Page 93 of The High Mountain Court

“Remy.” Hale’s voice was a near whisper. She refused to look at the pity he was sure to have on his face. Hale’s hands cupped her cheeks. “Look at me.”

She kept her eyes shut. How could she face him? How could she disappoint one more person? She felt the hint of Hale’s breath before his mouth pressed gently to hers. She still tasted the remnants of her salty tears on his lips. The kiss was so soft, so gentle, as if Hale were telling her in the only way he knew how: she wasn’t a disappointment to him.

“I am here. We are here together.” He spoke onto her lips, breathing into her. Pulling away, he rested his forehead on hers. “Open your eyes.”

Remy gave herself over to her mate’s request. Those sparkling gray eyes shone at her, a smile tugging on Hale’s lips. His thumbs stroked her cheeks as he gazed at her.

“It is so much, Remy,” Hale said softly, brushing his lips to her mouth again as if he could not keep them away. “It is such a big ask. A glamour that has held for thirteen years? You are not a failure for not being able to take it off on your first try.”

“I . . .” Remy’s voice thickened again as she took an angry breath. Her hands still shook by her sides. “I don’t think I want to take it off. Not really.”

Hale nodded. “It’s okay to be scared.”

He understood.

“I don’t deserve my fae form.” Remy trembled. Hale stroked a strong hand down her bare arm. His warmth seeped back into her. “I am a coward.”

“No,” Hale said, his voice stronger. He had called her a coward once, and it stung even still. She knew Hale directed his anger at himself in the same way she felt for calling him bastard. “Do you think I’m a coward? I didn’t stop the way my father treated my mother. I was too afraid to go see her . . .”

“I don’t think that. Never,” Remy said, cupping his cheek and pulling his forehead back to hers.

“You can’t believe that I am not, and yet you are.” Hale’s eyes burned into hers. “You are so much braver than me, Remy. You are strong and cunning and gutsy and everything that this world needs.” Remy shook her head. She couldn’t hear it, but Hale squeezed her hand, threading their fingers together, making her meet his eyes again. “No, it is the truth. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”

It was no distance at all for Remy to press her lips to his, her Fated. She kissed him harder than those first fleeting kisses, his warm mouth pulling her from her despair. Releasing his cheek, she pulled him closer, pressing herself up against him. She licked at the seam of his lips and his mouth opened further, tongue caressing her own.

Her body trembled, not from the anger or the cold this time.

Hale broke the kiss and looked at her, eyes blazing.

“Let me show you who you are,” he breathed, his voice edged with pleading, as his mouth hovered over hers. “Let me show you all the ways I can worship you.”

Remy’s core clenched as she nodded. Smiling, Hale scooped her into his arms and stood like it was no effort at all. Shards of mirror scattered around them as he strode out of the bathroom and to the enormous bed.

He set Remy down, only to pull her into a hot, branding kiss. They stood there at the foot of the bed, breaking apart only long enough to pull off Hale’s white undershirt. Remy had seen him shirtless before, but now she could indulge her urge to stroke her hands down his sculpted body. Her hands traced the corded muscles of his arms as he gathered the fabric of her nightdress in his large hands and pulled it over her head, baring her to him.

She leaned backward onto the bed, inching herself up towards the pillows. Hale snarled as he looked over her naked body. Her nipples stiffened against the cool air and the heat of his stare. A hot ache pulsed at her core from Hale’s look alone. His molten silver eyes filled with the ferocity of an unspoken promise that he would devour her.

Hale made quick work shucking off his boots and unbuttoning his pants, and it was Remy’s turn to go still. Her mouth parted as she looked at him. She had gotten a sense of his size from that night in the woods, but seeing him naked in front of her, the way his abdominal muscles tapered to his thick, hard shaft, had slick wetness pooling between her legs. Hale’s nostrils flared, smelling her arousal. The scent made his entire body shudder. Remy vibrated in anticipation. The promise held in those wild gray eyes set her aflame.

Hale prowled on top of her, his mouth meeting back with hers, and Remy was certain he would fulfill that promise. Those kisses were all consuming, a symphony of lips and teeth and tongue, like they were melding their whole beings together. Remy was desperate for that union to be complete, grinding herself with wanton abandon against him. Hale broke the kiss to grin wickedly at her desperate writhing.

“What do you want?” he whispered, skimming his lips across her neck and nipping his way up to her ear.

There was only one thing Remy wanted. She hoped there would be other times, slower times with hands and mouths and casual lovemaking, but her need for him right in that moment was so overwhelming she needed all of him right away.

“I want you inside me,” she breathed even as her hands tried to pull him closer. She spoke with a level of desperation she wasn’t even the slightest bit embarrassed of.

Hale smiled that smug, princely smile at her as he nudged himself at her entrance. Upon feeling that wetness between her legs, that smile wiped away. Hale growled again, his lips meeting her once more as he pushed himself in another inch.

He broke the kiss and watched Remy’s half-hooded eyes as he pushed himself all the way into her. The feeling of him filling her shattered every thought in her mind other than that pulsing fullness at her core. Every cell in her body homed in to that spot where they became one.

As Hale began slow, testing movements, every sense in her heightened. She smelled his musky arousal, heard his heart thundering beneath his chest, saw the dilation of his pupils. She tasted his sweat and his ocean air scent. Hale’s eyes seemed more flecked with stone and silver, widening as he looked at her, something dawning on his face she couldn’t quite name. Did it feel the same for him? Like a door unlocking to another world.

They held each other’s stare in awe and wonder for a moment at how right it felt to be united in this way. And then Hale was moving again in a way that had Remy moaning.

“It feels so good,” he hissed. “You feel so good.”

Her legs shook. Remy bucked her hips up to meet him, demanding more of each thrust. Hale growled, the veins in his arms bulging, as he started moving faster.

---