Page 213 of Curse of Darkness
The night I ascended, I vaguely recall slamming face-first onto the stretcher in our tent, while Thiago left to deal with the army and command tent, and we’ve been putting out small summer forest fires ever since.
Maybe he senses it too, this need within me.
The rasp of his stubble brushes against the slope of my neck, sending a shiver all the way through me. “I missed you,” he whispers, capturing my upper arms with those callused hands. “I missed this. Belt and all.”
A hot openmouthed kiss paints itself against the side of my throat. “Gods.”
His roughened laugh whispers over my skin as the corset falls around my hips. “Which gods? Or were you referring to yourself?”
This time the shudder isn’t one of pleasure. “Don’t. Please.”
“You don’t like the thought?”
“I hate it.” Maybe this was why Maia disappeared after her ascension, allowing herself to be conjured into a myth and a legend.
Maybe she’s still out there, hiding in obscurity.
“Curse it. I was interested in worshiping at your altar.”
I swat him on the shoulder, my cheeks flushing with heat. I haven’t had time to come to terms with the consequences of my ascension. And there’s no running away, no fading into obscurity, not for me. I can’t leave my family behind, and while Thiago would always consider my preferences, to leave means leaving everything we’ve built and fought for.
“Into the bath with you,” he says, swinging me into his arms and then lowering me into the hot water. “I can still worship you as my wife.”
I sink into the bubbles, groaning again as the warm water soothes away all those niggling aches and pains.
Reaching over his shoulder, he eyes me with those insolent green eyes, as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking, and then hauls his shirt off. I can never get my fill of the chiseled cut of his body and the ripple of black shadows tattooed across his chest.
“Vi,” he says roughly as our eyes connect again, “Stop looking at me like that or I’m not going to be able to get my trousers off.”
I laugh and splash water in his direction, sinking my head back against the rim of the bath and unabashedly settling back to watch the show.
“Fuck,” he swears under his breath, wincing as he tries to unleash the buttons keeping his cock trapped. “I’m going to make you pay for this.”
Stripping them down his legs, he hops inelegantly, the ripples in his abdomen doing wonderful things.
“So powerful,” I tease. “So much grace. So sophisticated.”
There’s a dangerous edge to his smile as he hurls the trousers at the wall and then steps into the bath, his cock curving up against his stomach. It’s monstrously beautiful.
Suddenly, I want it in my mouth.
Shifting onto my hands and knees, I crawl toward him.
“Vi,” he warns, kneeling in the bath as I prowl closer. Cupping a handful of water, he lets it trickle over his shoulder as if he knows exactly what it does to his body. Bubbles slide their way over the thatch of hair surrounding his cock, and he uses them to make every inch of his erection glisten.
I kiss one of the rivulets, tasting salt and skin. My lips brush against the hair beneath his navel, just as he twists a fist into my hair.
“Behave,” he admonishes, though his green eyes gleam.
“I am behaving,” I whisper, blinking up through wet lashes. Trailing my nails up his thighs, I let them break the water, digging them into the soft skin covering the groove of his hip.
His cock’s a bare inch from my face, but that fist won’t let me near it.
“You look like you’re intent on claiming something more than Evernight,” he whispers, curling his other fist around his cock. His knuckles flex, working the viciously swollen head of his erection. Salt gleams there, begging for my mouth, and he rubs his thumb over it, smearing it.
“And you look like you enjoy seeing a queen on her knees.”
“I do.” His voice roughens. “Are you going to let me kiss you? Or do you want this first?”
