Page 45 of The Unseen Hour (The Unseen Hour Duology #1)

O rion and I returned to the cottage, which felt much smaller than it had previously.

Or perhaps it was that Orion took up more space as he turned to shut the door behind me.

“Did you mean what you said in the cavern? About being ready.”

“Yes,” I answered without hesitation.

There was a lot of uncertainty in our future, and our situation in the Ether, but that was one thing I wasn’t going to change my mind about.

I wanted Orion.

“I don’t want you to think that because you said yes to me, that you’re obligated to me in any way.”

Many men in Emrys would have felt differently. Orion was exceptional, and I wanted to make sure he knew it.

“If anything, I think you’ll find my desire for you will only grow. ”

“Is that so?”

He prowled forward, just as predatory in his movements as some of the Ether’s animals. Soon, my back was pressed up against the cottage wall. His arms rested to the sides of my head, and he leaned closer. I was boxed in, but instead of feeling caged, all I wanted to do was get closer.

“Ry.”

One of his hands dropped to the back of my neck, and he eliminated the remaining distance between us. The kiss was bruising and insistent. His hand trailed down my side.

“I need to see you, Starlight,” Orion insisted. “No layers of fabric between us, and no secrets either.”

He’d seen me before, but this was different. He’d helped me treat wounds, or felt me underneath layers of clothing. Now we were in front of the fire, and I could see and feel everything. Nothing to focus on but each other.

I ducked out from underneath Orion’s arm, giving myself more space.

I tugged at my borrowed shirt. When he twisted around and saw what I was doing, the flecks in his eyes practically glowed.

“May I help?”

I nodded, barely daring to move my chin.

As his hands pulled the shirt he began kissing my neck, sending a pleasant shiver trailing down my spine.

“Ry, I want to feel you.”

I’d barely gotten the words out of mouth when Orion groaned into my neck, pressing the length of his body against me. He ground his hips, and I let out a mewling sound that wasn’t in any way controlled, and certainly not dignified.

Heat pooled between my legs, and an aching need had me reaching to pull him in closer. He trailed bites and kisses down my neck. He only paused long enough to finish pulling the shirt over my head.

I’d just as soon have him rip it off, but our clothes were limited.

I reached for his shirt in turn, and he obligingly pulled it over his head with one arm. The need for him, the desire to be closer, was driving me. It drowned out any lingering voice in my head that might have insisted on propriety.

I stepped out of my borrowed trousers, only pausing for a moment. I didn’t think he’d noticed it in the woods, but I had that large scar from my incident with Pellix and the wolf. I knew Orion wouldn’t judge me for it, but would he be disappointed?

I was fully exposed to him at that point but refused to let embarrassment stop me. Orion grabbed at my waist, tugging me back against him.

“Magnificent,” he whispered as his hands crept higher.

He palmed one of my breasts, then ran his thumb along the nipple. Another shiver trailed down my spine, and that same helpless sound escaped my throat.

I tried to clamp it down.

“Oh no, Starlight. I want to hear every sound you make.” He repeated the motion, and I whimpered. When he leaned in toward my neck I could feel his grin against my skin.

“Much better.”

His hand delved lower, until his fingers brushed against my clit. I’d had no experience with the trysts in Emrys, but I was very familiar with my own anatomy. There had been many nights in my own bed at Scops when I’d touched myself, but it didn’t compare in the slightest to the feel of Orion.

He swirled his fingers over my clit, and I began to moan. He captured my mouth in his.

I was on the verge of losing myself to the moment entirely.

“Ry!” I squirmed beneath his hands.

I wrapped my arms around his back, my fingers digging into his shoulders as I clutched him against me.

“I want all of you, please,” I begged.

He broke off our kiss, tugging off his trousers hurriedly. I’d seen him working outdoors without his shirt on before. But I’d never seen him fully unclothed like this.

He was breathtaking. Muscled arms and chest from his work in the Ether, and no small number of scars.

He’d told me that he made mistakes when he was first figuring out how to survive here, and I saw them like a timeline along his skin.

I reached out and traced a finger over a long, thin scar on his forearm.

“So many,” I murmured.

He laughed.

“I’m not the most handsome man at the ball, but as long as you don’t mind?—”

I shook my head.

“I wouldn’t want anyone else. I’d let you escort me to a thousand balls. Even without a shirt.”

He beamed.

“You’d get us thrown out, Starlight. What would people say?”

My reputation was already destroyed a thousand times over by now, but as long as I had Orion, it didn’t matter in the slightest.

“We’d both be effectively ruined,” he insisted.

I reached up, my fingers weaving into his hair as I pulled him down.

“Then ruin me.”

One of Orion’s hands trailed down my side, clutching at my hips. His touch made me want to jump out of my skin; every nerve responded to him .

My entire body lit up as his fingers trailed along the most sensitive part of me, not lingering, teasing with light touches.

“Ry!” I gasped, pressing myself closer.

His fingers pressed against my clit again, circling in a way that made me want to come apart.

“Again,” he whispered.

“Ry, that feels?—”

I clutched at his back, trailing my fingers down his shoulders and writhing against his hand. Everything felt tense, like my entire body was contracted and focused on that one point where his hand moved.

“I can’t! I can’t!” I squirmed, needing to move, needing more of him, needing something.

“I’ve got you, Starlight, I’m right here,” Orion soothed, then he kissed that sensitive spot on my neck as he pressed harder and the whole world came apart.

I screamed his name, pleasure rolling through me. All the tightness released at once, flooding my body. My knees threatened to give out, and I felt my limbs trembling. Waves of sensation echoed through me, and it took several moments before I could form a coherent thought.

“That was—” I couldn’t even describe it.

Orion held me, lowering us both down on the two cots we’d shoved together. He lay down beside me, pulling my head against his chest so we were positioned just like we’d slept together before.

“That felt incredible,” I said.

The words hardly did the moment justice. All those nights imagining my mysterious author, and I was in his arms.

I reached down, brushing my fingers against his cock. He sucked in a breath.

“Starlight, when you touch me like that?—”

I wrapped my hand around him, trailing it up and down.

“Touch you like what?” I whispered.

“Bloody ghosts!” he choked out, throwing his head back. He only let me continue for a few moments before he reached for my hand.

“Keep doing that, and this is going to move much quicker than I’d hoped for,” he warned.

I’d no sooner released him than he grabbed me and flipped us so my back was pinned to the cot. My mouth dropped open, fully prepared for a witty remark when he leaned down, his mouth closing over my right breast.

As he sucked and licked I moaned, no longer capable of any rational speech. Then he moved lower, kissing my stomach and my hips.

When his tongue flicked against my clit, all the same needy tension returned, magnified tenfold. I bucked under his mouth.

“I’ve been dreaming of this,” Orion growled into my skin.

Everything was sensitive; every nerve on alert. Each movement he made with his tongue sent my need mounting higher and higher, until once again it felt like I wouldn’t be able to take it anymore. My body craved release.

His mouth pressed against me, his tongue growing more insistent and one hand clutching at my hip. With his other he pressed a finger against my core, then slid it inside me.

When he added a second, his tongue still teasing me, I screamed his name.

“I could never tire of hearing my name from your lips,” he murmured before continuing.

I knew my nails had to be clawing new marks into his back as I pulled at him, but I was utterly helpless to stop myself.

He pumped his fingers into me, and his tongue flicked against me, shattering me again. I’d never felt anything like this. It was pure rapture.

I was breathing hard, trembling as I came down from my release .

Orion crawled up my body, kissing from my hips back to my neck. I felt his cock against my center, hard and insistent.

“Still ready?” he asked.

I managed a nod, not trusting my own voice.

I gasped as Orion entered me, pressure and a sharp pain shooting through me.

“I’ll go slow,” he assured me, his movements steady and slowing, just as he’d promised.

He continued to trail kisses down my neck. After a few moments the pressure eased, and the pain decreased. It was still there, but mounting alongside it was that increasingly familiar sense of growing tension and desire.

Just like the first time he’d kissed me, I needed him closer, deeper.

My hair fell back against the blankets. If I was ruined, I was ruined. And it wasn’t because of the shame for anything we did.

It was because Ry had captured me, heart and soul, and I was ruined for anyone else.

Orion’s rhythmic movements sped up. He braced himself with one hand to the side of my head, staring down at me.

“All gods, you are stunning. I never thought that I could have this. Someone here, someone who understood me.”

I wrapped my arms around him, my fingers trailing through his hair.

“Until Emrys and all the gods’ realms fall, I will be yours, Ry.”

He groaned, and I gasped in response, the two of us moving together.

Ry drove into me, his thrusts speeding up as he pushed deeper. I kissed his neck, trying to match his rhythm.

He reached between us, his fingers finding my clit again as he continued to thrust into me. It didn’t take long for me to reach a peak, and then that same shattering release .

I came apart beneath him, and his entire body tensed.

“Starlight!” he yelled my name like a desperate plea. I could feel his release, and I wanted nothing more than to keep him that close forever.

For several moments afterward we lay completely still, utterly spent. Then he moved, rolling so he could hold me.

“How are you feeling?”

“Overwhelmed,” I admitted. “I fantasized about you even before I knew who you were. I fell for words on a page, and never thought I’d meet the author.”

“And now?”

“I feel closer to you than I even imagined I could. It’s nice, but also terrifying.”

“Because it’s one more thing you might lose?”

“Exactly.” I knew he could relate to that sentiment.

Night had fallen outside. I could see blue and green creeping in from under the door.

“It’s similar for me. I’ve had no one this entire time, and now that I have you, I won’t let even Charon stand in the way. I would do anything for you, Starlight,” he whispered into my hair.

“Would you let us delay until tomorrow?” I couldn’t imagine letting him go at the moment, even to go after Charon’s second item.

“We can leave first thing in the morning,” he said.

After Orion had fallen asleep, I was still awake, thinking over our next destination.

The Unseen Hour had taken Ry from Emrys once, and if we were found out, Charon might remove him for good.

I knew I was also in very real danger, but I’d chosen to take a risk when I entered the Ether.

I had gained Orion, and an ally in Death.

We’d been given the chance to end the Unseen Hour once and for all.

He’d had to wait for this moment for a century. I couldn’t let him be the one to suffer if things went wrong.

The thought that we might fail welled up in me. I bit down on my lip, determined to force down the urge to cry.

“What are you thinking?”

Ry was curled against my back, one hand combing through my hair. The light touch sent a pleasant sensation tingling down my spine, and it almost made me forget what I’d been so focused on moments before.

I’d promised him honesty. No layers between us.

“I was thinking that I could lose you.”

He laughed.

I rolled to face him, my nose scrunching as I scowled.

“Do you mind explaining how that’s humorous?”

He just grinned.

“I was thinking I might need to improve my technique, if you’re envisioning ways to get rid of me afterward.”

I placed one hand against his bare chest.

“You know that’s not it. I was thinking that I couldn’t stand to lose you. That everything we’re doing, even if it saved Emrys, wouldn’t be worth it if it costs you.”

His smile grew softer, the teasing tone in his voice taking on a soft edge.

“That will not happen. I’ll do everything in my power to make sure of it. And I couldn’t stand to lose you, either.”

One hand was still wrapped in my hair, and his eyes darkened, his gaze hardening.

“No one will take you from me, Celia. As long as you want me here, I’ll be by your side. Nothing will prevent that, not even a god.”

He leaned in, kissing me, and I responded hungrily.

It was only later, as I was drifting off to sleep, that the doubt crept back in.