Chapter sixteen
A Dream Before Sunset
Ididn’tknowhowmuch time had passed in Sterling’s mind. The memory I’d played for him faded, leaving us shrouded in the dark of his subconscious. This was his mind, his space. But through the powerful Knight magic coursing through my veins, this moment belonged to both of us.
We were probably still laying on the carpet of Sterling’s den, with my body slumped over his and the piano bench lying beneath our tangled legs. Here, we were locked in a more intimate position.
He’d flipped me over, spilling me onto my back, and brought himself down on top of me like a vampire in an old, black-and-white film. Only he didn’t bite. He made a feast of my body with his newfound vision, all while feeling me out with his hands and lips. Kissing, licking, caressing. When his mouth pressed against my jugular, my heart lurched into a weird rhythm, like it was speaking a language only Sterling understood. By the stretch of his grin against my flesh, he was in on whatever secret they shared.
Running the tip of his nose over the edge of my jaw, he kissed a path to my ear and lingered there for several seconds, his hands holding my head to his mouth.
“I’d say you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on, but coming from a man who’s been blind for most of his life, that doesn’t hold much stock. What I’ll say instead is that you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever imagined.” He pulled back to look at me, the magic on his grinning lips making my body flame. “And I’ve imagined whole worlds, Ruby Renada.”
While he stopped his kissing so he could get another look at my face for the dozenth time, his hands continued their trek over my body.
His fingers curved and caressed and traced my shape, mapping me out, feeling me, memorizing me. By now, my silver prince was privy to my every curve, pore, and hair follicle. This time, as he charted me out with his hands, he took his time. His fingers pinched and stroked, making my skin torch. He muttered beneath his breath about how beautiful I was while pinching my nipples and watching with fluttering lashes as they stiffened.
Burying his nose in my hair, he breathed me in and let loose a low growl in my ear, like I was the most intoxicating thing he’d even taken into his lungs.
Sterling was one hell of a lover when he had all five of his senses at his disposal.
His languid perusal of my body had been heightened tenfold by the way he soaked up my every reaction to his touch.
“Christ alive. How do my brothers ever keep their hands off you? You’re so responsive. You turn the most tantalizing shade of red when you’re beneath me.” As a demonstration, his fingers stroked down my sternum, between the valley of my breasts. Swirling his index finger around my navel, he then slipped lower, disappearing beneath the hem of my nightgown.
“I think I’d like to see your face when you come around me, love. I want to memorize it so I’ll be able to imagine it every time we’re truly together.”
My stomach clenched at the words “truly together.” Everything felt so real that it was easy to forget it wasn’t. This was just an illusion. Sterling hadn’t actually gotten his sight back. This was just an insightful dream, and not much more to it than that. Eventually, and sooner than we’d like, we’d have to wake up and face reality.
Sensing my sudden anxiety, my prince captured my chin and forced my eyes in front of his. “I can see the distress on your face, Ruby Renada. Save it for the sunset. Today, while you’re in my mind, I want to be the only object of your attention.”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a lot on my mind. You might need to put in a little work to be the only thing that fills my attention.”
The smirk that streaked across Sterling’s face was straight-up diabolic. It made every inch of my body flare with goosebumps. A second later, he was ripping my gown open. His hands danced over my flesh, reading my goosebumps like braille.
Fire burned in my chest when he suddenly ducked down and trailed his tongue down my torso, his ghostly eyes fixed on mine through the screen of his hair.
I bucked my hips in frustration when his mouth meandered around my opening and planted a sinful kiss on my inner thigh. His face was so close to my sex that his nose tickled the coils of my pubic hairs and his cool breath swept over my molten heat.
His hand smoothed over the wisp of hair, cupping me with an expression on his face that made me blanch for a moment. “You kept this blonde for me.”
“You asked me to,” I murmured, the naked adoration in his eyes making my heart feel like it was glowing, and its radiance made my nerve endings light up like Christmas lights.
He smiled again, half his mouth concealed as he pressed a kiss to my thigh. Then another and another, moving lower until he hovered over my apex. “My brothers have tried their best to describe the way your face pinches when you come undone. I wonder if their depictions were at all accurate.”
My heart fluttered. “H–how did they describe me?”
“Hmm.” Sterling drummed his fingertips over my knees. “The youngblood’s exact words were, ‘sexy as fuck,’ and I can’t recall Deathwish’s precise description. Something about exploding testicles.”
With every syllable that rolled from him, Sterling’s mouth inched closer and closer until I could almost feel the vibrations of his words tickle my folds.
“An–and wh–what about V–vin?” My need for the vampire was so intense now I could barely think straight, let alone articulate.
Sterling smoothed his hand over the plane of my belly, making fire stir beneath his palm. “He said he couldn’t find the words to describe it in our language, so he answered in his own. My fae tongue is rusty—the books I have on it are outdated editions—so the only two words I recognized were ‘bewitching’ and ‘perfection.’”
Knowing Vincent got all sappy when I wasn’t in earshot—at least with Sterling—had me humming in delight. “Corry said you guys talk about me.”
Sterling’s angelic features sharpened with the devilish smile flitting over his lips. “We discuss the things we’d like to dotoyou.”