Page 90 of The Crown of Moonlight
“No.Now.”
“Nothing has changed, Flora.You must know how I feel, but I’ve betrayed you.”
“I hate the others.”
“Exactly what every man wants to hear.Anyway, they’ll know—”
“They’ll survive.”
He turns slowly.“Is this fear or anger?Or punishment?”
“It’s desire.My body is the only thing I control.The only thing that’s mine to give away, share, or keep to myself.What we do now has nothing to do with tomorrow.Nothing except this moment.”
I lie back and let the water float my legs out from underneath me, baring my breasts and stomach to the sun.Closing my eyes, I listen to the water ebb and flow, trying not to wonder what Chyr is doing, what he will choose.Then I feel the water eddying around him as he lowers himself into the pool and walks towards me.
He stops before our bodies touch.I arch my back, my hair streaming behind me as I lift myself back onto my feet.
His breath catches, and I soak in the sight of him: the broad planes of his chest, the width of his shoulders, the need in his eyes.The scar of his healing wound has faded even more.Less of it is violently red.My fingers ache to trace it, to make sure the healing is real.
I want to touch every inch of him with my lips, my tongue, my fingers, until I’ve committed all of him to memory.Until I’ve made him feel as wanted and beautiful as he made me feel before who we’re being forced to become got in our way.
His fingers tremble as the back of his hand brushes my cheek.“Do you have any idea how magnificent you are?”he whispers.
“I’d rather be fierce,” I whisper.
“You could never be anything less.”
“Tell me what you want, Chyr.Can we steal half an hour for ourselves and pretend that we have choices?”
“I’d give anything to pretend our circumstances are different.You know about my oaths and the reasons I couldn’t tell you who I was.But the truest reason I didn’t tell you is this: when I was dying, I couldn’t bear the thought of you looking at me with hatred or disgust.I believed those moments with you would be all I would ever have.My last chance to have someone see me for myself.And I needed your kindness, your warmth.If I was going to die, I wanted that to carry with me, because I didn’t even know how much I’d missed having that in my life until you offered it to me.You filled an emptiness in me.Gave me a gift I’d been searching for all along without knowing what to call it.Something that wasn’t for Tirnaeve or my uncle or the Riders but only for myself.”
It’s the admission of a child who grew up lonely in a cold, cruel home.My heart breaks for him all over again, and I rise on my toes and tangle my hands in his hair, pulling his face down so I can kiss him, claim him.Not as a consort or a king but forhim.For the child he was and the man he made himself.For the way he’s fighting—because I believe, I have to believe, he is.
I kiss Chyr with every bit of the hunger I am feeling, and he drinks it in like I’m offering him water after days of thirst.His hands slide down my back, over the curves of my bottom, across my thighs.He lifts me until I wrap my legs around his waist, low enough to feel the hard length of him where I’m most sensitive to pressure.He walks towards the rock at the edge of the pool, then sets me on my feet and bends me backwards until my spine lies against the sun-warmed stone.Pushing my legs apart, he steps between them.
The contrast—silky water and skin against hard rock and muscle, fire and heat against the cold—brings my every nerve to life.
A shudder runs through me.I trail the edge of a nail down the hollow of Chyr’s throat, down the carved muscles of his chest, around one flat nipple, then the other.He trembles again, his pupils dark in eyes that burn with fire.
His next kiss is a question.He tastes of temptation and sin.My tongue answers him, sliding over his.I nip his lip, and he smiles.
“Fight or share?”he asks.“What can I give you?”
“A fight I can win,” I breathe.
“Then pay attention, Fierceness.Eyes on me.”
He catches both my wrists in one hand and stretches my arms above my head.The position lifts my breasts, forces me to trust, to surrender.Rock grates my knuckles; the sting turns bright.I lift to meet it.
His tongue traces my jaw, then slides down my throat, lower, lower.
The movement is slow.He pauses, his gaze searing into mine.“More?”
I moan, because words won’t come.
His hand slides down, palm splayed over my ribs, my stomach.Lower.His calluses are rough, like the rock behind me.The sun is warm on my face, and the water is cool and yielding.
“Good?”he asks, his thumb circling.“Too much?”
