Page 33 of Her Shadow so Dark and Lovely (A Curse of Fallen Stars #1)

Sila

Lorel runs her hands down my body, her touch feather light— tentative. It is as sweet as she is. As she had been gasping beneath me.

A little frown creases her brow as she makes a study of me.

Traces the shape of my body with her fingers and her mouth like a feverish dream.

I grip the sheets tightly, gasping at her gentle worship.

Her short dark hair curls are damp, sticking to her cheeks as she looks up at me, dark eyed.

Ravenous. Tentative, but not nervous. Not afraid. She really is a magnificent creature.

“Sila?”

“Yes, little mouse?”

“How long has it been since you were with someone? Like this?”

“Some time,” I tell her.

She softly caresses my breasts, making it difficult to concentrate.

It has been an awfully long time since I had given myself up to someone else like this.

Ever since the queen had raised me again anew, I had been loyal to the purpose she had given me.

And I had abandoned it all for Lorel. She alone has brought me back to myself.

I had been a shade for so many years until she brought back emotions I had not felt in so long.

True fury. Despair. Fear. Desire. Wanting and a fierce need to possess. To protect and hold and have.

And now she is mine . It takes all my restraint not to roll her under me again.

Lorel presses her fingers into my breasts and I gasp.

“They’re so soft,” she says.

I realise I have invited torture. Beautiful, delightful torture.

“Your mind was wandering.” There’s a soft smile at the corner of her mouth.

“Very rich of you to say, She-who-thinks-too-much,” I say, resting my hands on her hips, fingers against the soft crease of her thigh.

She laughs, and it takes my breath away.

Hearing her voice, my name on her lips, was one thing.

Hearing her laugh, light and careless? I hadn’t even considered what that might be like.

It tears through to the heart of me, and nestles against my soul.

“You’re staring,” she says, still smiling. Still lovely, with her eyes half-lidded.

“I have never heard you laugh,” I say. I am sure I had not even heard her laugh in all the months I had watched her, before the book and the curse.

“And now you’ve heard me make many sounds,” Lorel says, dipping her head to my chest. Sucking at the skin, teasing with her tongue.

The weight of her pressing against my hips, the soft flesh of her breast brushing against my stomach, her fingers digging into my sides, all of it together drags a sound from deep within me.

I had not been flippant. I am touch starved and desperate and Lorel, with her paper and ink scent and honey and salt taste, sets my skin alight.

Makes me ache in a way I thought was lost to me.

“Each of them a delight,” I say, strained.

My fingers flex, digging into the soft skin of her backside.

To think she knew nothing of her own power.

Over me, over herself. Even with her voice recovered, Lorel was holding the curse back.

My sweet little mouse, so small and fragile, is such a fierce thing.

It is maddening, the way she drives all sensible thought from me.

“Sila,” Lorel murmurs against my skin. She licks a hot line of aching need up to my collarbones. “I really do like the way you taste.”

“Fuck.” Heat surges through me as I think of all the ways she could use her tongue.

I tangle my fingers in her hair, pulling her up so that I can kiss her hard.

“You are a mouthy thing,” I tell her. I kiss her again, pushing my tongue into her mouth, hoping it will somehow quell the desire I have to push her down between my thighs.

She smiles, and it is as sweet as I have ever seen it.

“I’ve never been very good at holding my tongue,” Lorel says. “Or my hands.” Her hand slides over my hip and she digs her fingers into the soft flesh of my thighs. “So soft,” she groans. Surely Lorel had been made to drive me out of my mind.

“Lorel—”

She cuts me off with a kiss as she presses her thigh against me.

I moan into her mouth and I can feel her smile.

Feel the way it pleases her from where she is pressed, hot and damp, against my thigh.

I want to hold back, want to let her have this first time in bed with another.

I am trying so very hard not to overwhelm her, because even if it had been centuries upon centuries, this is still something we are not equal in.

Lorel watches me intently, and I can see her tucking away each gasp and moan. Noting the effect of each touch. My fingers flex in her hair and her smile is a wonderful, maddening thing.

“Sila,” she says. My body responds to that, too. “I asked for everything, didn’t I?” Her fingers still, her thigh rests against me.

“Yes,” I say. It comes out more ragged than I would like. My fingers tense in her hair again. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you to use me, the way you so obviously want to,” she says.

“Lorel—”

“I can feel you trying to hold yourself back, trying not to overwhelm me. Don’t. I want you to overwhelm me.”

I search her determined little face for any sign, any indication at all that she might have misspoken. I cannot find it. May the Dark Lady have mercy on me.

“You know what to do if you want to stop?” I ask her. Lorel removes her hand from where it had been resting and taps my thigh. Three quick, hard taps. I pull her in to kiss her again, hard and demanding and desperate.

“Such a lovely creature,” I say, tightening my fingers in her hair. Her eyes flutter closed and I tug lightly. She gasps, her mouth falling open.

“Sila, let me have all of you,” she whispers. “I want all of you.”

“You have me.” I loosen my fingers and Lorel wriggles down my body, wetting her lips as she looks up at me. She is so beautiful. So eager. I comb my fingers through her hair again as she breathes in.

“I love the scent of you. Like damp earth and funeral flowers,” she sighs, leaning into my hand. Searing heat tears through me again and I need her. My scribe. My little mouse. My Lorel.

I grip her hair and push her down. Her face, her mouth, is hot against my ice cold skin and she makes a desperate, wanting noise that I feel all the way through me.

I feel the needy way she kisses me, open-mouthed and hungry and fuck .

This will not take long at all. I grind back against her, keep my fingers wound in her hair, as my breathing comes faster.

Becomes more desperate. Every part of my body is alive from the sound and feel of her.

Because I had never thought of myself as dead, but I am coming to realise that I hadn’t been living, either.

Even with my tethers at their strongest, I had been little more than a ghost of myself until Lorel had caught my eye.

Had awoken me from the long, deep slumber that was my existence.

And here? With her mouth on me, and my hips pressed against her, and her fingers digging into my thighs?

I am alive again. Alive and hot and wanting.

Unravelling and made anew, again, as pleasure claims me and tears through my body, dragging a desperate noise from within as I come entirely undone.

My breathing is rough as I release her and drag her back to me.

Kiss her damp mouth, and taste what she tastes.

Hold her sweet face with her slightly unfocused eyes and her small pants as she looks at me.

I smile, a slow thing that creeps across my face, and push my thigh between hers.

Lorel gasps and bites her lip as she presses herself against me.

“Do you want more, little mouse?” It is not as sultry as I would have liked, but it hardly seems to matter.

“Yes,” Lorel says, desperate. “I want more, I want you, I want?—”

I grasp her hips and press them down against my thigh as I grind it against her. She moans beautifully.

“Everything, I know, little mouse. I am yours, Lorel, and whatever you want from me, it is yours. Always.”

I kiss the next sound from her lips, because it is mine.

And I am hers.