Page 85 of Heir Of Sun And Moon
“And now you want to pretend like I have achoice?What choice do I have? I can gonowhere else!” I shout as I stand from the bed, and that heavy pressure builds behind my eyes. I had never been anywhere but the tower. I wasn’t even sure I couldsurviveon my own. I needed Flynn, I—
“Rhea, I’msorry. I’msofucking sorry,” he pleads, reaching for me but stopping short when I flinch away.
His hand drops down to his side, his defeat something that perhaps hurts me more than the actual lies. It makes me feel queasy, like I’m swinging back and forth on a vine unable to find purchase. A tear slips from my eye, Flynn tracking the movement as it falls down my cheek. And I see it then in his gaze, his realization that he caused that tear. That he’s the reason I’m hurting. His eyes flick back up to mine, and they shatter completely. Dejectedly, he walks to the door, placing his hand on the knob before turning back to look at me from over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Rhea. Truly. I wasn’t— I didn’t want to hurt you.” The door clicks shut quietly behind him, and maybe it’s foolish, but I wish he hadn’t left.
The look of devastation that completely filled the depths of his eyes was genuine. He wasn’t faking the way his fingers trembled on the doorknob. Yet I can’t help the way thatIfeel. So I lay on the bed, curling up on my side as I face the window. It reminds me of the many times I crawled into the comfort of my bed in my tower, but I never thought that these feelings of sadness and anger would trouble me again, let alone because of Flynn. I let the tears fall, my mind settling into complete numbness as cold darkness prods its way in. And I remember what it is to find relief in boxing everything up until nothing remains.
The bed dips at my side, the warmth of someone foreign caressing my arm and thigh. My stomach tightens, air squeezing from my lungs. Something is very wrong.
“Flynn?” I call out into the darkness. I try to pry my eyes open, but my lids won’t pull up. Panic rushes up my throat, a silent scream— No, a hand on my mouth muffling me.
A royal voice whispers in my ear, “You aremine, Rhea.”
My body tenses, and his hand squeezes. His lips graze my shoulder and then my neck, hot breath rustling the fine hairs at my temple.
“You’ve always been mine, not his.”
I choke on my fear, but it has nowhere to go. I can’t move, I can’t scream, I can’t—
“Rhea, wake up.” His soft voice and warm hand caress my cheek, and I relax into the way he makes me feelsafe. My eyes open as I gulp in air, my vision slightly blurry but still able to see the outline of Flynn. Able to see his concerned expression—the tightness of his mouth mixed with the incredible sadness in his eyes. “Were you having a nightmare?”
I nod my head as I try to wake myself up further. The nightmare, while horrific, provides a clarity I wish I would have seen sooner. “You’re here,” I gasp in relief. His expression eases as his thumb continues brushing soothing strokes along my cheek. I sit up slowly and watch him freeze, unsure of what he should do—of what I willallow. And it breaks me because, while I hate that he lied by omission and can acknowledge that it hurts to learn that he did so, isn’t that what I did to him as well? Did I not hide a giant piece of myself out of fear?
When I said that you have total power over me, that includes if it leads to my own destruction. Whatever you want, I will do it,he had said. He had given me the truth when he didn’t have to and then given me the ability to make a choice. An option that I had been deprived of for my entire life thus far. Somehow, I knew that he had meant every word. That if I told him I wanted to stay here, he would leave me even if it broke him to do so.
So what do I want? The answer is simple, and yet it still hits me like a bag of stones. It overwhelms me the same as when I succumbed to the cold waters of the lake. I wanthim. In all forms and in all versions, and in whatever ways I can take him. Only and always him.
My eyes stay locked onto his, but this time,Ireach out to him. He doesn’t hesitate as he slides his hand into mine, though he holds his breath like the moment might disappear otherwise. “I’m sorry,” I try to say steadily, but it comes out as nothing more than a harsh whisper.
“Sunshine, what did I tell you about apologizing? Never to me,” he rushes out, lifting my hand to his lips. The tender, tentative moment sinks beneath my skin as my eyes roam to take in the room. I notice it is lit with the glow of the sunset, golden light twinkling through the window. My mouth opens to speak again, but I can’t decide which words I need to let out first. Which feelings I’ll allow him to see. He must see the torment on my face because he continues, pleading, “Just talk to me. I promise whatever you’re thinking, whatever has you stuck in your head, I can take it. Iwantto take it, Rhea.”
Pressure builds behind my eyes, and I avoid bringing my gaze to his.Remember his truths,a small voice whispers, and I do. I can clearly picture the way he poured his heart out to me as he declared the way he felt in the moments after my failed attempt to escape. But, he hasn’t really seen all of my truths—howuglythey are—howruinedI am. I’m a walking mirage. On the outside, I appear to be one thing, but the closer people get—the closerhegets, the more he’ll see just howbrokenI am.
The way his eyes implore me, however, to let him in—tolet him help me…What would that be like? To not have to carry this internal turmoil in the dark by myself anymore. To have someone continually by my side and not just for small pockets of time. I’ve been so caged in every aspect of my life, but this? This could be a step towards true freedom.
“I’m feeling scared,” I finally admit. “I’m scared that we won’t make it to your home, that you will get hurt—again—because of me. I’m scared that you’ll realize just how much of a mess I am. That you’ll see all of the ugly, broken pieces of me that I know I won’t ever be able to put back together again.” I whisper the words as I hold back the tears that line my eyes. “And I’m terrified that, even if I somehow managed to becomewhole, it still won’t be enough. That I won’teverbe enough for you—for what you deserve—and I’ll have to watch you walk away because of it.” My chest feels tight, my throat somehow hoarse. Speaking these things to him, they feel almost like a release, as if a bright light is shining into that inner obsidian.
He grasps my chin gently and turns my head to face him again.
“Rhea, I see every part of who you are. And the more time we spend together, the more moments when you offer another glimpse of yourself to me, it doesn’t make me want you any less,” he says softly, his heavy gaze cementing his words. “If you’re in pieces, then I want every fucking one of them. I want you—in any way you can give me. No scenario changes that.”
I shake my head, my lips trembling and eyelashes growing wet. Memories from the last three months together flash in my mind in rapid succession. Flynn was my guard, then my friend, and now—now he felt like my home. “Ineedyou,” I breathe, feeling the force of that need bearing down on me. “Like nothing I’ve ever felt before. It’s an ache that stirs in the deepest parts of me and curls out until it’s soaked into my bones. It’s the way that the stars need the night and the moon needs the sun. It’s relentless and bottomless and like free-falling all at once.”
Flynn’s chest rises and falls in quick motions, his lips parting like he’s trying to inhale my words.He leans in, his hand coming to cup my cheek, but I am the one to close the distance, my mouth suddenly on his. He wastes no time sweeping his tongue inside in decadent strokes—the feel of it is a claiming that I eagerly return. My arms wrap around his neck as he pulls me onto his lap, my knees straddling his powerful thighs. His arms band around me, those large hands laying flat on my back as he squeezes me flush against him. I remember the feeling of wrapping my legs around him for our first kiss, and my thighs strain to clench together at the thought.
“Is this alright?” he asks, pulling back to look into my eyes.
“Yes,” I nod as I slide my fingers into the still-damp waves of his raven hair, gripping them gently.
He swallows roughly, holding my gaze as he takes a deep breath, and moves in close again. “I need you too, but more than that, Icraveyou. You feed my soul in a way nothing else ever has before. You’ve altered my very being by the way you’ve carved yourself into my heart,” he murmurs against my lips. His words are like kindling to a flame, and I want nothing more than to be consumed by them.
When he deepens our kiss, I find that I’m desperate to taste every bit of him, to know his body better than I know my own. His responding groan rumbles down his chest and travels directly to my core. He kisses down my jaw and neck while his tongue dips out to taste each inch of me like there’s nothing sweeter. My hips roll in response, the seam on the thin fabric of my pants creating an incredible friction at the apex of my thighs. The sensation of the heat of his mouth, as his teeth tug lightly on my earlobe, causes shivers to roll down my arching back as I gasp. I didn’t understand what it was to be so undone by desire until I kissed Flynn.
I moan his name, holding his head to me as he grazes his teeth down my neck to where it meets my shoulder. His touch creates an insatiable longing—a brightly lit inferno—that causes something reckless to rise within me. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I let my base desire control my movements as I abruptly push him down on the bed. His eyes grow wide for a moment before my lips meet his again. The strands of my hair fall to either side of our faces, cocooning us in our own honey-colored world where it’s just him and me and this all-consuming force. It’s a madness that I’d happily lose myself to for eternity. From this position, the bulge of his erection rubs right at my center, and gods help me, I may die from it. His hands rest on my hips, and I can feel his restraint beginning to waiver as he guides them back and forth, that grip tightening just a little more.
“Rhea, I—”
