enough, never enough. She rolled her hips to meet his ever-quickening thrusts, bringing him deeper and deeper into her.
The taste of salt and man coated her tongue and his raspy breaths and groans sounded in her ear. “Kira, Kira, Kira,” he chanted, his words a plea and a prayer entangled together. The flesh under her hands was warm and damp and she clawed him closer, their chests pressed together.
A tingling built through her, a tension toward something just out of her reach. “Seth,” she cried.
“Yes,” he answered, his voice guttural. “I’ve got you, Kira. I’m with you.”
She moved against him harder, stretching the edges of that curious tightness until it snapped and her body tumbled into pleasure. Every muscle tightened and released as she climaxed, and Seth’s answering cry was loud in her ear as her body clenched around him. He kept pushing into her hard, and with only a few more thrusts he found his own pleasure.
He collapsed on her, his warm weight pressing her into the bed. Her arms and legs encompassed him, held him close to her, his weight no consideration at all.
They lay like that for several minutes, wrapped tightly in one another’s arms. After they were both breathing normally ad the sweat was cool on their skin, Seth nuzzled her neck, her cheek, his hands coming to rest in her hair. “I’m too heavy.”
Her legs tightened. “No, stay.” Stay, stay, stay. Stay forever. Stay with me.
She leaned up and began nibbling his ear, and was rewarded with a stirring of life from below. “I believe someone mentioned a round two?”
“Yeah.” He pulled away from her, looking down with a satisfied smirk plastered over that handsome face. “Also three and four, if you’re lucky.”
“Trust me,” she said, twisting her hips against him and making him moan. “I am very lucky indeed.”
Chapter Ten
Kira no longer traveled with him.
The early morning sun rose overhead. The day promised to be sunny and cheerful, with birds flying overhead, singing and twirling their own private joys. It was wrong that not every living thing joined him in his mourning. Why should they sing, when Kira was even now traveling the opposite path?
Was this what a man felt when he lost a limb? When he kept looking to see it, a twitching and tight and pinched appendage, only to discover a blank spot where something so necessary once lay?
Dark thoughts swept through him even as the sun rose higher and the animals began the preparations for their day. Only if a random peasant burst into song could the day become any more nauseatingly cheerful.
When Matthias’s castle loomed before him, he was surprised. He hadn’t realized he had traveled that far. It was though it appeared without warning. Well, not without warning, just without his attention.
Kira would be ashamed of him.
A sob tore at his throat. He held it back, only for another to chase it, and then another, and then another. They poured forth, deep, choking sounds that tore away and were carried on the wind.
The birds no longer sang when Seth finished, but he wouldn’t have minded their song now. The tears were cleansing, freeing. He had a dozen-plus years of keeping his secret and dreading the loss of Kira. They were over, and though the wound was raw and deep and would never heal, not truly, he kept his word. Today, Rosamund would be free, and the nightmares that he would fail her would stop.
No one stopped him as he entered the palace. His feet carried him down a long-forgotten corridor and toward a double door that still made him uneasy. A shove, darkness, and there she was.
She was older now, a young woman with still-delicate features and too-pale skin. “Seth?”
He breathed deep. He was here, and she was here. This was going to work. “Hello, Rosamund.”
Her smile was tremulous, unsure. She took a half-step toward him before she stopped. “Did my father send you?”
“No, I came on my own. I know how we can break the curse.” Her eyes grew brighter, hope building upon each word. Yes, this was the right thing. No matter the consequences, he was glad to be here for her. “I’ve come to set you free.”
She broke out into a teary smile, a choked little laugh her answer. She took two quick steps toward him and wrapped him in her arms. “I knew you would. I knew you’d save me.”
“I promised, didn’t I? I said I would marry you and no other.”
She hung on for