Page 109 of A Sin So Pure

So exhausting that I don’t want to get out of bed, despite the sunlight flowing into the room. It burns my eyes through my lids and I groan. Pulling the sheets up over my head, I remind myself what’s waiting on the other side of this.

I think of Imogen.

Twinkling laughter fills the room, however muffled from my position under the covers. The bed dips with the weight of Imogen as she crawls to me. I lower the sheet, revealing the lazy smile that’s plastered across my face.

She kneels in front of me, blocking the rays from the window and allowing me to bask in blessed shade. She’s an angel, with a golden aura glowing around her. Her hair, loose and long, tumbles over one shoulder as she tilts her head at me.

“I’d normally be happy you’re so willing to sleep in.” Imogen’s soft voice is a morning birdsong, rousing me from slumber. She runs a thumb over the dark circles forming under my eyes, gaze soft and teasing on me, and the gentleness of it all makes my heart stutter. “But I find myself a bit sad this morning.”

“Maybe after this trip is over, I’ll be more amenable to lazy mornings,” I say, voice rough from sleep. “As a way to make up for being gone.”

She laughs, and the sun brightens with her joy.

“I’ll hold you to that,” she says before leaning down.

Soft lips meld to mine. It’s a languid kiss, and I marvel at how she tastes sweet as honey, even in the morning. I’m sure I taste stale, but she sucks my bottom lip between her teeth as if I’m made of nectar.

I shift and sit up, one hand keeping me upright behind me, and the other wandering to her knee. Her nightdress has ridden up her legs, exposing the smooth skin there. Lazily, my thumb strokes circles on her inner thigh, inching up and under the silky fabric.

Imogen pulls back on a hum, her forehead resting on mine. “Though I like where this is going, you only have an hour before you need to leave.”

“Silas can wait,” I murmur against her lips, leaning forward to capture them again.

She pulls back, one brow quirked up on her forehead; normally it would read as a sassy scolding, but the sparkle in her eye is missing, and her lips twitch like she’s fighting a frown. I squeeze the ample flesh of her thigh.

“Trust me, for what I’m doing for him, he can wait an extra ten minutes,” I say. And while it doesn’t bring back the lightness in her eyes, her body melts at my words.

“I’m sure,” she says, but I can hear by her tone that the moment has passed.

The sex has been electric since we made up, but in the weeks since our fight, I’ve realized that there are many other ways to share yourself with someone.

Just by existing alongside another, new layers reveal themselves.

Like how I’ve noticed that Imogen sighs wistfully anytime she gets a whiff of baked goods, as if she’s been hit by a warm memory. Or learning that she loves the way my nails scratch at her scalp when I wash her hair. Or how neither of us wantto get out of bed in the mornings; long gone are the days of me sneaking out at sunrise.

Small intimacies, I’ve discovered, paint a black-and-white life with color.

I pepper kisses across her cheek and to the hollow behind her ear.

“I could make you come for hours and still have energy to spare.” I hum, running my nose down her neck and breathing in her delicious floral scent before pulling back to meet her flush-cheeked gaze. “You can hold me to that too.”

“Okay,” she whispers, lips parting into a smirk. But her eyes still aren’t getting their sparkle back.

I trace her cheek with my thumb before anchoring my hand at the back of her neck, cradling her head.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She blinks, a quick fluttering of her blond lashes. Her brows knit in confusion.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

I search her face for any tells of the opposite, finding no trace of untruth. But something still doesn’t sit right.

I decide to let it go.

“No reason,” I say, dropping a kiss to her forehead. “Meet me when I’m back, yeah?”

Silas eats as he watches me train. My hits against the hanging sandbag grow more intense with each bite he takes of his apple, the sound of his teeth crunching over the crisp fleshgrates against my ears. My eye twitches as my frustration flares, straining the magical tether between me and the fae across the room.

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