Rin let her head fall back against the pillows with a low sigh. "I guess you’re all pissed at Rhyden?" She didn’t give Cyrus time to reply. "Don’t be. It was my idea"—a lie that spilled from her lips before she could think it through—"I asked him to do it, so don’t blame him, blame me. Actually, you know what? Don’t blame me either. Because I’m not a little girl. I don’t need to ask for permission to do anything…" The words kept coming.
She stared at the ceiling as she spoke, feeling Cyrus’s comforting weight and knowing he would never hold this against her.
"If I weren’t so worried about you all forbidding me to do something, then I wouldn’t feel the need to sneak around. I’ve trusted you time and time again. I need you to trust me, this time."
Smooth fingertips danced across her collarbones, tracing their shape. "You know I’ll always trust you, doll. You may not remember fully, but we trusted each other. You opened up to me. You let me show you that freely given pleasure is the most powerful weapon of all. I’m not mad at you. I just wish you had let me be there, too."
Cyrus shifted, his hands braced by her shoulders as he held himself over her. He wore a serious expression, brows drawn low over his stunning eyes. "I love you, Vesperin, and I will until the galaxies have turned to dust." He smiled a brilliant smile, but she couldn’t help but notice it was tinged with sadness. "I’m not a doctor, a crime lord, a Celestial-ordained being, or anythinglike that. I’m just a runaway prince who can’t live without sex. A bad one, at that."
Understanding hit her all at once. Why Cyrus had been reluctant to feed from her, sating himself on enough emotions from the others… He was ashamed. Of who he was, what he needed.
Rin acted on instinct. She moved her arms up and took his face in between her hands.
"You’renotnothing, Cyrus."
He started to shake his head.
"No, listen. When we first met on Sibeth, I didn’t know anything about you. I was running from the grief of Kit’s—death. I wanted escape, and I found you. A savior. You unlocked something inside of me, Cy," Rin murmured. "You held yourself back from hurting me. You waited for me for three hundred years after…"
Fragmented memories surfaced, broken by centuries and the experiments she’d been forced to endure. Prismatic scenes of a blue, sparkling ocean, the way the curtains fluttered in the sea-scented breeze, and how he’d find her there, every morning, and kiss along her spine and drop to his knees and worship her.
The memories turned to ash, leaving behind a blooming headache.
"I don’t remember it all. I may never. But I do know, Cyrus Soltren, that what I feel for you spans lifetimes. I love you." He was the only man besides Lucien and Kit she’d ever said those words to in a romantic way. The vulnerability of it made her feel shy.
"My pretty little doll. Wind you up and pull the string, and you whisper such beautiful words to me." Cyrus kissed the tip of her nose. "It should be me who praises you. I love, love, love you." Each word was punctuated by a sloppy, wet kiss on her cheeks. His tongue traced over her salty tears, and she wasdazed and hazy, drugged by harmony, a part of her searching for Lucien, but trying to be content in this moment—with her incubus.
When she opened her eyes—she was barely aware of when she’d closed them—the dark room was no longer dark. Everything was bathed in a red glow.
"Cyrus…" Rin let her fingers span out across his cheeks, until the pads of her thumbs traced beneath his eyes—and the deep shadows there. "Have you been feeding?"
Cyrus’s forehead fell to hers. "Bites here and there. It’s easy with so much emotion from the others. Nothing will ever sate me like pleasure. To me, it’s the very air in my lungs. Other feelings—they’re like scraps of oxygen. Good for a time, but after a while…"
She’dknown. She’d seen it in his eyes, the lack of light, the dulling spark.
"I already let my instincts take over once when I took your virginity. The soft little gasp you let slip out… It haunts me."
She blushed from the image his words painted. It haunted her. But for an entirely different reason.
"You can’t starve yourself, Cyrus. Feed from me." Her fingers dipped to his lips.
Rin expected him to deny himself longer, but she was learning to expect the unexpected when it came to her incubus.
Cyrus moved away from her, only to let his hands slide beneath her shirt, feeling her bare skin. His touch was firm. His thumbs grazed her breasts, and it made her stomach drop. He moved down her body, hands still on her, and she grew perplexed as he kissed her navel, then burrowed beneath her large shirt.
"Cy, what?—"
His lips wrapped around her nipple.
Rin moaned as he teased her with his skillful mouth. When he pulled away, a lewd wet noise resounded. He slid back down her shirt. When he sat up, his hair stuck up chaotically.
He moved to straddle her hips, his palms resting on her chest. The place where her shirt clung to her still-wet breasts made her shiver.
"I’m going to fuck you again. You have to come three times before I can." He said it matter-of-factly.
Her protests dissolved beneath his kisses.
She was gasping, her hands shoving at his shoulders so she couldbreathe. Finally, he broke away, stripping quickly, his bare skin sliding over hers.
