Page 117 of Rise of a Fallen Man

I GOT THE PIE OUT OFthe oven and put it on the small table in our tiny kitchen. Everything in this house was small, but it was ours, and that was all that mattered.

Ari entered the room quietly, having finished her conversation with the queen.

“How are things back in Rorrim?” I turned to her.

“Good. Everyone is well.”

She looked tense, like she often did after those conversations.

“How is the pie?” She managed a smile.

My Ari was great at pretending. She’d mastered a range of neutral expressions and had a stellar control of her voice. But I knew her. Over the months we’d spent together, I’d learned to read through it all.

“The pie can wait. Come here.” Sitting down, I pulled her to me. “Do you miss Rorrim?”

“No,” she said quickly, then added, “Well, some things... I mean people and pets, mostly.”

Unlike me, Ari had left a family behind, parents who loved her, pets that she adored, and the crown that she’d been proud to wear.

“They’re all well.” She smiled again, effortlessly this time. “It’s all good, my love.”

I loved it when she called me that. Warmth rushed me. I tightened my arms around her, drawing her closer between my knees.

I had little back in Rorrim, but even I missed a few things from there. With the constant noise in this world, I missed the quiet when the air was so still that one could hear birds chirping from anywhere and at any time of the day. I missed the water that tasted like fresh wind and glacial ice instead of a cleaning agent and rust like it did here. As little magic as I’d had in my life before, I missed it here too. This world had not a speck of magic.

But I’d gained so much more. Here, I could be myself. No one would even think about tossing the word “whore” into my face. In this twisted place, even the truly promiscuous men weren’t shamed. They were celebrated instead, with women they’d slept with being called their “conquests.” It was women who were called whores instead, even if they didn’t sell sex for money, even if they had no sex, even for no reason at all.

During my two months working as a bouncer in the nightclub, I’d heard men call women all possible derogatory terms for simply rejecting their advances. The treatment of women was appalling here, and it almost always went unpunished.

The drastic change of cultural norms had a whiplash effect on me. I often wished to get Ari away from here, even if it’d cost my life to return to Rorrim. She gave up everything to bring me here. Her birthright, her ambition, the very purpose of her life, she left it all behind to be here with me.

I found her lips with mine. She slid her hands down my neck and over my shoulders. I kissed her face, following with my kisses the familiar map of her freckles. With a soft moan, she pressed her body to mine, and I trailed my kisses down her neck then along her collarbone.

The pie was waiting, but she breathed out, “Don’t stop, Salas. I need to feel you.”

I needed her too. Always.

Clothes were simpler in this world—no laces, not too many buttons. I slid down her shoulder straps, then unhooked her bra, releasing her breasts. Each was more than a handful, but I had large hands. When I cupped a breast, it hid in my palm completely. The bud of the nipple poked between my fingers, and I squeezed it gently, making her gasp in pleasure.

“Salas...” she murmured my name as I kissed the tip of her other breast.

For both Ari and me, sexuality had been warped from a young age. The two of us were still learning how to enjoy intimacy without guilt or shame, how to have sex with no other purpose but to enjoy each other.

But our love was built on trust, giving us a safe place to learn it all.

I pulled Ari onto my lap. Straddling my thighs, she reached for the closure on my pants while I hiked up her long cotton skirt.

Desire zapped through my groin as she wrapped her warm, little fingers around my cock.

“There it is.” She smiled with satisfaction, freeing my erection while I took off her underwear for her.

She ran her fingers along the row of elevations on the underside of my shaft. I was so hard, my cock pressed to my belly. She didn’t pry it away, rubbing herself against it instead,up and down the hard bumps. I gripped her hips, pressing her closer.

The slick, tantalizing sensation of her heat grinding against the head of my cock made my mind reel with need. I strained my muscles, holding back.

As her moans grew louder, her mouth slacked open, and her eyelids dropped half-way, I grabbed her and got up from my chair, then flipped her onto the table, next to the chicken pie.

She gasped, wrapping her legs around my hips.

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