Page 112 of A Chill in the Flame
It was less like an urge and more like an inevitability. He knew he would find her skin. He knew the current that ran between them would be like a mountain river. His pulse thrummed in his chest, behind his eyes, his fingertips, to the consistent, desperate throb deep within him. His ears rang, lightheaded as every drop of blood in his body found a new, singular purpose. He wouldn’t have said no to this moment even if he’d had a choice—but he didn’t. It was fated, as if it had already happened, as if it would happen again.
If he couldn’t kill Dwyn, if he couldn’t remove Ophir safely from the room, then he could create a world where Dwyn didn’t exist. That part of him didn’t care that Dwyn was there—she was nothing to him, nothing to Ophir. He could have been in front of an audience. This may as well have been on the platform outside of the palace before the citizens of Midnah. It didn’t matter. The moment was theirs.
Pure sunlight dripped from her tongue. He drank deeply the moment their lips connected. The hand not tangled in her hair found her back, pulling her as close to him as she could be. It took three seconds, two hands, one shared heartbeat to let him know that she wanted it as badly as he did. He drank her in, kissing her so deeply that he nearly lost her breath, feeling the moment she struggled to catch hers. He could feel every inch of her skin through the barely there gauze of fabric that separated his bare chest from the soft pillows of her breasts. When she knotted a hand in his hair, he knew it was over.
He had to be stronger.
“Ophir. I don’t think—”
“I want this,” she said.
He swallowed, desperate to pull her closer, to yank her away from Dwyn. “Firi, it’s not—”
Ophir rested a finger against his lips, silencing him. She inclined her chin toward the third party in their room. Never to be outdone, Dwyn rose to the occasion. She kissed Ophir’s temple, then her jaw. Then Ophir twisted out of his arms just enough to offer her mouth.
He tightened his hand where it remained in Ophir’s hair, as if securing the physical barrier between Ophir and Dwyn. If he couldn’t keep his emotions off his face, he might have to slip into the place between things. For now, all he wanted was for Ophir to know he was here with her—forher.
He should stop this.
“But Dwyn—”
“Is a witch,” Ophir completed, hands abandoning him completely as they ran over the bare shoulders of Dwyn’s skin. She shot a wry look to Dwyn, who winked at their acknowledgement but didn’t bother breaking her contact. “I know.”
It took everything in him not to shove Dwyn off her. “You know she’s a sociopath,” Tyr muttered through gritted teeth against her throat as he continued moving along her skin. He’d just as soon stab Dwyn through the heart as share a bed with her. Maybe that was Ophir’s one fault. She had terrible taste in women.
Everyone was allowed at least one flaw.
Dwyn had no power here. This moment wasn’t about her. It belonged to Ophir.
***
Weightless was never something Ophir had been afforded.
Joy and lust and want and need were the sort of escapes she chased, always slipping between her fingers like sand. Then sometimes, if only for a moment, she caught them. Instead of sand, the silken strands of Dwyn’s hair balled in her fists. Ophir pulled her close, loving the petal-soft feel ofher lips, the way her breasts pressed into her own, the way they peaked with desire and her skin flushed red and hot and chilled with goose flesh all at once.
Dwyn is a sociopath,Tyr had said. Sure, sure. But didn’t they all have their shortcomings?
“A sociopath who’s great in bed,” Ophir responded through her kiss, still facing away from Tyr. She was so glad he was here, and she didn’t care what it meant. She’d missed them. She’d wanted them. She’d known it from the moment she’d entered the desert and wished they’d been by her side.
“The crazy ones are the best lays,” Dwyn agreed with wicked ease.
Dwyn smiled against her cheeky remark as the siren soaked in each word that came out of her mouth. She tasted the mint, possession, and greed on Dwyn’s lips. Ophir turned the fullness of her body toward the young woman to her right, which Dwyn took as a victory. She didn’t want the night to end. She didn’t want the moment to break.
Tyr could have refused to participate. He could have left her, abandoning them to their passions.
He didn’t.
Sitting upright had been a luxury afforded to her before she was drunk on the moment. It rushed through her veins stronger than wine, its dizzying, overpowering sensation knocking her to her side. When she let her head hit the pillow to absorb each kiss, each touch, each soft fingertip, each tug of the hair, each brush and movement, his strong arm pinned her to his chest. She arched her back, hips seeking him. He pressed into her and she knew there was no turning back. She wanted him. She’d wanted this for a long time.
Ophir’s mouth broke away from Dwyn as she looked over her shoulder to where Tyr continued to hold her, to kiss her. He squeezed her tighter. His unwillingness to release her set her body on fire. He clung to her like she was a lifeline. Her back arched again, but her chest moved forward, rolling toward Dwyn.
Dwyn tugged the gauzy dress down over her shoulders, allowing the fabric to pool around her navel. She felt the wet, cool sensation of a tongue on the most sensitive parts of her breasts. She gasped, savoring the tingle that ran from her nipples to her toes at the gentle, luxurious sucking. Dwyn, to her credit, didn’t seem to brim with the same hate that generally possessed her. Perhaps sex was her break from fury—her escape from the misery that consumed her. This was about fun. From the electric tip of every nerve and the quiver of her heart to the pulse of water between her legs. This was ecstasy.
Tyr’s fingertips pressed into her jaw, urging her to turn away from Dwyn. Her mouth found his, lost in how he consumed her. Soft fingers slipped down to help him out of his pants. His eyes rolled back the moment her fingers grazed his hardened, throbbing place. Their kiss broke against his savoring noises, but her focus was stolen away from him in a fraction of a second. Ophir gasped, the sharp, high sound one of both pleasure and surprise, as Dwyn had not waited. She’d continued licking and kissing her way down the middle of Ophir’s body, pushing the gauzy dress up to uncover her knees, her thighs, her hips, every part of her, laying claim to the princess the moment her mouth made contact with where her thighs met, connecting at her very center.
The explosion of stars before her eyes was the birth of the universe, the moon, the night, the world around her swirling. Each slow, claiming circle of Dwyn’s tongue, each arch of her hips against Tyr, each wet, sensual lick resulted in a new rush of water.
Ophir’s fingers tightened where they’d stayed in contact with Tyr’s shaft. He kissed her neck as she rolled from the pleasure. She knew Dwyn wasn’t good at sharing, but tonight their bed was meant for more than two.
