“Give him what he’s earned,” Mirquios hummed, reaching his hand gently around her throat, squeezing just enough to send her body into orbit.
Lunelle thrashed against him, against both of them, the library’s shelves and walls falling away to dust as the world imploded, and she cried out.
She could feel everything and nothing. It was quiet in her mind for the first time in years. The prince’s lips widened into a grin against her thigh, snapping her from her bliss as her eyes found his.
“Is that a smile, Prince?”
Arcas leaned back on his heels, covering his smile as he wiped at his lips.
“Do not get used to it,” he muttered, running his fingers through his hair.
“I believe that is a challenge,” Mirquios murmured against her, twitching against her lower back.
She sat up straighter, reaching for Arcas’s sapphire collar, pulling him to her, and weaved her tongue with his. She could taste herself on him, taste the desperation hidden behind that smirk of his, the need buried deep in his chest to be seen as more than second best.
Lunelle pulled at his buttons, his heart slamming behind them as she plucked each one away. He shoved his pants down to the ground as he climbed beside her onto the sofa and leaned back at her insistence.
As Lunelle crawled over him, he lifted his head toward Mirquios with an uncertain wobble to his lips.
“And you’re content to wait your turn?”
Mirquios tossed his head back in a laugh. “Please, Arcas, I know what it is to be inside Lunelle. I won’t have to wait long.”
She shot him an appreciative smile as she rolled her hips over the hard length of the prince, a feeling she had not dared to allow herself to miss. But here, she could not only admit it to herself, she could revel in it.
She sank slowly, and they both knew that would not do. Arcas’s hands roamed her stomach, her hips, anywhere he could grasp as she set a brutal pace. When it had been just them, in the dark of night, where she swore him to silence, she’d wished desperately to be able to tell him how much she saw within him. How much bigger she thought he could be if he just gave up his hold on what he thought he wanted.
He leaned forward, pulling her body flush to his, the shift in their alignment changing the tenor of the sounds between their mouths into something deeper, something less restrained.
“Tell me,” he whispered into her ear. It was thrilling—knowing Mirquios heard him. The king’s hand drifted over his lap, stroking himself as Lunelle lost control of her rhythm, bucking wildly against Arcas’s hold. “What pleases you more, goddess, knowing that you are feared by two of the most powerful men in the courts, or that you are loved by them?”
Lunelle gasped against him, driving her hands into his hair, pulling his lips to hers to stop him from finishing her with words alone.
The weight behind her shifted on the sofa, a third set of clothes hitting the floor. Lunelle was vaguely aware of the sound of her king’s breath quickening behind her as he slid between Arcas’s legs and pulled her back toward him.
“I did not hear your answer,” he said softly into her neck, weaving his fingers into her hair and adding another layer of pleasure to the overwhelm in her spine. He pressed into her back, reminding her that she was still his, too, as he wrapped a hand around her hip and found her center, slipping his fingers between them.
Lunelle’s answer only came in the form of a guttural groan as she shook in his arms, the prince’s lips pulling tight as he moved to push her off, rolling to the side to finish himself. She reached for him, hardly able to see, but wanted to be the one to bring him over the edge.
As he convulsed in her hand, she found his eyes, holding them for much longer than she’d allowed herself to before.
“Loved,” Lunelle finally said. “If I must choose.”
Arcas leaned forward, pulling her into a soft kiss, a tenderness she did not expect him capable of.
“I suppose it is good that you don’t have to, then.” He lay back, breathing hard against the sofa, the pale blue skin of his ribs rippling like the sea.
She backed up a breath and was greeted by her king, patiently waiting, eager for her to bestow some grace his way. He rocked forward on his knees, pushing against her from behind slowly, agonizingly slowly, peppering her sweat-slicked shoulders with languid kisses.
She widened her knees over his lap, straddling him and pitching forward, into the prince’s arms as he rose to mirror her. Mirquios ran his hand down her spine, tracing the delicate rivers and valleys between vertebrae, giving her a second to adjust to someone else, to catch her breath before he took it away once more.
He stopped his hand at her tailbone, gently squeezing her hip as he watched her take him in, watched how they fit so keenly together, in a way no one else ever would.
Lunelle inhaled slowly as he claimed his space, relishing the feeling of the Tether between them sparkling and pulsing.
“Tell me how you want it, love,” he whispered, Arcas watching her face as her eyes glazed over.
“Slow,” she breathed, rocking her hips forward just slightly, just to get her head around where she ended and he began. “Torture me.”
