I ’m fucking furious with you.
That cut through the post-sex contented haze. My eyes snapped open
to see him leaning over me, lips thinned, stare sharp with anger.
“Do you know how close I came to not being here right now because of you, Tisaanah?”
Oh.
I had been dreading this conversation.
Max rolled off of me and straightened his trousers as we both shifted fully onto the bed.
“It is a waste of time to put those back on,” I said. “Don’t try to distract me with your wiles.”
“My wiles?”
Wy-uls. It was a little exciting to find a new Aran word after so long. “You told me to fucking leave.”
I bit my lip and looked away. I didn’t have anything to say for myself. With one finger, he steered my chin back to him. “It was luck that I decided to come back, you know that? Pure luck.”
“Why did you?”
The corners of his mouth tightened. “Because I realized that, even though I didn’t remember you, I knew you. That sort of thing was bigger than a few memories.” He shook his head, looking slightly embarrassed. “It sounds ridiculous, but it’s the best way I can describe it.”
“It doesn’t sound ridiculous at all.”
His words, clumsy as they were, touched me deeper than I could express. I meant it—it was not ridiculous. Once I’d thought that love was
the sum of its parts, the result of a collection of traits and experiences, like a structure steadily built from bricks layered over bricks. If you collect enough of them, there is love. But that had been a child’s view of the world. The bricks were important, but what they created was more than just a pile of stones. It was the difference between a house and a home. If the building burns down, something is still there that makes it home.
If the memories are gone, something is still there that makes it love. “Are you glad you came back?” I asked, quietly.
Max glanced pointedly at my naked body and said, “Yes,” as if it was a very stupid question.
“No jokes. You know what I am asking.”
Was it worth it?
Was I worth remembering?
His face softened. His fingertips traced the curve of my cheek. “You want the truth? The memories are hard, yes. But none of that scared me as much as the prospect of exactly how close I came to never seeing you again. That’s what fucking terrifies me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice rougher than I intended. “I just… your past held so many horrible things. Most people never get the opportunity for a second chance without it. I thought that if anyone deserved that freedom, it would be you. I thought you would want that.”
“I was still the result of all those things, even if there was a wall keeping me from them. I would have had to confront them sooner or later.”
He was trying very hard to sound blasé about it, but I knew him well enough to see that it was ever-so-slightly forced.
“I’m glad that you were with me when I did,” he said. “Even though you were infuriatingly determined to make that not be the case.”
“I was—”
“You were trying to do what’s right. I know, you insufferable, stubborn creature.” He gripped my chin, his eyes searching my face. “Listen,” he said, after a long pause. “I’m not much for words, so I’ll only say this once. If you ever have to guess what I want, or what is best for me, it is you. Alright? I have made that decision already. I do not make it lightly. Don’t disrespect that by claiming that you know better for me than I do. I have made bad decisions before. But you are not, never have been, and never will be one of them. It is always you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. If I opened my mouth, I was certain that whatever sounds would come out would be pathetically weepy.
Perhaps a stranger might have looked at my life and seen a series of misfortunes. But here, in this moment, I could not imagine being more blessed—more gluttonous—with luck.
I didn’t have any other response but to kiss him. The kiss quickly deepened, until I found myself half draped over him on the bed, my bare breasts pressed to his chest. Desire stirred in my core, simmering but never satisfied from our earlier tryst. The night was young. We had our whole lives, and almost certainly an early death, to sleep.
“I need verbal confirmation of your understanding, Vytezic,” Max murmured between kisses.
“I understand, captain.”
His lips curled into a sly smile. “General. I was promoted, remember.” “Don’t get too full of yourself, mysterious snake man.”
He laughed—a beautiful sound—and grabbed my waist to pull me on top of him, my thighs straddling his hips. The hardness pressing against my core was enough to make my own laugh die on my lips.
“So demanding,” he said, as his hands slowly ran up my sides. “Put me in my place, then.”
I reached down and pulled down his trousers, lifting my eyebrow at him. “I told you not to put these on.”
“You were right.” “I always am.” “Not always.”
I discarded his trousers with the rest of our clothes on the floor. I crawled back over him, trailing kisses up his body—his knee, his thigh, his hip—and at last at his cock, which I kissed too, then ran my tongue up in languid, slow strokes.
Max groaned, his hand falling to the back of my head, and the sound became a hiss as I took him in my mouth.
He said my name like a prayer. Gods, I loved that—not only the sound of his pleasure but, selfishly, the control it gave me. I loved the way he tasted, the way his muscles tensed as I worked. I pressed my palm to his abdomen and his other hand, the one not clutching my hair, covered it in a gesture that was surprisingly tender compared to the force of his grip.
I pushed deeper, and Max let out a louder curse.
“Stop, Tisaanah. This isn’t how I want to go.”
I lifted my head enough to bat my eyelashes at him. “Really?”
“Not this time.”
I wanted to challenge him just because I could, but the desire at the apex of my thighs—a yawning emptiness that demanded more—told me otherwise. Before we had taken each other fast and hard, but I wanted to relish how he felt inside me.
I let him pull me back to him, into a long kiss. That, too, was different from before. Slower exploration, carefully marking each other’s mouths. His hands ran up my back, tracing the shape of my scars.
His hardness nudged my entrance. I was ready. All it took was one shift in my hips to lower myself over him. Slowly, this time, savoring every inch that stretched me—savoring what it felt like to be together again.
We both groaned into our shared serrated breaths. His hands moved to my thighs, gripping them hard enough to no-doubt leave marks in the pale patches of my flesh, but he didn’t try to move. We were perfectly still and yet acutely aware of each other, and how every expanse of skin felt against the other.
Slowly, I sat up, breath hitching as the movement made him press deeper inside of me. It was almost enough to give in to what I wanted so badly—wanted more friction, more movement, wanted to forego patience in favor of our earlier frantic pace.
But instead I just looked at him.
When I was touching him, I knew his body so well that even the parts of him that had changed were inconsequential. But visually? Visually, he looked so different. The sheer amount of alchemical ink that now marked him still shocked me. The marks were even more jarring now that the Stratagrams had been broken, so the tattoos were not circles but sharp lines layered over each other. I traced one of them with my fingertip over his stomach, making his abs twitch and an almost-laugh escape from between his teeth.
“Don’t do that to me now,” he said. “I’m begging you.” “I hate them.”
“The tattoos?” When I nodded, he said, “I think they make me look mysterious and dangerous.” His hips shifted, his hands running up and
down my waist—pausing at the top to press his thumb over my breast. “Don’t you want a mysterious and dangerous lover?”
The spark of pleasure almost distracted me. Almost. “I don’t hate… them. But I hate that you have them.”
“I don’t hate anything right now.” His hips shifted again, and this time I couldn’t help but meet the movement with my own, drawing moans from both of us. His touch migrated to my back, fingers playing at the raised skin of my scars, and for a moment his eyes darkened. “Well. Some things.”
At least we understood each other: I love your scars and hate the person who gave them to you.
“Come here,” he said. “I miss you. Thank you for giving me such a lovely view. But too much talking. Not enough fucking.”
He pulled me down to him, gave me a long kiss that made me forget my own name—made me forget everything except delirious agreement with him—yes, too much talking, not enough fucking. Without my permission, my hips began to move, rolling over him again, again, again, in a slow, building rhythm. The pleasure built like the sound of an orchestra, round and full, overtaking all my senses. I kissed his lips, his cheeks, his forehead, his throat.
More. I wanted so much more.
My movements became more demanding, and he met them with equal fervor. My climax was rushing towards me, and I was eager to fall over the edge with him. But just as I was about to crest, he lifted me off of him and pushed me to the bed.
I let out a wordless whimper of frustration.
“Patience.” His smug smirk was warm in his voice.
I cussed at him in Thereni, and he laughed. “You actually taught me that one.”
I hurled another, even more offensive expletive at him—one that I definitely had not taught him—and he laughed again as he gently turned me so I was on my side and positioned himself behind me. We were both lying on the bed, one of his arms around my shoulders, the warmth of his body curled around mine. Then he slid his free hand down over my body— pausing at my breasts, which made me moan and move impatiently against him, then my stomach, and finally, ending at the ache in my core. His fingers moved agonizingly lightly there, barely touching me. Against my
permission, my body pushed towards him, begging for more, but his grip on my shoulders kept me still.
“I want to be able to see you and feel you when you come for me this time,” he murmured in my ear, closing his teeth around the shell of it in a gentle bite as he opened my thighs and slid back into me.
Stars erupted over my vision. The position and angle left me at his mercy, but even his willpower was only so strong. He pumped in and out of me as I spread wider for him, my body now nearly draped over his. His hand stroked the length of my body as if he wanted to feel all of me, trace every muscle and inch of flesh, the movements more frantic as our pace quickened.
“I missed you,” I moaned, almost a sob—gods, it could have been a sob, I could barely feel my own body anymore, could barely form words. “I missed you so much.”
I turned my face back towards him, blindly, not sure what I wanted but knowing I wanted something, anything, everything. He kissed my mouth. Kissed the tear rolling down my cheek. Then kissed my ear as he said, “I missed you, too. I missed you so fucking much, Tisaanah.”
He pushed into me in one powerful thrust, in the same moment that his fingers found my core, strumming me like my pleasure was an instrument completely at his mercy.
I shattered into a million pieces. I was nothing but this, but him, and the oblivion we shared. I didn’t even care if I was ever put back together.
 |
THE HOURS PASSED in a euphoric blur. We drew the curtains and let the outside world cease to exist. It took a few minutes to collect myself after that. We didn’t say another word to each other. He just got up, got me a glass of water, and then settled back behind me so I was nestled against him, sheltered in his embrace, and the two of us dozed off into the quiet twilight of sleep. I had no idea how many hours it had been when I rolled back over him, still half-asleep, and our bodies melted together again in sleepy, languid strokes.
Each time we woke, it was like we rediscovered each other and were overcome yet again with blissful relief.
Eventually, we dragged ourselves to the washroom and washed ourselves off—after, of course, crawling all over each other in the steaming water and washing ourselves off again. We climbed out of the tub, only to make it about three steps and fall together on the floor.
That time, Max pulled away from me long enough to look around with faux horror.
“I feel bad for whoever has this room after we do.” “I don’t,” I said. “I’m sure we are not the first to—”
“Stop.” He put his finger over my lips. “Don’t say it. It will ruin everything if I have to think of any other human being doing the disgusting acts on this floor that I want to do to you right now.”
I made a show of pressing my lips closed. “I am silent.” Then I opened my arms. “Now debase me.”
He leaned down to kiss me over the still-pointedly-closed seam of my lips. “If you insist.”
|
ALL GOOD THINGS, of course, must end—and those two days, exhausted and euphoric and sex-drenched, were the best of good things.
Max and I were asleep when there was a pounding on the door. We lay in bed face-to-face. Our eyes both opened at the same time, and neither of us moved at all, just looking at each other. In that moment, we shared a grim, silent acknowledgement of what was about to happen—that we were about to open that door and return to the real world of terrible, complicated things, and people who needed us.
Whoever was at the door banged on it again, louder.
Max’s thumb brushed my cheek. “I had a lovely time with you.” I kissed his palm. “Me too.”
Then I got up, threw on a shirt and my trousers—gods, I was a bit sore
—and opened the door.
Ishqa looked unhappy enough that I decided not to point out that it was the second time that he had interrupted my nice moment with his grim tidings.
“You made it back,” I said, relieved. Ishqa said, “We need to talk.”
“Sounds like bad news,” Max said, leaning against the doorframe as he shook out his own crumpled-up shirt.
Ishqa looked genuinely perplexed by this comment. “Is there any other type?”
