Page 164 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

My mouth crashed into his like fire seeking oxygen, breathless and wild. He was hot under my tongue, desperate and commanding. There were no more questions between us. We’d set them to flame with flint and steel, and only answers remained. Answers and vows and blood that called from one soul to the other. His hand fisted in the black silk of my dress, pulling the sheath taut around my back, lifting me to deepen his kiss.

“I want this across the floor,” he panted against my lips.

“Then put it there,” I shot back, dizzy with the taste of him.

The silk was a single long bolt, wrapped and twisted into a bodice and skirt. His hands delved into it, greedy, hungry. Forced it aside, unspooling me like coiled, ravenous thread. He freed one breast, then both, and my neck rolled backward as his mouth closed roughly over one of them, liquid heat dripping over my skin.

My shoulder grazed the corner of a painting, and I swung my arm lazily to catch it before it dropped from its hook, the clap of its wooden frame loud. I left it crooked as Kye hiked my legs over his hips, whirling me into the opposite wall. Sconce light flooded his hair like strands of gold, and I dug my fingers into it as his teeth nipped and dragged over the crook of my neck.

I was drunk, delirious at the touch of him. Kye pulled me from the wall, making for the stairs, not even bothering to watch the floor. Something cracked, a jolt through Kye’s hip and into mine. The bench that sat under the window thrusted onto its back feet and then slammed down again.

I laughed at our clumsiness, so absorbed in each other we’d probably return to find this hallway in shambles. He kicked the bench back against the wall, and I thought he’d head for the staircase again.

Instead, he sat me down on it.

“You’re joking,” I gasped, my air shallow and bruised with overuse. As late as it was in the day, it was unlikely a servant might wander through, though not impossible. And Kazimir still used this hall and staircase to reach his rooms.

“I’ve never been more fucking serious,” Kye rumbled against me, sinking to his knees to tease the last of the silk sheathe from my hips. A memory flickered through my head. Kye kneeling between my thighs as he tied me to a chair on our wedding night, spreading my ankles wide to loop them to the chair’s legs.

He chuckled darkly at seeing it in my head. “The things I would do, Leihani,” he said, wrapping a hand around my calf, “just to worship you every night on my knees for eternity.” A shudder rocked up my spine at the rush of his breath against my thigh. “Throw your legs over my shoulders.”

Jaw slack, eyes half closed, I let him lift my legs, crossing my ankles behind his head before he leaned in.

Sweet, silky fire whipped at my center. He lashed me once with his tongue, twice—and gave a growl of impatience, wrapping his arms around my thighs to hike me closer.

“Don’t stop,” I said, already worn thin with impatience.

He sucked me into his mouth, making my back arch, just to let me go. “They’d have to pry me off of you,” he replied, taking me in his mouth again. I felt the hard press of his eyes, devouring me as I began to whimper and writhe. He pulled me again, hauling me off the bench’s edge, widening the splay of my legs, drinking me deeper.

My lungs battled for air, my pulse rampant. A hot tide washed through me, sending me tumbling below the waves as every muscle in my body wound tight. One hand found the bench’s arm, the other curled tight over the back rest, my nails raking against wood at the decadent torture of his mouth. His tongue circled, slow and smooth and reverent like he was drinking golden wine. He leaned back to look at me, wide and bare, then groaned softly.

“Fuck, Leihani,” Kye said. “You’re so pretty with my spit all over you.” His thumb took over, weaving a senseless pattern over my clit, finger stroking inside me. My breath shuttered, flames crawling over my skin as he glided in and back out, adding a second finger. He drew a careless circle, winding me with the rough slide of his thumb. “Say my name,” he murmured, husky with want.

“Kye,” I gasped out. The ceiling was spinning, warping slowly, the clouds outside caught in the red haze of the setting sun like dripping smoke.

“Say that you’re my wife.”

A tremor began in my core, rippling in all directions. My legs shook as his thumb ground into me, stringing me to nothing. “I’m your wife.”

“Say you belong to me.”

But I was beyond words, a moan escaping my unhinged jaw instead. He pumped harder as I came, as every rope that had tightened enough to break released instead, leaving me a limp, trembling mess. Still panting, I tilted my head to peer down at him. His mouth crooked, pupils dark and full as he slid a violently drawn-out thumb across my apex, taunting me.

I swore as my limbs contracted, a puppet on his string. “I belong to you,” I breathed. “I’m yours. No one else’s.”

My legs slipped from his shoulders. Kye straightened to reach my mouth, fingers wrapping under my chin to capture me in a slow, commanding kiss, the taste of me potent on his tongue. I matched his strokes, slow and firm as the use of my bones returned to my body, my fingers tracing the hard muscles of his back to find the hem of his shirt. He let me drag it off him, lifting his arms as I tugged it loose.

His eyes closed as my hand skimmed the angles of his chest, chiseled like marble under my palm, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

I slid off the bench, into the slant of his thighs, my lips drifting over the firm knot in the center of his neck. He glowed softly, but sunbursts crackled across his skin, vibrant as a strike of lightning against a night sky. The silk sheath of my dress sat around us like a shining black sea, and I gathered a length of it in my hand. Kye’s eyes opened, gold molten as I wound it loosely around his throat.

“Come with me,” I said, tugging him to his feet with the silk length hanging from my fingers. He followed, silk streaming behind us as I led him up the winding stairs, sunset burning through the glass windows. The door to the guest chambers was firmly closed, light seeping through the bottom. We ignored it, slipping over the threshold of our own.

I didn’t bother lighting candles or sconces. The final dregs of the day coaxed us to the west-facing bedroom, where the sea rolled against the sun. I led Kye to the bed on a byssus leash, hooking the silk over the top slat of his headboard, feeding enough length through that he was forced to climb onto the mattress.

He waited, drinking me in with glittering eyes.

Mihauna, he was a work of art. Every inch of him was corded with muscle, his body long enough that even leaned against the headboard, his feet almost hung from the edge. I climbed over the top of his pelvis, straddling him, and leaned in close enough to whisper in his ear, “Put your hands above your head.”