He made a strangled little noise in the back of his throat, as if he were dying. He buried his face in the pillow by her head, panting roughly against her cheek as his hand crept beneath the band of her undergarments, the tips of his fingers gliding along her wetness.
It was a touch that rippled throughout her entire being. She rose and curled like the tide, melting against him, melting all over him. She bit into the round of his shoulder to stifle her whines, completely taken aback by how exquisite it felt to be touched down there by someone else. He chuckled, raspy and deep, and a burst of annoyance caused her to pull back slightly so that she could glare at him even as she tightened her grip on his cock. “That sounded entirely too smug for someone so hard, husband.”
His eyes flashed silver in the moonlight and he crushed his lips to hers again. “I’m not being smug,” he muttered into her mouth. “I will give you anything you ask, as long as you never stop touching me. As long as you come for me.”
And slowly, ever so slowly, he pushed one finger inside her.
Talasyn cried out—from pain or from pleasure, she could no longer tell. The lines were blurred. The wires were crossed. She rode Alaric’s hand, mindlessly chasing the feeling, her own fist working around him, matching the pace that he set. He was smooth and thick in the circle of her palm, as solid as a rock, growing harder still as his kisses to her face and neck turned half-crazed.
She was almost there. She didn’t know what would happen, what it would mean if she came undone like this with him. What would happen after. “Alaric, I’m—” she tried to say and broke off, not recognizing the needy, breathless stranger who spoke in her voice.
But he seemed to understand. “I’ve got you,” he promised hoarsely. His free hand tucked a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. “Let go, Tala. I’m here.”
She was distantly aware of herself, muffling a sob into his neck, twisting against the sheets, straining closer, closer, until there was no more space between their bodies and it was everything, it was a reprieve from loneliness, it was delight upon delight, Sky Above the Sky.
And she careened into it, and off the edge. The night disintegrated into shards of white heat. She fell into release with a ragged moan, her toes curling at the long, glorious spasms that consumed her in rolling waves.
Alaric kissed her through it all, swallowing her drawn-out sighs, rocking his finger gently inside her until it became too much and she squirmed, and he pulled back his hand.
But that was the only part of him that she would allow to leave her. The hard length of him twitched eagerly in her half-limp palm and, with some effort, mustered through the delicious, lazy, slow fog that had enveloped her, she pumped her wrist in experimental strokes. His breathing shallowed and he thrust into her fist haphazardly and then, with a groan, he was coming, too, she could feel it, warm and wet on her palm, dripping down her fingers in her dazed afterglow.
He collapsed on top of her. Alaric—always so stiff, so inscrutable, so carefully controlled—went slack above her, his mouth moving against her collarbone, torn between prayers and kisses. She couldn’t understand what he was mumbling into her skin and she didn’t care—there were no words for this. His dark hair was tickling her chin, so she raised her other hand to stroke it flat, her fingers curling into the softness of it, holding him against her as they both caught their breath.
Talasyn came back to herself with all the languidness of a feather wafting to the ground. She blinked to clear the haze from her eyes, staring up at the ceiling. Her gaze fixed on the tapestries above the bed, the sewn stars and the glimmering moons, the dragon of Nenavar . . .
Nenavar. Sardovia. Kesath.
It all came crashing down on her again, all at once.
What were they doing?
She was going to get everyone killed.
Large arms reached around her waist, trying to bring her closer, but she stiffened at his embrace. The embrace of the Night Emperor.
Talasyn drew her hand back from Alaric’s hair to push at the wide slab of his shoulder. “Get off of me.”
He lifted his mouth from her clavicle. At first, he didn’t seem to understand. He squinted at her as though searching for answers, his brow creasing in bewilderment—hurt, almost. She remained still beneath him, turning her head to the side so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes.
Then the common sense that had overtaken her must have returned to him, too. He rolled off her in an instant, scrambling as far from her as was possible without actually falling off the bed.
She couldn’t deny that something in her broke when he moved away.
Talasyn dove under the covers, pulling them up over her chin. She dared another glance at Alaric, his chest heaving, his lips wet and swollen, his black hair sticking up at odd angles from where she’d run her fingers through. An embarrassed flush colored his moon-kissed complexion as he reached down to rearrange his trousers. He looked as upset as she felt. The perfect pleasure of only a few moments ago had faded, leaving in its wake only a jumble of horrible thoughts, scattered and disjointed.
The man she had just done—that—with loathed her, and she was supposed to loathe him in turn. He was an unwilling political ally whom she would someday betray. He was her enemy. He was a monster.
And yet, her fingers were still sticky with his spend.
“You’re leaving tomorrow,” she said. And, in the act of speaking, she burst whatever bubble they’d been trapped in for the past month. She ripped away all the illusions they’d labored under; she knew that the moment she saw the resignation creep over his face.
But it was a miracle how steady her voice was, how it didn’t falter in the slightest. Talasyn supposed that she could be grateful for small mercies. “We shouldn’t have done this,” she told him.
He opened his mouth, dark irises flashing silver. Would he argue with her? Did she want him to?
But he seemed to think better of it. He gave a short nod.
She stole out of bed, heading to her bathroom so she could clean up. “I changed my mind,” she announced. “You’re sleeping on the floor.”
Without waiting for his response, she slammed the bathroom door shut behind her. Closing it between them, a shield from further mistakes.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
A pillow slammed into Alaric’s face in the early morning, unceremoniously rousing him from slumber.
His eyes flew open with a start. He grabbed the offending pillow and tossed it back where it came from, to his hellcat of a new bride. It landed in Talasyn’s lap, and he belatedly registered that she was sitting up in bed and looking at him in panic while a series of knocks sounded lightly on the door.
Every muscle in his body groaned in protest as he scrambled to his feet. He had enough presence of mind to return the cushions that he’d liberated from the chaise longue to their proper place, but he couldn’t help scowling at Talasyn as he joined her on the bed.