Page 70 of Prince of the Sun

Before I lose myself completely, I push Daerios over, rolling to the left until I’m straddling him. From this angle, I’m even more exposed, my stomach and sides curling into little rolls. Daerios pauses, head on the pillow. His eyes darken as they rake down my body.

I summon courage that isn’t even there. “Like what you see, Ariar?”

He groans. “You have no idea. You cannot fathom what your body does to me, Quinn.” He leans in and licks up my side, in the exact spot where my skin folds over itself twice, and I gasp. “I live for these curves. Idiefor these curves. I worship every square inch of space that this body takes up.” He kisses down my side and along my stomach, while one hand reaches behind me to cup my ass, the other massaging my breast. “I would build a thousand altars with statues in your exact image, just so I could bow before them.”

“Daerios,” I gasp.

He brings his face up to mine, catching my lips in a bruising kiss. I push him back onto his pillow and start to rock, to ride the arousal I feel beneath his sweatpants. It feels so good. The pressure at the base of my stomach is begging me to take it all off, for there to be nothing between us at all. I straighten up and reach down, pulling off the boxers I’m wearing one leg at a time.

I keep my eyes on his. “What do you want, Daerios?”

He can only whimper.

Then I hook both hands around his sweatpants. Wiggle them down his pants, along with his underwear. “I said,what do you want?” I toss them aside.

To my surprise, Daerios sits up. He’s naked now, and no longer putty beneath me. He is no longer whimpers and sighs. He is all jagged angles and hard muscle. His arms wrap around my back, pulling me in until we’re almost nose to nose.

“I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, Quinn.” He lifts me as if I am nothing, as if I am air, and positions the soft opening to my body over his hard length. “I want to bury myself so deeply inside you that you forget the existence of every male but me.”

“Do it,” I beg. “Do it. I’m on the pill.”

I am. I started taking birth control many years ago, to treat my always-irregular cycles, made worse by my fluctuating diet. It’s a boring, clinical part of my life—and I’ve never been asgrateful for something as I am right now.

“Are you begging me, Quinn?”

“Yes,” I rasp. “Daerios,please.”

His eyes flash. “Good girl.”

Then he pushes into me, and I gasp at his size, at how it squeezes the very walls of my body. There is a heartbeat of pain, just a moment, and I cry out.

Daerios freezes. He pulls back. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I breathe. “Yes. Please, don’t stop what you’re doing.”

He smiles. Tucks a stray curl behind my ear. Then he lifts me up—slowly, gently—and brings me back down.

There is no pain, this time. There is only a wonderful ache, the filling of an emptiness I never knew existed. I start to move on my own, forward and back, up and down. With every movement, the ache grows tighter, harder, coiling through every limb of my body.

“Quinn,” he sighs. “You feel so fucking good, baby.”

I’m riding him, now. I cling to his neck as I slide up and down, forward and back, whichever way hits that spot deep inside me, the one that sends bolts of lightning up my spine. His arms are tight around me. Sweat beads our panting bodies. The pressure coils higher and higher within me, and I feel so good, I cannot believe I have lived so long without this feeling.

“Yes,” I moan. “God, Daerios,yes. Don’t stop.”

It’s as if a star is burning within me, growing, swelling. The pleasure is so deep, so all-consuming, that I soon lose the ability to speak. I make wild noises as Daerios murmurs praise in my ear, telling me how good I’m doing, how incredible I feel. And the star—it keeps growing, burning until it will surely combust—

And then it does.

Lights twinkle in every corner of my vision as I tilt my head back and come undone around him. My nails dig into his back, or maybe his into mine, I don’t know. Our names come loose in atangle of sweat and sound, and then I’m falling, falling, and our heads hit the pillows together, his arms never releasing me.

We lie beside each other, panting into the darkness. The pressure has left my body, and in its place settles a heavy warmth, as if he’s draped an extra blanket over me. Every muscle loosens. My limbs sink into the soft mattress. I curl my head inward, nuzzling it into his chest.

“Quinn,” he sighs.

I settle into him, breathing in his smoky, homey scent. His fingers graze the curve of my body. It feels perfectly right to be in his arms like this. Natural. As if it’s the only place I’m supposed to be.

Certainty washes over me, then. And relief. I don’t have to lose this feeling. I don’t have to losehim. We can be partners in our search for the Shadow Elves. He can help me save Michael, and I can help him save Elaërion.