Page 14 of The Fires of Longest Night
Nissa can’t deny the delight she feels at these words, and she smiles right against Ria’s sex. She opens her mouth again, exploring with her tongue, eyes closed, learning not only the topography but the way that Ria responds to every gentle move.
Ria’s hips shift, driving Nissa’s fingers into her sex, and Nissa takes the hint, meeting the rhythm. Nissa closes her mouth around Ria’s clit—it’s so like hers, but also different—and Ria gasps.
When Nissa’s tongue works at it, Ria cries aloud, “Just like that. Like—”
And Nissa opens her eyes in wonder as Ria gasps in sharp, crescendoing intakes of breath, then finally cries aloud, no words this time. She bows around Nissa, arching off the blanket, her sex gripping and then fluttering against Nissa’s fingers, her clit pulsing.
Nissa keeps going, heartbeat pounding, not sure when she should stop, and Ria keeps gasping and moaning, her hand finally settling against Nissa’s head.
Nissa stops moving, kisses the clit one more time in something like affectionate farewell.
“Slowly,” Ria pants out. “When you take them out, go slow.”
Nissa obeys, reluctant to leave the gentle throb she can feel inside. Ria exhales as they part, and Nissa crawls up her body.
Ria is flushed, tendrils of her hair sticking to her face, and Nissa has never seen anything more beautiful.
“You are…” Nissa shakes her head. “You are fucking incredible, Ria.”
Ria flutters love-drunk eyelashes at her. “I… I am not the incredible one.” She blinks, drawing Nissa down until she’s resting with her head against her shoulder. “I… are you sure you’ve never done that before?”
Nissa laughs. “Alright, you don’t need flattery, you know. You’ve won me.”
Ria hesitates, and Nissa bites her lip, wishing she could take the words back, not because she doesn’t mean them but because she’s not sure what significance they hold, here and now. “That was… amazing,” Ria sighs, eventually, and presses a kiss into Nissa’s forehead.
“It… it was…” Nissa smiles, drawing the blankets up over them. “I think we’ve held the light in the world, don’t you?”
Ria’s strong body is soft and warm against hers.
“I think we lit it up like a bonfire,” she whispers. “The sun has no excuses this Longest Night. We made it the easiest thing in the world, to return.”
CHAPTER 9
RIA
Ria wakes in the pre-dawn chill with Nissa’s soft warmth tucked against her side under her arm. Her head rests against Ria’s shoulder, face pressed into the curve of her breast.
Ria draws a slow, deep breath, wondering at the contentment that fills her body. The yearning she has felt for so long has been alchemized—it’s still there, but transformed into a happiness so profound it feels like risk.
She turns her head, pressing her lips against those braids. She’d offered, and Nissa had accepted. She’d accepted this night, and goddess above, the night had been more than Ria had ever imagined it could be.
Whatever Nissa said when she woke, whether she accepted Ria’s offer of the year, they would have the memory of this night.
And it’s not enough.
Ria closes her eyes against the thought, trying to banish it.
No. She had offered in good faith, and she means to stick by it. What Nissa wants matters. Ria wants nothing more than she wants to offer.
But fuck.
Wanting her to want what you want is natural,Isiridion says quietly in her head. It has ventured off into the night, curling into a warm nook of rocks in the mountains to avoid scaring the wandering pairings from the clan’s eventide flame leaps.It cannot determine anything. But it’s not wrong to want it.
Ria swallows hard.Oh dragon,she says, and hope is paired with despair in the thought.If she says no, I will be leaning on you. Hard.
Lucky I’m significantly larger and more robust than you, child.The dragon’s tone is more affectionate than the words, and Ria has to blink against tears.I am here,Isiridion adds.
I know.
