Page 218 of Mountain of Mirrors and Starlight
It was fun scrubbing the dirt from his skin, fun lathering soap through his hair, sponging suds down his chiselled torso, letting the sponge dip beneath the water, letting her hands explore his body while his roamed hers.
They didn’t make it to the bed. At least not the first time. The first time, Aislinn climbed onto his lap, slipped easily into position, and rode him to a climax so quickly he barely took a breath between.
“We’re going again,” he said, as he lifted her out of the bath.
“I should hope so.”
“I’ve got to do my part.”
“I was thinking more that I haven’t yet fucked you until you’ve gone dizzy.”
Caer’s cheeks flushed. His throat bobbed. He dropped Aislinn onto the sheets. “You’ve a filthy mouth, Princess.”
“Does it offend your delicate sensibilities, Prince?”
“Nothing about you offends me.”
He splayed her out on the bed and dipped to her middle, his tongue dipping to her centre, working in tight, tiny spirals until her thoughts turned nebulous.
“Vines, spirits and stone,” she cursed. “I’m supposed to be the one making you go dizzy.”
“Should I stop?”
“No,” she said. “Don’t you dare.”
He paused to let her gather her thoughts before resuming his attentions, drawing her in and out of perfect, suspenseful bliss. He followed every instruction, but he seemed to know the exact, torturous time—the way to build her to a crescendo.
She clutched at the sheets as he worked inside her, before finally it was all too much. She flipped him onto his back and drove him inside her, repeating the same, torturous action—bringing him close to the brink before drawing back.
She made him beg.
He made her beg, too.
When at last they came together, and collapsed into the damp sheets, breathing hard, Aislinn found the world had been unravelled and remade. At the centre of everything was Caer, who’d held her heart long before they ever met.
And would hold it until the end of their long, long lives.
Ittookseveraldaysbefore Minerva could bring herself to move from the guest chamber she’d been assigned and into the royal suite. Bell had been the one to convince her in the end, reminding her that the people needed to feel like she was going to stay. Minerva was not happy about it. She’d asked for all of Venus’ belongings to be removed before she did so, but later that day she found herself seeking them out.
She ignored the piles of dresses and jewels and went instead to a box marked ‘miscellaneous’. It was filled with odd bits of seemingly no value—cheap hairpins, tattered books, faded handkerchiefs and a rusty dagger with Venus’ name engraved on the blade.
Minerva had the matching one hanging at her waist. It was one of the few things she’d taken with her.
At the bottom of the box were two faded ragdolls in their likenesses. Minerva had tried to throw her own away when she’d grown out of dolls, but Venus had wailed and insisted it be kept.
And she had kept it. She’d kept them both for over three hundred years, even though most of the stuffing had fallen out and their felt skin had turned threadbare.
Tiberius found her there a little while later, and they’d both sobbed until their throats were hoarse.
“Don’t leave,” he whispered at the end.
“How could I?” she said, and patted his head. “You’re stuck with me now, lad, but I should warn you—I’ll be retiring at some point. I want to enjoy a bit of my life.”
“You can enjoy it on the throne.”
Minerva shrugged. “I was made for a life of adventure.”
“Who was it that said ‘the best monarchs are those that do not want it’?”
