Page 190 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

I bit down on my moan, and choked out, “Then you’ll have to besoquiet, won’t you?”

I dragged my fingers down his back again—giving him the same challenge he gave me, and relishing the slight growl that came from low in his throat.

He didn’t have a retort for me. I had unleashed him. Just as I’d wanted. Just as I needed.

All that pent-up tension, from the battle and the travel and a week spent in agonizing, untouchable proximity, burst free.

He kissed me hard, viciously, as his strokes took me—seizing full advantage of the control he had in this position, unrelenting, fast, deep.

This wouldn’t last long. Not for me, not for him. That was fine—we were too impatient for that. Who knew how long we had left to live. We would burn ourselves hot and quick.

And Mother, I loved it.

My skin was so warm, the pleasure so intense, I thought I might die here in it. And Goddess, what a fucking way to go. Moans and screams and pleas and curses bubbled up in my throat, driven closer to the surface with every one of his thrusts.

I needed more, needed release. I tilted my hips to urge him deeper, though there was nothing I could do but take him—and I did, gladly, openly, clinging to him and clawing at his back for support.

His mouth broke from mine, moving to my ear.

“This,” he rasped, breath hot and ragged. “This is what I was thinking about, Oraya. I missed you.”

I missed you.

Strange, how much those words hit me—how much I understood them, even if I couldn’t bring myself to say them back.

I missed you.

A week without touching him, and I missed him. Months without his friendship, and I missed him.

It wasn’t about a week. It wasn’t even about sex.

It was about everything before that. Repairing some chasm that had opened in our relationship. Finding, terrifyingly, how much we had mourned what had been lost in that gap.

I had missed him, too.

But I couldn’t voice it. And I was grateful that he didn’t give me the chance to, anyway, because his strokes were unrelenting, the pleasure building to a crescendo that was—Goddess it was—it was so much that it almosthurt, and—

I tightened my legs around him, pulling him against me, forcing him to go up in flames with me.

I buried my face against his shoulder when I climaxed, stifling my scream against his skin, because I couldn’t choke it down anymore. Distantly, with the crescendo of pleasure, I felt a brief stab of pain—pain, as his teeth sank into the space between my neck and shoulder. Not feeding—stifling himself, too, his groan instead ringing out in shudders across my flesh.

In the wake of it, I felt weak and dizzy. And yet, so very at peace.

The water was warm.

That was the first sensation that returned. All this pleasant warmth. Warmth of the water. Warmth of Raihn’s body, surrounding me. Warmth everywhere.

He kissed the mark he’d left on my shoulder. “Sorry.”

“I think I scratched up your back.”

A breathy chuckle. “Good.”

That’s how I felt, too.Good. Let us leave something on each other’s corpses.

He drew back enough to look at me, tracing my face. He had little beads of water in his lashes, which glittered as his eyes crinkled in an almost-smile.

It occurred to me that this might be the only time I got to be alone with Raihn before we threw ourselves into a mission that would probably kill one or both of us. The thought made a lump of unspoken words rise in my throat.

---