Chapter Thirteen

The moment it gets to a reasonable hour, I leave my fucking phone in my room, Iris and Kris can get their own breakfasts, and fly out of bed. Quick minor styling, a hoodie, then I race down to the kitchen.

Renee and her staff already have a buffet spread across a side table. At—I check a clock in the corner—six thirty in the morning.

Reasonable- ish hour.

Shit. Will he even be awake yet?

I start loading up a tray, grabbing one of everything because I have no idea what he likes. Pancakes. Waffles. Bacon. Eggs. Fruit. Coffee. Sausages? No, my self-control can only go so far, I cannot sit there watching him eat sausages—

“Hungry this morning, Prince Nicholas?”

I jump and damn near knock over the tower of bacon I have mounded on my tray.

Next to me, Renee’s sous chef Lacie is adding a platter of sliced melon to the buffet. She looks at my tray, then me, with a curious glint.

“Starving. It’s not all for me. But yes, very hungry. It’s for Iris too. And Kris.”

Lacie’s eyes narrow, that glint growing into a full-fledged spark. She glances over her shoulder at Renee, who is already crossing to us, extending a box and a little pot with steam creeping out the neck.

“Hot water and tea.” Renee wedges both items onto the tray.

“Tea?”

She holds my gaze. “Trust me.” Then she and Lacie go back to work.

All right. Sure. Can’t hurt.

The early hour means the halls are mostly empty, a few staff up and heading off on errands. It makes it easy to avoid passing anyone who might ask questions, and then I’m back in front of Hex’s door. If a reporter had caught me outside Iris’s door with breakfast, it would’ve at least played into Dad’s lie, but this?

I knock quickly.

My heart is all hasty thundering and I survey the haul I grabbed.

This is… a lot of food.

The door opens after a few seconds, which likely means I didn’t wake him up.

I’d seen him disheveled last night. Because of me. But he’s wearing a sleeveless gray robe now, hastily thrown on so the sash isn’t knotted, the hood up, and it hangs open to show a V-cut white tank beneath, black pajama pants and his bare feet on the carpet.

It’s more skin than he’s shown yet.

So I stand there gawking and I don’t care at all if a reporter might see us because holy fuck he’s stupid hot and that is absolutely headline worthy.

“Coal.” He tips his head, catching my eyes, because I was staring at his arms. The swell of his bicep.

“Sorry.” No, I’m not; has he seen himself? I lift the tray. “Breakfast?”

He blushes and pulls open the door to usher me in, his eyes on mine the whole time I cross the threshold.

I set the tray on the nearest table, one next to the couch, and he shuts the door and we stand there like fools, grinning at each other.

“I, um,” I twist to the tray, “I didn’t know what you liked. So I got everything.”

He moves. Closing the distance. Stepping up beside me.

And laughs. “You are not exaggerating.”

“But no cocoa.”

His eyes snap to the side of my face.

“You don’t seem to like cocoa,” I say.

“You noticed that?”

My gaze drifts to his, lazily. It feels like we have all the time in the world, like if we stay locked in this bubble of giddy happiness, we can be here as long as we want.

“Yeah,” I say. “Plus, it’s majorly offensive to diss on the cocoa. Like, that’s all anyone talks about, how unforgivable it is that Prince Hex cringes over melted chocolate in a mug. We’re questioning if you’re even human.”

“Oh, I’m not, but—and I truly mean this with no offense to Christmas’s sensitive disposition—whatever you’re serving is not melted chocolate in a mug.”

I pick up the coffee carafe, but Hex shakes his head and grabs for the tea. I nudge him away and make it for him, face heating, because… how did Renee and Lacie know? Did they know? They couldn’t have known I was bringing this to Hex. Did they? No.

Did they?

Choosing to ignore this.

“What is it, then?” I hand the cup to him.

He takes it, fingers brushing mine. “Watery.”

I gasp in mock horror. “Oh, Christmas will never forgive you. Our hot cocoa is not watery .”

He sips the tea. I track the movement of his lips on the rim.

“Come to Mexico,” he says, “and I’ll give you real cacao. Frothy and thick and decadent. And spicy too. If you can handle heat.”

My lips split in a wide smile. “Oh, I can handle it.”

The grin he gives is all devilish, hypnotic.

He closes one hand, the other still holding his tea, and when he opens his fist, something small and black sits in his hand. A—tube? A plunger?

I give him a sultry look. “Kinky.”

He rolls his eyes. “It’s candy. You said you can handle heat—and this is the extra spicy version.”

I take it and read the label. “‘ Pelon Pelo Rico. Hot, Intenso. ’ Lovely. Likely not something kinky after all, then.”

He sips his tea again, his eyes going purposefully to the tube of candy. As if I need any further incentive to do whatever the fuck he asks of me.

I pull off the cap, and after some fiddling, figure out that it is a plunger of sorts, and when I push on it, orange goo shoots up in tendrils from the top.

“Cheers.” I tip it at Hex and his watchful grin then squirt a mouthful across my tongue.

At first, it’s only salty and sweet, more savory than the sugary treats I’m used to.

Then.

Spice hits me, a tingle at the back of my throat that rises. And rises. And ignites into a flame that makes every white person cell in my body scream out in terror.

I cough and sputter but swallow, obediently, scorching my throat all the way down.

Hex curls his lips into his mouth. “How’s that heat handling for you?”

“What heat?” I grab for a cup of coffee and gulp it.

“My brothers constantly have their pockets stuffed with those. My nine-year-old brothers.”

“Why wouldn’t they love this stuff?” My tongue is numb. “This is obviously something for children.”

“You’re a terrible liar. I see why Christmas has to water down their hot cocoa.”

I chug another cup of coffee. It only mildly helps, and I shove in a bite of pancake, which does, finally, cut the spice. Even so, I stretch my mouth, roll my tongue, and Hex laughs.

“You’re amused by my pain,” I say, but I overemphasize my numb tongue, mashing every word into a pathetic garble.

“Oh, I’m not trying to be subtle about that.” His grin is turning my insides to mush.

I hold up a bite of pancake for him. He shakes his head, takes another sip of tea, and I grunt in objection.

“No. No. Absolutely not. You can’t tell me you don’t like pancakes either.”

Hex smirks. “Breakfast in general, honestly. I don’t usually eat in the morning.”

“Oh god. Don’t let Renee figure that out—she’ll hog-tie and force-feed you.”

“Renee?”

“Our head chef. So, I basically brought all this food for myself.”

Hex shrugs. “I appreciate the tea.”

I cock my hip on the back of the couch and fold my arms across my chest and shake my head, this smile will be the death of me, and I can think of no sweeter way to go.

“You’re looking at me like that again,” he says, cup to his lips.

“Like what?”

“Like—” He fumbles, and I rock towards him, the smallest crack in his fa?ade lets pieces of him slip through and I want to catch every single one.

My nearness has his breath hitching and he sets down the tea, forcefully, a little sloshing over the side.

“Like what?” I ask again, and I drag my lips from his shoulder to his temple. There’s still the burn of spice on my tongue, and I wonder if he can feel the heat of it, caressing his skin.

He hisses air out his nose. “You know like what.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“You didn’t hear me say enough last night?”

My hands clasp his upper arms. I thought taking it slow would help me develop a tolerance to him, build up my ability to not disintegrate at the feel of his skin or the little noises he makes. But if anything, all the sensation is even more intense; I’m cursed that every interaction with his body will forever shred my soul until the only thing that remains is the part of me hooked to his needy moan.

“No,” I say into his temple. “I am an insatiable sap. A greedy romantic, and I will never get enough of hearing you talk about what I’m doing to you and the reaction your body is having.”

He teeters, catches himself with his arms around my neck, and I do want to make him tell me, but I need to kiss him more. And so I drive against his sharp hip bones as he devours my lips in a heady, frantic rush. The fact that he’s as starved for me as I am for him has me aiming us for the couch in a scramble—we’re not going to make it, it’s too far away and I need him against me now. My thigh slams into the table, rocks the tray, his cup tips over, so I lift him and there’s a brief crash of shock when he’s airborne.

His eyes widen. Then go intent as he dutifully hooks his legs around my hips and settles in my arms.

Everything else on earth vanishes because he strokes his nails across my scalp, tugs lightly on my curls, angling me back and up so he can arch down to suck on my lip. I directed us last night, he allowed me to, and I go malleable to his control now.

Someone knocks on his door.

He freezes, mouth on mine, hands in my hair. “Oh, no.”

My brain is in a delicious fog and I rise up out of it like pushing through honey.

“Prince Hex?” comes Wren’s voice from the hall. “I have your itinerary for the day.”

Her presence crashes over me.

I’m in Hex’s room.

At six-something in the morning.

And he’s still playing the role of unwilling fake possible fiancé to Easter to stop Dad from screwing things up with their collective; and I’m doing that too, only now also trying to unravel my dad’s whole blackmail scheme in what is effectively treason and—

And I’m holding the Halloween Prince while we’re both in our pajamas.

“Put me down.” He squirms against me and that does nothing to help break my fog, but I comply.

“Coming!” he shouts at the door. To me, he mouths, panicked, “Hide.”

Hide?

Hide.

God, this fog won’t lift—I whip around the room, settle on his bathroom, and bolt for it as Hex moves to the door.

“Wait!” he whisper-shouts. “The tray!”

The tray of an embarrassing amount of food, way too much for one person, and the cup that’s on its side and currently dripping English Breakfast tea onto the carpet.

I wheel around. “Damn it.”

“Yes. That.” He’s closest, grabs it, and I meet him to take it from his hands.

I cock my head. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you cuss.”

“Halloween’s magic doesn’t like when I curse.”

I’m halfway to throwing myself into the bathroom when I come to a full stop.

“What?” I had to have misheard him.

“Prince Hex?” Wren knocks again. “Is everything all right?”

“Everything is fine! Just a moment!” Hex growls out a frustrated breath and glares at me. “Go!”

“No—wait, hang on, you’re saying your magic doesn’t let you cuss?”

“It’s not that it doesn’t let me, it’s that it—I cannot have this conversation with you right now!” He puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes, and I’ve got a good half a foot on him, but I take a few small steps backwards.

“Why? What happens if you do?”

“Coal—”

“If Halloween’s magic is hurting you—”

“It isn’t anything bad. It’s… irritating.”

“Irritating? How?”

“You are impossible .” He shakes his head in a I can’t believe I’m doing this way, which makes me grin. “Our magic evolves based on the beliefs and traditions that feed the joy we create, yes?” he whispers, and I nod. “Well. Cursing is a rather serious item for Halloween. In every classification of the word.”

“Okay…”

Hex hangs his head. Takes a fortifying breath.

Then he deadpans, “Shit.”

If the shock of hearing him cuss wasn’t enough, a spark of magic sizzles in the air between us, and then a full jack-o’-lantern pops into existence.

He catches it as it falls.

And I lose it.

“Oh my god.”

I can’t breathe. The laugh gets stuck against my need to stay quiet and I start wheeze-coughing, eyes tearing. “What the — ”

“Now HIDE.” Hex shoves me into the bathroom, the tray clattering in my fumbling grip, and I relent, fighting down a laugh so hard I’m practically sobbing.

I bend forward and kiss him again. I’ve completely fallen for this guy. Spontaneous pumpkin creation and all. “That was the single greatest thing I’ve ever seen.”

He deposits the pumpkin onto a nearby table. “That a member of the Halloween aristocracy can conjure a jack-o’-lantern? You need to get out more.”

“I really—wait!” I rear back. “Can you actually curse someone then?”

“Can you curse someone? Our magic comes from joy and mine does not allow me to inflict harm on people.”

“That makes sense, I—”

Hex pushes the door closed, at the last second not letting it slam.

I live in this joy for about ten seconds, the time it takes him to cross the room and open the main door, and then I hear Wren. She asks him if everything is all right, again, then explains the schedule for the day—some concert—and asks if he needs anything.

I imagine what it’ll be like at events now. Watching him get paraded around with Iris, with my dad, and not being able to touch him or look at him because apparently I look at him like that rather strongly.

But if I can get Christmas’s control of other Holidays out from under my father’s thumb. If I can wrest away the coercion and lies and divvy up a fair running of things, then there will be no need to manipulate anyone. There will be no need for me to marry Iris or solidify any alliances that way.

Wren leaves, the main door shuts, and I wait until Hex opens the bathroom door.

Whatever lightness I’d inspired in him is gone. His strain is back, and I can see him realizing what awaits us too, lies and distance and playing this stupid game.

I put the tray on the floor and take his face in my hands. His eyes slam shut, bracing himself.

“I can fix this,” I say to him, but I’m saying it to myself too.

Hex’s throat bobs against my fingers. “What can I do?”

I press my forehead to his. Breathing him in.

There’s a lot I want to do. Contact the other rulers of the Holidays. Get them to agree to a collective and unite against my dad’s threats. But I also want to know what the people of Christmas think of us—do they know what my father has done? Do they agree with the goals he perpetuates? Dad has worked so hard to paint a certain image of us, but what do people think ?

And then there’s the whole matter of understanding the inner workings of Christmas. I should know this stuff. How the Merry Measure works and how the routes are organized and what needs to happen for the Toy Factory to function. So I want to start doing that too, but how does that fit in with my other plans?

Will any of these things help? Or is this all another preamble to disaster?

I lean into Hex, letting him keep me steady. “You can—hell, you can keep being you, because I’ve kind of become infatuated with you, Hex Hallow.”

A whimper resonates in the back of his throat. I wouldn’t have heard it if I hadn’t been so close to him.

“You are going to make it impossible,” he starts, eyes shut, lips swollen from me, “to get through these events now. The pretense was already difficult before—but every time you look at me, it is progressively more excruciating how much I want you to kiss me.”

My turn to whimper. My turn to dissolve.

“Here.” I take his hand and work off one of his rings to slide it onto my thumb.

He stares down at his ring on my hand. “You’re wearing a skull ring, Christmas Prince.”

“Well, my nails aren’t black and orange anymore, so this way, I’m always touching you. Sort of.” I twist the ring so the skull bit faces my palm and from the side, it’s a silver band. “Every time we’re in public and I want to touch you but can’t, I’ll touch this ring instead.”

“And then?” His eyes meet mine, wide and mischievous and god I love this side of him, so different from the fa?ade he wears around everyone else.

“And then,” I echo those words he whispered last night, the lights that lit the path he guided me on, “I’ll sneak away to your suite and show you what every touch meant.”

“But I don’t have something of yours.”

I don’t wear jewelry. Or anything he could discreetly have.

“There’s always plenty of Christmas stuff around.” I nod at the décor in his room, the tree and statues of snow-covered houses on his fireplace mantel. “Just touch something, and I’ll know.”

“Are you saying that when I want to kiss you, I should fondle a Christmas tree?”

I cringe. “Oh, god, don’t make it weird. I was trying to be cute!”

“I was thinking I could have your phone number, and simply text you. Something easily done. But I must say, this has been an educational diplomatic mission. I knew the symbolism of Christmas’s decorations ran deep, but I never would have guessed they played roles in things of that nature— Coal !”

His words cut off in a startled cry as I squat down and heave him over my shoulder. By the time I toss him bodily onto the couch, his cheeks are beautifully pink and I dive down over top of him.

“When are they expecting you?” I ask against his mouth.

“An hour. You as well, I assume. A brunch before the concert.”

“Mm.” I bury my face in his neck, the hood of his sleeveless robe falling back, and I growl against the sweet, soft skin there. “An hour. It’s mine.”

“Yes,” Hex agrees. “It is.”

He pushes on me, and I buck back instantly, eyes narrowed in concern. But he doesn’t say anything else, just pushes again until I’m sitting up on the couch.

Then he swings around, straddling my lap, and I’m very, very aware of the thinness of my pajama pants, and the thinness of his pajama pants, and the way his body moves as he arches over me, his hands grabbing the couch on either side of my head.

His face is right up against mine, so close he’s all angles and tendons. I reach to trace the line of his jaw, that sharp edge, following it to the curve of his ear. Can he feel the way my hand is shaking? Fuck, probably, but I have to touch him, have to know the way the texture of his skin changes inch by inch.

Hex’s eyes slip closed under my fingers stroking down the side of his throat. He leans into it with a feline curve, neck bending for my touch, and when he swallows, I watch the muscles work, contracting, goose bumps racing across his skin, down over his collarbone, his shoulder.

He has freckles on his shoulder.

That’s going to be what does me in. Discovering these little spots on his body, layer by layer peeled back.

“What—” he starts, head lolled to the side, eyes still closed. “What do you want to do, exactly?”

I peel my hand off his shoulder. The retraction of contact and my lack of response has his eyes opening, finding mine, vulnerability in his wide gaze.

“Hex.” I rest my hands on his thighs, fighting to find somewhere that isn’t overtly sexual. “You’re letting me touch you. I’m content.”

“With that? That’s it?”

“I’m content with whatever makes you content. I told you—my goal is you wanting this. I am remarkably easy to please.”

He puts a hand on the center of my chest and gives an uncertain huff. “Really?”

Something snags between my ribs, below his palm. A jolt of regret.

“I’m really not as selfish as my reputation makes it seem,” I manage.

He shrinks. “I meant—”

I catch his hand in mine, flip it so his wrist is exposed, and rest my lips there, on that thin layer of skin.

“Four,” I say. “I’ve been with four people. A rather even split of committed relationships and casual arrangements, but I was never flippant with them. Most other areas of my life may be chaos embodied, but I was always rather confident in this one.” I think for a beat. “That sounds cocky. Not confident in a gross way. Just sure that I know what I’m doing. The relationships I had were a bit… transactional? That sounds more heartless than it was, but it was about mutual satisfaction over anything else. None of the scandal or romance that the tabloids craved.”

Hex lifts one brow, sardonic. “So is that what we’re doing? Mutual satisfaction?”

“No,” I say. Simple, self-contained.

I’m fully transfixed staring up at him. It’s equal parts horrifying and tantalizing to watch in real time as he grasps the power he has over me.

There was a layer of separation with everyone else. A firm line drawn, like with my roommate, where it wasn’t anything serious; or the stalking knowledge that it was doomed, like with Lily. But with Hex, any firm line feels like a path to follow, and any stalking knowledge feels like a whisper augmented with promise and I should be speaking in respectful murmurs and begging permission for every brush of contact. He strips me down to this squirming creature of awe and desire and uncertainty, like everything is new and permanent.

His shoulders bow a little. His hand slips down, rests on my forearm.

“Oh,” he whispers.

“So I am perfectly happy,” I say quickly, “with whatever you want. Kissing or lying together on the couch or nothing at all, and we could—”

“I don’t want nothing.”

My lips slam shut.

“I didn’t mean to imply anything about your reputation,” he says. “My incredulity was not because of you at all. I am—I don’t—” He sighs, an abrupt, heavy exhale. “I’m not good at this. I don’t have a large social circle. Honestly, this time here, around you and Iris and Kris, has been more interaction than I’ve gotten in… years, outside of school.”

“Years?” I try hard not to look too pitying, but my heart breaks. He seems to brace for some kind of pity too, so I force up a smile, rub a circle into his thigh. “Well. A few weeks with us, and you’ll be begging to go back to solitude.”

“Oh, never solitude. My brothers refuse to give me that. But—”

“Wait.” My smile turns amused. “Are you saying your main source of socializing is with three nine-year-olds?”

Hex’s lips thin as he fights his own smile. “And functions for Halloween and Día de Muertos. Don’t make it sound so pathetic.”

“It’s not pathetic. It’s adorable.”

His blush is fast and scarlet. “I regret saying anything. I certainly do not wish to speak about my brothers right now anyway. I—” He seems to remember what it was we’d been talking about, and while I would have no problem spending the next hour before the concert listening to him tell me about his family, the intensity of his expression changes, grows richer, warmer.

Another pause, then Hex puts his thumb on my bottom lip and holds it there. I grind my teeth shut, aching against the heavy thud of my heartbeat, both of us still a bit sleep-soft and disheveled. He could say anything he wants with his thumb on my mouth like this.

“I’ve… been with one person.” His eyes fix on the couch beside my head. “And it wasn’t—we didn’t—we didn’t do much, but what we did was not preceded by nearly as much talking as you and I are doing.”

I translate that and can’t stop the flare of possessiveness that has my hands bearing down on his thighs again. “It should have been. You deserve to know exactly what we’re doing and what we both want.”

“You do love talking.”

“And it makes you uncomfortable?” I’m trying to read his body language.

He drags his thumb over my chin, presses against the bob of my throat. It sends an electric current to the base of my spine. “No. Confused, I think.” He laughs soullessly. “Confused that”—a breath, a blush—“you are not having us rip each other’s clothes off.”

“Is that what you want?”

He hesitates.

I lean up, pressing to his chest, his lips a warm weight above me. I hold there until his eyes slip to mine, all wide and imploring and whoever he was with before, whoever filled him with this uncertainty about the way he should be treated, they’d better hope I never meet them.

“We’re still learning each other,” I tell him. “So yeah, I’m going to make you talk, because right now, I want to be sure I’m not misreading anything. But, fuck, sweetheart”—I drag my hand up his bare arm, watching goose bumps trail my fingers—“the moment I become fluent in your shivers, it’s gonna be meteoric.”

His breath quickens, serrated pulls against his tongue, and the color of his eyes deepens to a fixating blackness that searches my face.

He puts his thumb on my mouth again, tugging the skin of my bottom lip. Focused there, he says softly, “I want—”

He anchors his forehead to mine.

After a second, another, he tells me like each word is wrapped in velvet, “I want to touch you.”

I used to be made of something other than nerve endings. But suddenly, that’s all I am.

“And I want you to touch me,” he says.

I note how tight my grip is on him and force my fingers to relax. “Okay.” It squeezes out of me. “Okay. I—”

He kisses me again, and nothing much changes about his posture, but the way he’s sitting on my lap is suddenly like it’s a throne. And though we technically have the same title, no, in this moment I feel more than ever just how princely he is, the irresistible command he can emanate. Without words or a look or even a gesture of his hands, he is elegance and confidence, a spill of pure authority poured across my thighs, licking at my mouth.

He reaches down, working between his body and mine, and rests his palm on me through my pajama pants.

Holy fuck, holy shit, holy—

I jolt, rock-solid rigidity launching out to every muscle.

Hex echoes my abrupt rigidity. “Is this all right?”

I laugh, high and pealing, and cant my hips up into his touch, intending that to be my response—but it briefly makes everything so much more intense and I claw my way through a full breath.

“I think you have the answer to that question literally in the palm of your hand,” I say.

Any concern eases away, a coy smile, a bite of his lip. Good god, his teeth on his lip, the puncture—I feel it echoed on my neck, electricity zapping off sensitive points in a wild winding-up.

His fingers climb. He exhales, and I taste it, tea and toothpaste, and the pad of his thumb slips beneath fabric, strokes along the skin at my waist.

In any other situation, with any other person, I’d be rattling off a stream of jokes to lighten the mood but there is nothing, nothing funny about this, any of this. He’s all darkness arched over me, hair and eyes, a juxtaposition because he’s shadows that emit light, golden, a candle glow on a clouded night. I want to burn up in him.

The elastic band of my sweatpants stretches, and there’s something unabashedly graceful about the arch of his shoulder as his arm twists, a dancer-like move and lunge.

His long fingers close around me and my body shakes with another jolt of rigidity and I suck in a lungful of air and hold it, hold it.

Hex whimpers. It trills in his chest. He’s the one who whimpers, his hand around me, and my brain whites out.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” I say too fast, too breathy, but I have to talk, have to get out all these words that keep building up around him. “It’s destructive how much I want you. You’re going to pull me apart.”

“Maybe you could do with being pulled apart,” he whispers.

I kiss him so fast I can feel the reverberations of those words on his lips, tremors that kick into my mouth.

His hand moves. One stroke, slow, teasing, and I fist his hair and he makes this noise when it snags in my fingers—goddamn it, his shivers and his fucking noises. I twist my grip and watch, enthralled, as his eyes roll shut, I’m not sure he knows he’s doing it, but god I do. I do, and that ripple of pleasure is a new center, a new purpose. I want more. I want to know what makes him look like that, every single thing that causes his face to unravel with satisfaction.

I keep my grip tight in his hair as I crawl my other hand up his thigh, across his waist.

Another pull of his long fingers wrapped around me, and I lock my lips to his as I reach in for him. I want to taste the changes in him. I want, and want, just want, and I barely get oriented in touching him when his hips start pitching rhythmically, these hips that have completely destroyed me every second of every day since he got here, and this is their final judgment on me, the unendurable collision of shudders building up through his body as he thrusts into my hand.

Forehead to forehead, we fall into that movement, or maybe I don’t move at all and let him take what he wants from me, give what he wants to me. I’m too consumed in memorizing the reactions he has—the hitch of his breath and the furrow between his closed eyes and the growing spots of pink on his cheeks. It’s how I note the change, the push towards the edge, a deepening of that furrow, that pink darkening to crimson.

My grip tightens. On him. On his hair. I’m desperate and stripped, want and need.

“Coal—” His closed eyes pinch shut more and a rolling tremor forces his mouth open in a breathy cry, swollen lips and a sheen on his skin.

“Oh my god.” I lap up the retreating quakes of that cry, pressing into him to soak up every last twitch. It’s all I need—I get out a mumbled warning, but he makes that noise again, affirmation now, and I’m fucking lost.

Heat and a sparking cry and rupturing fireworks, a shuddering thrust and those eyes above me the whole time.

I devour his mouth between wet gasps, nails scraping his scalp. Vaguely, I think I try to put my thoughts into words, but maybe it’s just his name, a moan.

“Hm.”

I blink, eyesight a bit hazy. “What?” A burst of panic. “Are you all right? Was—”

But he’s looking at the couch next to us, then the table on our other side. His face contorts, considering. “I expected ice,” he says, a bit short of breath.

That derails my concern. “Ice?”

“I guess it’s only when you’re upset?”

He throws a smile.

“You—” I wheeze. “I do not blast ice when I orgasm!”

His smile dissolves into mock innocence. “I had no way of knowing for certain. Part of me thought I could have been taking my life into my hands just now.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk, Mr. Spontaneous Pumpkin.” I pinch him above his hip.

His squirm is so destructively sexy that I forget what we’re talking about. He’s ticklish. I’m done for.

“Would that not have been a delightful situation to have to explain the next time Wren came knocking?” He smirks. “Why the Easter Princess’s competing suitor is frozen to your lap.”

I curl my thumb into my hand, the metal of his ring pressing against my palm.

Hex slides off me, stumbling a bit on no doubt unsteady legs, and he suddenly seems to realize the aftermath of what we did.

His face goes more red.

“You take the bathroom.” I grab a box of tissues off the coffee table. “I’ll be fine.”

He nods, and after a few minutes of setting ourselves to rights, he comes back, the hood of his gray sleeveless robe thrown up over his head again. He folds his arms across his chest, standing awkwardly a few feet from the couch where I still sit, and silence spirals around us.

I should leave—we both need time to get ready for another day of fake-ass events. But the mood has shifted, and I’ll be damned if I let it end this way.

I reach out to him.

His stiffness melts, a relieved droop, and he takes my hand and lets me tug him back down on my lap. He slips into place, and it disintegrates my worry because yeah, this is his place now, right here, on top of me.

“We should get ready,” he says, echoing the responsibility itching at my mind.

Fuck responsibility, honestly, for a few more minutes.

I dump us to our sides on the couch.

“Just let me kiss you for a little while,” I tell him, that low murmur like I’m worshipping at some altar.

His finger is on my cheek, and every one of my muscles softens into liquid sugar when he lays his lips across mine.

Somewhere in the last twenty minutes I’m pretty sure I died, or at least ascended, because I can’t imagine anything but the afterlife encapsulating more of a fantasy than this.