Page 74 of Tempt

Deliberately, slowly, Malice unwinds the yellow strand from around his digit. He lifts himself higher above her, his knees punching craters into the velvet. And then he cocks his head, which isn’t good.

His voice slices like a blade. “Are you hoping to cure me or resurrect him?”

At the tip of that blade is resentment. And the truth is, she cannot answer him.

Malice sees as much. His jaw ticks as he disentangles himself from her.

Wonder jolts upright and seizes his arm. It takes effort, but she wrings him around to face her, then clasps his disgruntled face. “Are you hoping to punish or redefine me?”

Her parry has the desired effect. Malice’s nostrils flare, then shrink back to normal. “I’d call that a draw.”

“What are we doing?” she inquires as his forehead lands against hers.

Malice traces her lips with his. “We’re making a deal.”

19

But with Malice, words are never about what they appear to be about. And with Wonder, thoughts are never stagnant, nor are interpretations.

So it’s not a deal. It’s a declaration.

It’s a benediction. It’s elemental—as penetrating as wind and rain and hail, as intense as firelight, as deep as water. It has come out of nowhere, without warning, yet it’s been brewing for ages, taking centuries to manifest.

It’s give and give, take and take. That’s how they’ve always worked, without a medium, digressing from one extreme to the next.

They resume their previous positions on the couch, her legs extending from one end, his from the other, entwining in the center. Wonder stretches naked while Malice’s pants drape low over his hips. He rubs her calf when she shivers for no reason, then he retrieves the decadent book and reads aloud again, having regained his voice. And she pokes his side with her toe, and she listens.

Soon enough, they switch roles as his voice strains once more, which is an awfully cute sound…awfully mortal.

After finishing the chapter, he gets comfortable addressing his former life, and she gets comfortable recounting incidents from her upbringing, plucking them randomly from memory. Their recollections work in tandem, supporting one another like crossbeams.

When he shares a secret, she shares one back, from the grand to the simple. When she expresses a favorite or least favorite—color, book, drink, flower—he reciprocates. When Malice accepts a confession from Wonder, she accepts a confession from him.

And when he tosses the book for a second time, she spreads her arms.

And when he hunches over her with a groan, she arches with a sigh.

And while sucking in each other’s breaths, they whisper, “Yes.”

Theyesing continues.

During this interlude, Wonder is agog. At one point, she eases away to stare at his swollen mouth and hooded eyes. She and this demon god had been insatiable for half the previous evening. They cannot possibly have more to express physically, at least not until tonight.

Truly, they need to work. They need to calm down.

She grabs his jaw and yanks him back to her.

They don’t make love, but they do try everything short of it, until they wear themselves out.

It goes like this as the days bleed into one another. They’ve been here for two weeks, a blink of time, the halfway point before Stellar Worship ends. Thus, their window of opportunity is shrinking, leaving only a fortnight’s width of space.

They make the most of it in dutiful and reckless ways, a fusion of rationale and utter stupidity—sober and drunk on this deal, this declaration, this whatever-it-is.

Keeping their distance is inconceivable, as much as keeping their clothes on. That barricade is down, a pile of rubble in its wake.

In the mornings, they rummage through the repository, searching for fossils of information. In the evenings, they cavort nude through the Archives, racing to see who can get to a designated section first. They fashion a scavenger hunt, assigning one another the most obscure titles and then darting in opposite directions.

Usually, these competitions segue. Malice dismisses his quest and prowls in search of Wonder, and she outsmarts him, knowing the optimal places to hide or mislead him. But somehow, somewhere in this haven, it always culminates with them finding each other. These games end with Malice hoisting her in his arms and splaying her across a table, her legs clenched around his waist, or with Wonder shoving him into a chair and straddling him.

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