Page 39 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
Making a kind of symphony tear through her, like a new kind of storm.
And then, stroke by stroke, Cyrus taught her how to sing.
With every part of her body.
He taught her what it was to be a song. How the two of them fit together, wrapped tight around each other, melody and descant at once.
He taught her how to climb straight up to a high note so pure, so good, it felt like flying.
And how to fall, brought back to earth with each ruthless thrust of him inside her.
Again and again and again, they sang this song. They learned the words. She tasted them on his tongue. She dug her fingers into his wide back, and learned a far better dance with her hips against his.
Until, at last, she felt apart so hard it made her voice shake.
Cyrus followed her, shouting out his pleasure.
Then he wrapped her in his arms, murmuring words in his language that made her shiver all the more, and let them both go still.
Hope thought lifetimes might have passed. He rolled over, taking his weight from her and pulling her with him. She lay splayed out over his chest, her ear over his heart, and found she could hardly remember abeforeor think about anafter.
There was only that drumbeat beneath her. The heat of his skin. Cyrus, all around her, and his hair-roughened thighs against hers to remind her even now of their differences. Of his delicious maleness that she wanted to explore all over again.
Just as soon as she caught her breath.
She thought he would hate it if he knew that she could hear his heartbeat. If he knew how deeply that pleased her. How she wanted to dance to the beat of that low thunder beneath her head.
Eventually she felt his hand as he moved it up and down the length of her spine, easily. Lazily.
Spinning out a new, sweet flame as it went.
And when she shifted to look up at him, his midnight gaze seemed brighter than usual, almost as if—
But he was moving before she could complete that thought, bringing her with him. He swept her up into his arms and this time, did not toss her over his shoulder as he had in that chapel she could barely recall.
This time he held her before him, so she could have laid her head on his shoulder if she wished. He carried her through the mazelike rooms of his apartments, down yet another stone stair, until they ended up in a place she knew well. The baths.
Except these were not the harem baths, tucked away where the hot springs bubbled from below, hidden away in the belly of the fortress. He walked her past a long pool with windows than arched up over the central courtyard that would have let the light in, if it were day. He carried her up a set of wide, mosaic-laid stairs, and then into what seemed like its own oasis.
There were smaller pools gathered here and there beneath clusters of trees, and up above, when she tipped her head back, she realized she could see the stars.
Cyrus took her over to the furthest pool that bubbled and murmured into the night. He did not release his hold on her as he stepped in, then settled them both on the bench beneath the water.
Hope sighed a little as the warm water enveloped her, assuming he would let go of her. Set her aside now that they were both wet.
But instead he shifted how he held her, and kept her in his lap, her back to his chest and his chin resting on the top of her head.
And between the heat of the pool and the hard heat of his body, she felt sleepy. Yet wide awake. Because she felt far more safe and secure than perhaps she should have.
Not like a child. Not like that little girl that she had been in her papa’s study, but as if this had been the point all along. To grow up, leave home, and find a place or person that could make her feel as gloriously alive and as much of a woman as he had tonight, but then also give her this besides.
As if, at last, she was protected. The way her father had intended.
Hope felt her heart kick at her, hard, at the thought.
It was like this intimacy with Cyrus bled into everything. As if, even now, sitting in this water, she was changing.
His fingers played idly with her hair, his body was a warm, slick chair, and the water was like a soft prayer all around them. She didn’t want to say a word. She didn’t want to think.
