A city she wanted desperately to call home, she realized.
“I want to come over there, but I don’t know how to give up this view,” the king mused, lying across the bed and propping himself up on his elbow. With the morning sunlight pouring in behind her, she looked every bit the goddess she was, her silver hair aflame as she brushed it away from her face.
She held her hands out, wondering if perhaps this was how Astra felt when her fingertips caught fire.
“This view?” Lunelle asked, her lips curling into a smile as she twisted and turned. She leaned back against the glass, enjoying the warmth of the morning light as she held his gaze. “Or this one?”
She dragged the soft linen of her shirt upward, letting it slip slowly over her skin before tossing it to the floor. She’d gotten dressed in a hurry before leaving the Lunar Court. She hadn’t had time to consider what might come off at the end of her evening.
If she’d had time to plan, she certainly would have included something prettier than the simple white stays wrapped around her chest. She peeled the frilled edges at the center of her back, untying the laces and letting them fall away.
“That one,” Mirquios murmured, his mouth unable to fully get around the sounds without swallowing.
His eyes widened as her fingers dragged toward her waistband, peeling the leather of her pants over her thighs. She yanked them off her ankles and basked in the sunlight, warming her body from head to toe.
“Goddess smite me,” Mirquios whispered. He pushed himself from the bed and rushed to her. She was unashamed of the desperation that buzzed between them as she wrapped herself around him—to confess how starved for him she was.
In her fantasies, he’d been soft and slow, curling around her like a wisp of smoke. There, in her hands, he was nothing like smoke—he was fire, burning against her as she tangled their bodies into one. He wrapped his hands around her back, taking his time as his fingers traced paths along her spine.
His palm slipped along her side and climbed her ribs like a ladder, gently teasing the soft skin of her breasts.
It wasn’t enough.
She made it clear as she arched into him and scraped her teeth against his lower lip. A low, thunderous laugh rippled between them. She loved the notion that he was just as feral for her as she’d been for him since they’d first touched in his room, bleeding into one another as their Souls fused.
“Oh,” Lunelle yelped as he moved her back against the window, pressing her against the warm glass. “What if someone sees us?”
Mirquios nipped at her ear. “You deserve to be seen, Lu. They should be so lucky.”
Her cheeks flushed as she pulled at his shirt. He shoved his pants as low as he could without abandoning her cool skin, and her hand flew to him like a moth to flame.
She wrapped her fingers around him and pushed her mouth back to his, sliding her lips over his jaw and neck as she sank to her knees.
“Oh, gods,” Mirquios rasped as he gripped the window pane with one hand and her silver braid with another. Her hands were everywhere, squeezing, pulling, stroking, and then her lips closed around him, and he nearly wept as the Tether between them pulled tight. The pressure and strain added a strange pleasure to the moment, instead of the unbearable pain of avoiding one another they’d adjusted to.
“Lu,” he breathed, his knuckles rosy pink as they curled around the golden pane. The Sun illuminated his dark skin, casting him in a halo she thought made him look much more like a Solar demigod than a Mercurian king.
“Lu,” he gasped again, his fist pulling gently against her braid. “Mother above, Princess, if you don’t stop, I’ll—” He didn’t have to finish his thought, she released him with a radiant smile and rose, wrapping herself around him as he pressed her firmly into the window.
Mirquios held his breath as he ran a fingertip up her side. She followed the gentle tip of his finger, admiring the way he dipped into each curve as the Sun danced across her silver freckles.
He leaned into the motion as she wrapped her legs around his waist, marveling at the sigh of the Tether as their bodies melted together. His mouth crawled her neck, the sweet catch of her breath as he nipped her flushed skin his reward.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” he asked as he nestled against her. They might be out of one mess, but they were still ensnared in a dozen others—she knew this was only a temporary reprieve.
She answered in the form of her heels digging deeper into his back. Sighing at the swell of him against her, she closed her eyes, letting the warmth of the Sun caress her bare shoulders as Mirquios slid into her.
Lunelle whimpered at the sensation, unsure how something she’d done so many times could suddenly feel so wildly different. Her body held his—a sacred note at the end of a hymn, praising every goddess she could name as she tightened her grip on his neck. He moved slowly at first, but that quickly gave way to something much more craven as his arms pulled her closer still.
She pressed into the glass at her back, the feeling of him too intense, too close to rupturing. Mirquios closed his fingers around her throat, pulling her back into him so he could whisper his worship into her ear as he felt the goddess within her crash around him.
She wound like a coil—everything within her pulled together, ready to unleash. He leaned further into her, snagging her ear in his teeth again, growling against her, “Tell me what you need.”
Her head fell back, her pulse racing into a rhythm she wasn’t sure was possible. She reached for a hand—any hand, fuck, her own would do if he couldn’t reach—but she snagged his fingers from her hip and pushed them toward her breast, flush with blood and heat and desperation.
She’d been asked what she wanted a million times, but no one ever asked what she’dneeded.
And while Lunelle had learned not to need much, she needed him.
