Page 98 of Aïdes the Unseen
No, it was far more dangerous. It was recognition. That should probably terrify me. Maybe there was a smarter, safer version of me out there. Maybe she was the one who wrote poems in the dark or played piano for polite crowds or obeyed her mother and married a butcher’s son. Maybe one of them would have run.
I wouldn’t.
I had dragged him into me, asked him to touch me and to help me feel everything. I asked him to give mehim. By God or gods or everything divine, he’d given it to me and I felt him everywhere.
My lips curved in the dark.
Let the voices whisper of fates and warnings. Let the figures in the dreams murmur of ancient tethers and stolen endings. Let the one I couldn’t name taunt me with his riddles and shadows.
I was done being afraid of myself.
If the universe wanted to keep dragging me out onto this stage over and over and over, then I was going to take possession of the part dammit. Loud. Bright. Unapologetic.
If love was the fire that kept burning me, then fine.
I’druninto that fire this time and throw my arms wide.
I’d tastedjoywith Graven.Realjoy. Not the borrowed type or the one that flickered out before the second act. This was the kind that took root in your chest and bloomed fat and wide as the sun.
No one—absolutely no one, not a god or a curse or a whispering, trembling fragment of a forgotten life—was going to take this from me.
Looking to the window, I smiled out at the night and the darkness that had texture and shape. At the jewels of light that gleamed like beacons. Let the whole world watch, and let them wonder. Tonight, in this body and this moment and this version of me, wasmine. Just as he wasmine.
It had been so damn long, and I was far from done with any of this.
When the door opened on a soft sigh, I wasn’t startled and I didn’t flinch. It was Graven and I recognized him before he crossed the threshold. The air changed, thicker and warmer, a blanket of care and emotion that fell over me.
Sitting up, I savored his entrance. Graven was barefoot, gloriously nude, and utterly unashamed. Not that he had a reason to be ashamed of anything. He moved like even the laws of physics bent around him. Amusement danced through me. The air probably had to pause to admire him as much as I did.
His skin glowed almost bronze in the low light, but it was the stunning depth of emotion in his eyes that made me want to press my palm to his chest and say, “yes, stay like this. Always just like this.”
Graven’s smile was for me alone and I didn’t even question that knowledge. He crossed the room holding a tray in one hand. The contents were two glasses, a carafe of something amber, and a plate of warm things that smelled like honey, spice, and lemon. At his heels, padding happily was the puppy.
My puppy.
If I could even call him that.
The little beast trotted in as though this had always been his. He gave one sharp bark of announcement before he launched himself onto the foot of the bed. Laughter bubbled effervescent in me.
Graven continued to smile. Not at the puppy, but at me.
Something in his expression unmade me all over again.
“You’re awake,” he said in a voice both low and rough with sleep, yet infinitely gentle. “I was going to wake you slowly, kiss you, then your breasts, and stroke you with my tongue until you came apart again.”
Pleasure fountained through me at the description.
“Then I thought you might be hungry, so you should eat first and then I’ll have your pleasure.”
I’d been holding the sheet to my chest, an old modesty that I abandoned and let it drop to pool at my waist. Graven’s breath caught, and it pleased me so much that he felt this connection as much as I did.
“I could eat,” I murmured and let my gaze skim down the sweet, cut lines of his hard, sculpted body to the thickening cock that jutted out, red-tipped and proud. “Food sounds good too.”
The husky sound of his masculine laughter was a greater boon than I could have expected. He set the tray down on the side table with exaggerated care. When he turned back to the edge of the bed, he dragged his gaze over me, soft, reverent, and even a little amused.
Even then, his eyes turned solemn. “Bad dream?”
Not answering right away, I let my fingers drift toward the line of his thigh where the light touched the muscle. I traced a lazy pattern to reassure myself. He was real, still here, and not some phantom bleeding out from my dreams.
