Page 70 of The Vampire Castle in the Sky

As I flicked purple bubbles with my fingertips, I thought how I’d always been happiest like this, in my solitude, basking in stories and daydreams that sometimes felt like secret prayers. It was partly why I loved being with Hector. He always respected my need for inwardness after a day of adventure, and oftentimes we would spend our nights doing nothing at all but simply existing near each other. In a way, I was more myself when I was with him than when I was alone.

I set my book aside and sank deeper into the tub, thinking of him lounging in his own enchanted bath in the next room. I imagined the morning light streaming through the small window and painting his strong neck gold. Then the slope of his back and the narrow curve of his hipbones, drawing downward.I wanted to shut my eyes, imagine the rest. The heat of his skin. The parting of his lips. I knew exactly how pleasure would look on him. Everything else would be a mystery, something to tremble about, but this image I could hold in the frame of my mind just so.

But then my eyes strayed toward the ornate clock atop the mantel, discovering that more than an hour had passed already.

Grudgingly, I pulled myself out of the water, patted my body dry with a towel, and slipped into a fresh nightdress—courtesy of the Castle—before settling down at the dressing table to run oil through my curls.

I was nearly done when Hector’s deep rasp startled me out of my little ritual. “You forgot to knock.”

I jumped on my seat, a hand pressed upon my thundering chest. “For the love of the stars, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

He was leaning against the doorframe, wearing nothing but a towel around his hips. His damp hair fell messily over his eyes, and his skin glistened with water, light-dazzled droplets clinging to the crescents of his arms, the sculpted lines of his abdomen, the narrowing muscle that disappeared beneath the white cloth. His body was all solid strength like that, but his face was the exact opposite—tenderness and melting heat.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said. The mere sound of his voice, low and rough with tension, was enough to fill my body with expectation.

“Like what?”

“You know like what.”

“I can’t,” I whispered, knowing well what these words would do to him. “I don’t want to.”

A moment passed, nervous and electric.

Hector straightened, and the muscles of his arms curved, moons waxing and waning as he moved. His eyes on mine were golden stars and bonfire smoke. “Tell me to turn around.”

Another white-hot rush of anticipation. “No.”

“Tell me to lock the door behind me,” he pressed, his expression growing hopeless, desperate.

“No,” I repeated, steadier now.

He took a step, a single step, toward me. “Tell me no.”

This time I didn’t say anything. Nothing at all.

Then I blinked, and Hector appeared right before me, lifting me from the chair with an arm around my waist. He put me down on my bare feet and stared into my eyes until I learned what it was to be seen. Seen past my flesh and bones. Seen for the heart in my chest, the passion of my soul.

He cupped my face, and the room fell away. There was only him. Time stopped spending seconds. The only spent things in the world were our breaths.

“Then tell me yes,” he said. “Tell me you want this. If I have you, I will have you all. Everything you are, everything you will be. Every inch of your body. Every thought that slips your mind. Every ounce of love you have to give. And if you can’t tell me that, then tell me to wait. I’d rather wait an eternity to have you all than to have only a piece of you now.” His forehead dropped on mine, his fingers painting soft lines along the sides of my face. “It will kill me if you regret this.”

I knew it would. I knew what this would mean to him. This was exactly why I wanted it. I’d spent my whole life thinking I’d have to find myself before committing to someone else, and although this was true to a certain level, I was also starting to understand that this journey of self-discovery was going to be a continuous one. We weren’t projects with a beginning and an end but an ever-growing collection of memories. Life changed, and we changed with it, and I couldn’t think of another personI wanted to spend a life changing with more than Hector. There had only ever been Hector.

I drew back a little, just enough to be able to look into his eyes. “I will never regret you. Following you to the Castle that day was the best decision I’ve ever made. You can tell me the most horrible things, you can turn me away right now, and every night I will still wish the stars are shining brighter where you are. You are my everything. I will never, ever regret you.”

Breathless, he took my hand and placed it upon his bare chest, right over the frantic drumming of his heart. “Do you feel this? It’s so devoted to you I can barely call it my own anymore.”

My limbs started feeling heavy, aching to be touched by him. “Kiss me,” I breathed.

With the force of the wind itself, Hector pressed me against the wall, curling his fingers into the neckline of my nightdress and making me painfully aware of my lack of undergarments beneath. Then he leaned in, his thigh tangling between my own, the flame of his mouth crackling right before mine. And just as I readied myself for the kiss, he pulled back and made me chase it.

“Kiss you where? Here?” he drawled, unlacing my neckline, ribbon by ribbon, until he was able to lower his mouth to my bare breastbone. His breath warmed my skin, his lips parting to learn the taste of me. Slowly, as though he wanted to prolong the sensation, his hands slipped inside the unfurled fabric and pressed right under the curve of my breasts. I had to bite down on my lip to suppress a moan.I will die if you don’t kiss me now, I almost said. Instead I closed my eyes and savored the miracle of his hands on my body.

“Or maybe here?” he suggested, his mouth kissing a slow, wet path up my collarbone, stirring desires in me I hadn’t known myself capable of craving. Things I’d read in books. Things I’d asked the stars for.

A low grunt escaped him when he reached the base of my throat. The rough sound reverberated through me, melting into an ache between my thighs.

“Here, perhaps,” he murmured against my flushed skin. His fingers were still pressing on that spot under my breasts; only now, they were bolder, his thumbs tracing circles over them.

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