Chapter 19 Some Private Sun

19

Some Private Sun

Back on the other side, we shed our coats and then crawled into my bed together fully clothed, still trembling. That sense of deathly, pervasive winter, the frigid void that lurked at the end of all things, seemed to have crawled into our bones, chilled us beyond what my space heater blowing on full blast could thaw.

"That castle," Ivy whispered to me in the dark, backing up against me until we fit together like nested brackets. I slung an arm over her hips, pulling her closer, inhaling the fragrance of her skin. "You said it's always been there, right? So do you think it's always belonged to him?"

"I have no idea," I admitted, shivering. "I've never understood the other side of the veil; I don't think anyone does. Is that the only world that exists beyond this one? Or is it just where I happen to go when I slide over? I don't understand the clouds and those dead orchards and the flowers, either. Or the river that doesn't flow anywhere. Whose is it all? What is it all for?"

"Well," she said grimly, shifting against me with a rustle of my duvet, "I think it's safe to say the palace is Blood, Wormwood, and Winter HQ now, at any rate. The Chernobog Chalet, if you prefer. Chez Chernobog. I could probably keep going."

"Don't forget Snakeskin Central," I said with a little shudder. "Ugh. I'm glad we have something solid to bring Elena, but I could have done without that entire experience. Apparently I'm not that into contemplating the terminus of all existence."

"None of us are equipped for facing mortality head-on, right? That's why we're not supposed to be tangling with god shit at all."

We lay together in pooled silence for a moment, thinking. But with the warmth of Ivy's curves nestled so perfectly against me, that icy tingle in my limbs was already transmuting into something else as I thawed, something much hotter and more electric. With the choke hold of winter fading, the bright, sensual blaze of the euphoria we'd both felt came creeping back, the memory of Ivy's glazed eyes and parted lips, the way she'd wanted to kiss me so badly in those first heedless moments.

I could tell she sensed the moment my breathing changed.

"You want me," she said, on her own unsteady exhale. "I can feel it."

"I do," I murmured into the perfumed curve of her neck. "Is that okay?"

"More than okay." She undulated her hips against me, in a slow, inviting motion that made me catch my breath. "I've been wanting you to touch me—really touch me—since we got back."

"I thought you wanted to be talking otherworldly philosophy!"

She chuckled, low. "And now I want to stop. A girl can change her mind."

"A girl certainly can." I pressed a kiss to the nape of her neck, then delicately flicked the tip of my tongue against her earlobe until she shivered. "All I needed to hear."

Slowly, I skimmed my palm over the full curve of her hip and the nip of her waist, then cupped her breast, kneading its heaviness until it overflowed my grip. Spurred on by the way her breathing hitched, I latched onto the nook between her neck and shoulder, sucking and licking at it as I tugged at her hard nipple, until the roll of her hips took on an even more insistent rhythm.

"Turn around," I whispered in her ear. "I want to kiss you."

She rolled over in a single fluid movement, bringing us face-to-face her eyes glittering like gems in the dark. "You're so fucking beautiful," I told her, reaching to cup the back of her head. "There's nothing more beautiful than you."

"Oh, Starshine," she said, with a soft laugh. "That's the thing about you, isn't it? You always make me believe it when you say shit like that, just 'cause you're so goddamn gorgeous yourself."

"You believe me because it's true." I pressed a light kiss to the tip of her nose. "And you know it, too."

In wordless tandem, both of us sat up just enough to drag our shirts over heads and shimmy out of our pants and underwear, until we lay naked and simmering on our sides, hands roaming freely over each other's bodies. I let out a little moan at the velvet of her skin, the way she was always softer than she existed in my sense memory. The atmosphere had shifted between us into something high-pitched and thrumming and insistent, even more urgent than the last time had been.

I'd wanted her so many times—I always wanted her—but not like this. With this wealth of desperate, ferocious need.

She clearly felt it, too, from the intent way she stared back at me, liquid gaze shifting between my eyes. When she leaned forward to kiss me, it was a full, deep, devouring kiss, open mouths and tongues tangling deeply. I was already so turned on I was practically panting into her mouth, and when I slid a demanding hand between her legs, fingers slipping into the cleft between her folds, I groaned at her slick heat. She went taut as a drawn bow at my touch, then caught my bottom lip between her teeth, biting down hard.

"More," she demanded, in a harsh, unsteady whisper. "I want you inside me."

"You, too," I said, catching her chin with my free hand to keep her mouth open as I slid my tongue against hers. "Please."

I waited, quivering with need, as she stroked her way down between my legs with a feathery brush of fingertips that sent chills spiraling through me. With aching slowness, she slid a finger deep inside me, followed by another, curving them until I let my head fall back. "More. Please, more," I gasped.

She plunged another finger inside me, until I felt like I might die from the sheer pleasure of that fullness, the way she knew exactly how to stroke me from within. When I returned the favor, it was with more care, a slow dip of two fingers, which I knew was usually her max. Ivy hadn't liked nearly any penetration when we first started having sex, and of course I'd never pushed. But something about the way I responded to her inside me had shifted her tolerance, tilted it closer to that ravenous desire I felt for her.

We started moving together in a steady, driving rhythm, never losing the anchoring kiss. With my free hand, I continued playing with her nipples the way I knew she liked, and kept my thumb brushing over her clit in matching circles. The heat that surged through me felt like a stream of melted sugar, so hot and sweet I could barely think, barely breathe, barely remember that I existed separately from her.

We fell into place like celestial bodies orbiting each other, seamless and cosmically ordained, though that was nothing new. Even at our worst, we'd always been fantastic at fucking each other. As if our sex existed in its own sacred enclave, a space not even hurt or anger could touch.

And this wasn't us at our worst, not anymore. The opposite of it.

"Dasha," Ivy breathed into my mouth, breaking the kiss. "Dasha, baby, I love you."

The shock that fractured through me was so intense that I stopped moving for a moment, my limbs going slack. "Really?" I managed, my heart feeling like it was trembling instead of beating. "Still?"

She sighed tremulously, tucking her lips behind her teeth. "Always, I think. Maybe even no matter what."

I bit the inside of my own lip, cheeks quivering and my eyes brimming with tears as I tipped my forehead against hers. "Oh, babe, I love you, too. So much, you have no idea. More than anything."

"Then make me come, love," she commanded, bucking against my hand. "And come for me, too."

We writhed against each other, fingers thrusting in confident tandem, her free hand tangled in my hair and mine curled around her warm nape. Mouths latched on to each other as if we needed that contact to breathe. I could feel myself spiraling inexorably toward my breaking point, the pleasure so intense it made me feel like I was going to come apart, unravel right onto her hand, melt all over her even as she dissolved onto me.

I wasn't usually this loud, but when my orgasm tore through me it felt like a cataclysm, a rippling cascade of clenching muscles and searing ecstasy that coursed all the way down my legs. Seconds later, I felt her own muscles tightening around my fingers, the heat of her bearing down on me in pulsing beats.

"Yes, yes, yes," she kept repeating, dipping down to bite at my neck and shoulders the way she did when she lost all control. I didn't mind—loved it, in fact, hoped my shoulders would be riddled with hickeys and the beautiful imprints of her teeth. The whole world could see how much I fucking loved it when I drove her crazy like this.

Usually, that would have been it—but this time neither of us stopped, couldn't bear to have it be over. My climax segued into another, followed by another, both of us thrusting and stroking with increasingly less precision or control. A beautiful, ragged mess of movement that still somehow managed to feel better than anything else ever had. By then I'd grabbed her ass so hard I was pretty sure I'd leave bruises, dragging her even closer so we pressed against each other everywhere. Chest to chest, the length of our legs tangled up together, bright stars of pleasure exploding behind closed eyes.

So much heat and life glowing between us. Like some private sun we'd conjured with the force of an enduring love that even I, for a miracle, hadn't managed to break apart.

"You know, I thought it would make me feel sick. Being on the other side," Ivy murmured hazily to me much later as we lay together, nose to nose. We were both so sweaty we'd opted to lie on top of the sheets, but neither of us had made even a cursory movement toward the shower. "Because isn't death the antithesis of everything we Thorns are? It should have overwhelmed me, sickened me, the way he did that night at the spectacle. But it didn't. It was…damn, Dasha, it was something else, being there with you."

"It's because you're you, I think," I mused, tracing the line of her profile. Beads of sweat still shone like dewdrops above the perfect crests of her upper lip. "So alive. So connected to life on this plane. Maybe that makes you burn even brighter over there."

"Well, thank you for taking the risk of bringing me."

I shrugged. "You were clearly right to push me. Thank you for coming. And for trusting me to slide you over and back."

"Oh, I knew you could do it, Starshine," she mumbled, already half-asleep. "You can always do anything, once you decide you want to. Part of why I love you."

And she meant it, too, I thought, my heart swelling—that unflagging faith in me. Even after how many times I'd fucked up with her, the callous way I'd treated the precious gift of love she kept offering me, she really did believe I was always worth the gamble of taking that chance.

Thank you , I kept thinking fervently after she fell asleep. A prayer flung into the universe, at the gods, toward anything or anyone who might deign to listen.

Thank you for giving me to her, and her to me.