Page 185 of Kingmakers, Graduation

He crosses the loamy paths with long, rangy strides. I have to walk quickly to keep up with him, which is the pace I prefer. The pine trees surround us like hundreds of pillars holding up the pale blue vault of the sky. The air smells damp and fresh, still cool before the heat of the day.

We’re alone save for the birds in the trees.

The stillness of this place makes me peaceful.

Adrik is right at home—he’s always seemed more animal than man. It’s the way he moves—graceful, natural, seemingly without effort. The way those narrow blue eyes flick to a wren on a branch, or garter snake disappearing under the brush. And most of all, the way he seizes me and presses his face against the side of my neck, inhaling deeply my scent.

He's never ashamed of what his body wants.

My body wants him, all the time—his breath, his touch, his proximity. The week he’s spent at the hotel with his family while I’m at home with mine has been fucking with me. It was nice to sleep in my old bed one last time, but I miss his weight and his warmth curled around me in the night. I miss waking up with his mouth between my thighs. This is why I’m on edge—I haven’t had those constant daily contacts that mellow me out.

He holds my hand now, his fingers interlocked with mine.

“Are you having second thoughts?” he asks me.

“No …”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s just … I don’t ever want you to feel trapped. I want us to be together because we want to be together, not because we signed something. And … I don’t want to disappoint you.” I hesitate, pausing on the path, not quite looking at him. “If I’m not the wife you thought I would be.”

He laughs, softly.

“Sabrina … I want to be married to you because that’s what fits how I feel about you. Calling you my girlfriend is fucking ludicrous. You’rethe other half of me. I couldn’t leave you any more than I could cut myself in two.”

“And what about the other part?”

“You think I want some traditional wife? When have you ever been conventional? I want you exactly the way you are, and however you’ll be in the future. I don’t have expectations for you—it’s the surprises I love. You always surpass what I could imagine.”

I let out the breath I was holding.

“Okay. I don’t know why I’m so stressed—maybe ‘cause I haven’t seen you enough this week. I’m never unhappy when we’re together. When we’re separated I fall apart.”

“I know,” he says, cupping my face in his hand. “I feel the same.”

He bends his head to kiss me.

The towering pines are the pillars of a cathedral. The light falls down in green shafts as if it passed through colored glass. This is our chapel. This is our real wedding, right here, right now. Just the two of us.

Adrik lays me down on the damp moss that smells of everything living and growing all around us.

He undresses me slowly, kissing each part of my body as he lays it bare. My lips, the hollow of my throat, my breasts, my belly. He turns over my hand and presses his mouth against my palm.

He slips off my shorts and underwear, until I’m entirely nude. The bits of sun that make it through the canopy of leaves float like flecks of gold on my skin. He runs his tongue across the sun-warmed patches on my thighs.

Gently, he slips one finger inside me, then raises it to his mouth to taste me.

He lets out a sigh. “My favorite thing in the world.”

I kiss him to taste myself on his lips. It’s warm and musky-sweet, like the bark on the ground.

He lays on his stomach, cupping my ass in his hands, lifting my pussy up to his mouth. He runs his tongue slowly up between my pussy lips, soft and wet and warm. Pausing at the top to suck gently, ever so gently, on my clit.

He listens to my moans, he watches my face. He worships my pussy with his mouth, treating it like the most delicate, the most sensitive, the most precious thing in the world.

He’s relaxing me, soothing me. Knowing this is what I need, this connection, this relief.

The pleasure rolls over me in waves, as warm as the sunshine, as sweet as the ferns and moss and grass all around us.

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