float back into reality.

“That was…” My lips flutter together while I blow out a breath and throw both arms over my head. I feel him smile against me, placing a delicate kiss inside each thigh before he removes my legs from his shoulders. My entire body is completely languid, as if my bones have become soft, but I know we aren’t done. I sit up slowly as Nox braces his hands on either side of my hips, my thighs slick and sliding against each other. “Was that good for you?” I whisper.

He laughs, the sound laced with a shadowy seduction that makes heat burst to life again low in my stomach. “ Good is not the word I would use to describe what that was, Rhea.” His tongue darts out to lick his bottom lip before he traps it between his teeth. “Your taste is one I will forever crave, a pleasure I am now addicted to. I could have my tongue between your gorgeous legs over and over again, every day for the rest of my life, and it would never be enough.” He leans in closer, the scent I know as him mixing with one I realize is me. “Are you curious to know what you taste like off of my lips?”

My eyes dip down to his glistening mouth. There is something about acknowledging that it’s me he’s talking about, me he is tasting, that further tilts my world on its axis. “Yes.”

Nox groans before his hand slides into my hair and he brings my mouth to his. The mixture of us is overwhelming, the taste something indescribable as I devour him, shivering when he groans again. With our chests heaving and hair mussed, he returns to his full height and brings his hands to the buttons of his trousers.

“Tell me to stop,” he says after undoing the first one. “It has to be now.”

His entire body stills as he waits for me to answer, his self-control evident in the set of his jaw and white of his knuckles. And I know he would stop if I asked him to. Even if lust still flowed through his veins, I know he would do only what I want.

Moving to my knees on the bed, conviction flows through me as my hands go to either side of his face. “No.”

Being intimate with Nox in any capacity has always left me feeling powerful when I otherwise felt anything but. So, with his eyes on mine, I move my hands down and begin to undo the remaining buttons on his trousers. He tucks my hair behind my ears as I do so before kissing me again, his adoration for me evident in the delicate way his fingers slide over my shoulders and down my back. How they rest lightly on my hips while his mouth moves to the outside of my jaw.

“You are my everything,” he says, trailing his lips down to the crook of my neck. “You are the only exception. To every rule, every shield I force myself to carry. To every weakness I try to conquer. I lay it all down and surrender only to you.”

My eyes grow glassy, and when Nox lifts his head again as I undo the last button, I can see the truth of those words in his gaze. It feels like a vow, the way he kisses me next, as if just our intention and lips alone can carve the way we feel about each other into stone for eternity. My pulse flutters, the world pausing, as I watch Nox fully undress. His pants slide past his hips, revealing a divot that’s somehow sculpted in the muscle there on both sides. Then they fall away completely, and my mouth goes dry. He’s glorious and beautiful and—

“Stars above,” I whisper.

Tentatively, I start to reach for him but look to him first for permission. His swallow is rough, a muscle in his jaw ticking in time with his heartbeat as he nods his head. My palm envelops silky heat, and gods, he looks even more enormous in my hand. It’s the desire to touch all of him that guides my hand up and down as I explore every thick inch in my grasp. I don’t want to stare at him, but my innate curiosity makes it so that I can only stare at him.

Damn it, I really should have read another romance novel before doing this.

Nox wraps his fingers around my own, providing a little more pressure as he slides our joined hands in sync. I feel his gaze heavy on me, but I can’t look away from how perfect he is. We make it a few more strokes before he lets out a restrained noise and pulls our hands away. “Nope. That is a bad idea.”

“I’m sorry, I—”

“If you had any idea what a single touch from you does to me, you wouldn’t be apologizing. This will be over before it starts if we keep doing that.”

I choke out a laugh which he kisses me through, like he can swallow up the sound and store it within himself. Then he’s guiding us farther up the bed until I’m once more on my back with him settled between my legs. A single arm braces his weight by my head while his other hand grazes over my chest and down the side of my body, stopping when he reaches my hip.

“Just so you know, there is no wrong way to do this. Having you is all I need.” He looks at me like he can see through me—past the skin and muscle and bone and down into the darkest parts of my soul, where my tattered heart beats just for him. “Are you ready?”

It is one last question, one last assurance that I want this. Want him . My heart thumps so loudly that I think the entire kingdom may hear it, but I cup his handsome face in my hands, my thumbs brushing his cheekbones in light swipes. “I want you, Nox. All of you .”

His hand is then gone from my hip, and I wrap my arms around his neck, hanging onto him and allowing my legs to fall even farther apart. Shifting his weight, I groan when I feel him drag himself—hard and silken and warm—over my core. He brings his forehead to mine, and my eyes fall closed as he guides the very tip of his cock into me. I suck in a breath, my body tensing automatically at the foreign sensation. Nox kisses me slowly— seductively —and I drink him in, focusing on the way his tongue dips into my mouth and how his thumb circles my nipple. His hips lift before they roll slowly towards me, and he goes in a little deeper. There is a sharp burst of pain as he stretches me, its suddenness making me gasp.

“Tell me what you’re feeling,” he murmurs against my lips.

“Pressure—like I’m unbearably full.”

“There’s… still quite a bit of me to go. Why don’t you use your magic to heal yourself?”

My eyes open to stare into his. “No.”

“Rhea, you can take away the pain—”

“ No ,” I repeat, my chest cracking wide open as I look at him. “I will never get to have this moment again. There will never be another first time. I want to feel it all. I want to remember every detail, how sweet and perfect it is. How incredible you are. Keep going, Nox. Please .”

The wild rhythm of my heart is a song made just for him, each frantic flutter repeating the same chant over and over again: I love him. I love him. I love him. It sings out, surpassing this room and kingdom and moving out through space and eons and the Middle. Out into foreign worlds and past the gods that roam among them.

“Okay,” he whispers, looking down at me like I might be one of those very goddesses made flesh.

I don’t know how much time passes, only that it’s measured in the way he moves slowly— delicately —his hips rolling and bringing him in and out at a pace that my body can adjust easily to. The discomfort soon morphs into something incandescent, born out of how safe and cared for he makes me feel and cradled by the love burning brightly between us.

He takes small pauses between kissing me, as if he doesn’t want to miss a single twitch of my lips or gasp of my breath. And then finally, finally , he’s inside fully, stretching and molding me. Remaking me.

“What do you feel?” he asks again, the dark waves curling over his temple drawing my gaze.

Everything . I feel his breath cascading over my lips, the rush of it in time with my own. I feel the way his heart beats soundly within his chest, reverberating directly over mine, and the weight of his body, most of it held away from me but still blanketing me with his warmth and his scent. I feel him inside me, filling me so entirely—so wholly —that I wonder if an emptiness will linger when we’re done. If there will always be a part of me that is missing until our bodies come together again.

“I feel you ,” I finally answer. Tears leak from the corners of my eyes, and Nox leans down to kiss them away. “I feel like you were made just for me.”

“We were made for each other,” he rasps as he pulls out a few inches before pushing back in, the movement still cautious, still tender.

My mind races wildly as I try to understand how he can feel so incredible. How we can fit together so perfectly.

It’s a thousand answers to a thousand questions not yet formed.

It’s the beginning and the end and the eternity in between.

It’s the power of the sun and the moon and every single star in the night sky.

It’s bliss and happiness and desire and life.

And it’s mine. He’s mine .

I close my eyes as his gentle thrusts grow faster, my body begging to move with his. So I dig my heels into the bed and meet the next roll of his hips halfway. My gasp mixes with his groan, the noises joined by the sound of our bodies coming together.

“ Rhea .”

My hips tip into his next thrust, the pleasure blinding as I begin to unravel.

“Fuck,” he groans.

My brows draw together, the dull pain overshadowed by my unyielding need for him. I don’t stop, matching his movements while he gently pulls one of my hands free of his hair to interlace with his, resting them both on the bed above my head.

Visions of glittering white and black tendrils, like loose ribbons billowing in a breeze, fill my mind’s eye. It looks like my magic, but there is something else there now too. Nox’s magic. Shadows of deep purple woven with onyx wrap around it, fusing with it. Not to form something new but to finally become whole. Coming home. As if two star-crossed lovers found each other across worlds.

My breaths turn choppy, and tension coils and curls inside me, my core pulsing and tingling while Nox’s own movements fall out of rhythm.

“Tell me that you want me to come,” he whispers raggedly, his grip tightening on me. “That you need me to stay inside of you.”

“Yes. Stay .” Stay inside me. Stay like this forever. Just stay.

Nox kisses me hard, his teeth grazing my lower lip. I don’t want it to be over yet, but my back arches as my inner muscles clench around him and a groan rips from my throat. Stars burst behind my eyes as I squeeze Nox to me, falling into blissful oblivion. My name is called out as his hips jerk and he finishes with me.

My magic thrums throughout my body, tugging at my chest like it’s guiding me towards him—invisible strings looping around us both and pulling taut. For a brief moment, the air around us shifts, electricity building like that of an impending storm. My arms break out in goosebumps as the fine hairs there lift. I force my eyes open, only to see Nox’s gaze already on me, a wondrous look in his eyes.

“Do you feel that?” he asks, his body trembling.

Nodding, I take the hand not holding his and push the hair back from his forehead. “It feels almost like static electricity.”

Every part of my body aches, none more so than where he is still very much inside of me, but the joy—the utter peace—is something I’ve never felt this strongly before. With our eyes locked, so tenderly that it threatens more tears, he begins to pull out of me. We both let out a half sigh, half moan when he’s fully out before he rests his forehead on my chest and mumbles something into my skin.

“I can’t understand you when your face is pressed into me like that,” I say, giggling when he responds by planting smacking kisses in the dip between my breasts.

He rolls to my side, only to take me with him so that we are facing each other, my head resting on his arm.

“Better?” he teases, and I roll my eyes at his playful smirk, poking his abdomen. His fingers trail down my side and into the hollow of my waist, his features easing the longer he looks at me. “I love you.”

Those words are like sunlight to a flower that has only known shadows. I feel them take root within me, feel them as easily as I feel my own heart’s steady rhythm. I smile, wide and unrestrained and just for him. “I love you, too.”

Smiling back, his exhale is slow before he asks, “Are you in any pain?”

“I’m sore, but,” I pause, kissing the tip of his nose, “I would do it again.”

He barks out a shocked laugh, wrapping his arm around me so that I’m flush against his chest, my own laughter filling the room. And how wonderful it is, to laugh so easily while in his embrace. To feel so complete and whole and loved , if only for a moment.

“That sensation earlier was our magical signature,” Nox says, his fingers draping over my hip.

“What is a magical signature? I’ve heard you use that term before.”

“Raw magic leaves its energy in the air around us. You have to become attuned to it, learn to pick it up out of the chaos of the natural world, but once you do, you will always feel it. Mages both have a signature and can pick up on others’.” He pulls me closer to him, rolling again until we’re off the bed and I’m cradled in his arms. Walking to the bathroom, he sets my feet down on the cold tile as he reaches over and turns the water to the tub on. “And I will tell you more about it after you explain to me again what the Middle is.”