Page 85 of Fate of the Sun King

I shove his shoulder, and his eyes snap open before he grins.

“How long have you been awake?” I demand as he pulls me closer while I attempt to shove him away.

“Long enough to know that you were swooning over me.”

“I was not,” I say, but it’s so obvious I’m lying that I can’t even pretend to be serious.

He nuzzles into my neck, his hand sliding down my back to where he finds my ass and squeezes it firmly. “You can’t fool me. I know how much you want me, even when you were working so damn hard to pretend otherwise.”

I snort, but he’s already kissing me as he rolls me over, pinning me to the mattress.

“Are you sore?” he asks, his hand sliding down my stomach and across my hip, his touches like tender kisses.

“A little,” I admit.

“Hmm,” he says, his fingers dipping into the space between my thighs. “And yet, you’re dripping for me.”

“I can be both things. They aren’t mutually exclusive occurrences,” I say, and he grins as he gently massages my clit. He leans down and sucks on my neck, carefully and lovingly bringing me to the edge until I shatter underneath him again. I wonder if you can go blind from orgasming this often?

When he’s finished, he rolls away and then scoops me up, carrying me to the bathroom, where we spend another solid hour in the shower “cleaning up.”

Once we finally emerge from the haze of steam and a heady rainbow of orgasms, I find a note under the door inviting us for breakfast with Cedar and Elswyth before we depart.

Nadir comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around me and kissing my shoulder. “I was hoping we could stay in this room, just the two of us, until the end of time,” he says, reading the note. “But I suppose we have shit to get accomplished.”

I look over my shoulder and arch an eyebrow. “And here I thought vengeance was the foundation of your personality and not just a side hobby you’d abandon at the first opportunity for a roll in the sheets.”

He lets out a low growl and spins me around, backing me towards the bed, and tipping me over as he lands on top. “My need for vengeance is fully intact. Never doubt that.”

Then he peppers me with kisses as his fingers find all of my ticklish spots, and I dissolve into a fit of giggles.

This feels really… nice.

When he’s done torturing me, he pulls up and catches something in my expression.

“What is it?” he asks.

“Nothing. I just… I like this.” My hand settles against his cheek, my thumb pressing his bottom lip, as his mouth crooks up at the corner. He nips my finger with his teeth, and I snatch it away with a laugh.

“This is everything,” he says.

Finally, we manage to dress and head to the dining room with our fingers laced together. We’ve walked like this before. We spent most of our time in the Keep holding hands, but its significance has shifted. This isn’t for show anymore, and now that we’ve declared ourselves to each other, it means something else. It’s such a small, innocuous action, but it strikes me as momentous.

We round the corner to find Tristan, Mael, and Etienne already seated with the Woodlands King and Queen.

“Finally,” Mael says. “I thought we were going to have to send out a search party for you. What happened last n—”

His eyes drop to our clasped hands and then flick back up as a beaming grin crosses his face. He slaps the table with enough force to rattle the glasses and cutlery.

“You finally fucked,” he declares, and I feel my face turn beet red. Especially when Tristan sits up, glowering at Mael and then at me and Nadir like he’s not sure what he’s supposed to do but knows he definitely wants to do something about this.

“Good gods, Mael,” I say, covering my eyes. “Can you ever behave like a normal person?”

He smiles and shrugs. “For me, this is normal.”

“That would be the problem,” Nadir says as he leads me into the room and then pulls out a chair next to Mael for me. As I sit, I nail him with a withering glare, but he couldn’t care less, grinning at me and then at his friend.

“Maybe now you won’t be so fucking moody all the time,” Mael says, and Nadir smiles.