He looked up, his gaze colliding with hers.
"I'm not fragile."She rolled her hips back to meet his thrust and watched his control crack."Stop treating me like I'll break."
He growled something she couldn’t make out, and his grip tightened on her hips.The next thrust punched the air from her lungs.
Yes.She groaned.That was what she wanted, what sheneeded.
He set a rhythm that made her toes curl against the polished floor.Deep strokes, hard enough to rock her forward, and she stopped trying to stay quiet.Stopped trying to do anything except feel.The slap of skin on skin filled the air.The drag of him inside her, hitting spots she didn't know she had, made her gasp.His fingers bruised her hips where he gripped her.
"Fuck."The word tore out of her.“Oh fuck, fuck,fuck… Right there, don't stop, don't?—"
He didn't stop.Drove into her at that same angle, again and again, until she was making sounds she'd never made in her life.Until her arms shook from bracing against the mirror, and her thighs burned, and she didn't care about any of it because the pleasure was building like a wave about to crest.
"I'm going to—" She couldn't finish the sentence.
"Yes."He bent over her, chest to her back, mouth against her ear."Come for me.I want to feel it.I want tohearit.”
She shattered.
This one was different.Deeper, rolling through her in waves that seemed to go on forever.She felt herself clench around him, heard him groan, felt his rhythm stutter, and then he followed her over, burying himself deep as he came with her name on his lips.
Silence.
Just breathing and the fog of their breath on the mirror.The music had ended at some point, and the studio was quiet except for the sound of their ragged exhales.
His forehead dropped to her shoulder.He was still inside her, still holding her up.Leaning back against his chest, she let herself feel the heat of him inside her.
"We are so fucked," she said.
He barked a laugh.An actual laugh, surprised out of him, and it was the best sound she'd ever heard.
"Yes."He pressed a kiss to her shoulder, right over the mark his teeth had left earlier."We are."
* * *
Emily hadn't slept.Again.
She stood under the shower, letting the water pound against her shoulders, when the chime sounded at her door.She jumped, nearly slipping on the wet floor.
Raaevik.
They'd walked back from the dance studio in silence yesterday, and he'd left her at her door.He couldn't stay, she knew that.He couldn't risk being found in her quarters, not after what they’d done.She hadn’t seen him for the rest of the day, her hours filled with attendants and dress fittings in the main room of her quarters.She hadn’t even been able to get a glimpse of him when the door had opened.But her body still hummed with the memory of his hands.
Twisting off the shower, she grabbed a robe and dragged it on as the chime came again.Her hands shook.
Get it together, Em.
Cinching the robe tighter, she crossed to the door, trying to arrange her face into something neutral.Professional.Not like a woman who'd spent the last eight hours reliving every touch, every whisper, of an affair that could get them both killed.
The door slid open.
It wasn't Raaevik.
The emperor stood in her doorway.Alone.No guards flanking him, no attendants trailing behind.He wore warrior leathers without the crown or ceremonial weapons—just a massive warrior filling the doorway.
Every muscle in her body locked as he studied her face.
He knew.
