Mallos was certainly not in any danger of becoming boring, even if he didn’t upend his desk and fuck her on it. He would never be boring to Croe.
She smiles against his mouth, hands drifting across his now bare chest, reveling in the sensation of his quickening pulse beneath her fingertips. Lorraine is far from her mind. Goddess or no, it was obvious she could not do this. No magic, no tricks, no games – just the undeniable chemistry they shared, had always shared, even in the moments they had distrusted each other. Even in anger, or fear.
But she does trust him, now. It is a new sensation, comparatively fresh amidst the years of her “romantic” experience, an anomaly. It is an unexpected thrill to surrender herself. To let him become her whole world…even when they are not so entwined, if she is being honest. So she does not flinch, or hesitate, or even bat an eye when he pulls her in and his magic whirls around them like a maelstrom, leaving them sprawled together in the golden-hour grass. She leans back only long enough to pull her own shirt over her head, then falls upon him, ravenous. The Spanish sun splashes over her skin.
They always manage to lose time, together. She drinks the hours from his lips.
Maybe it’s that wanton consumption that always makes her feel drunk, after, when their bodies slow and the world resumes around them. She notices the cool kiss of the air, the scent of night-blooming jasmine somewhere far off, the chirp of crickets. It is a heady cocktail of pleasures; she breathes deeply, tilting her head to offer him unfettered access to her throat, a low hum rumbling deep. His words reverberate down her core. Part of her wants to beg him to just talk against every part of her, lips and teeth and breath and the husky velvet of his voice. But they do have to have this conversation, she knows.
It was the one thing they were no good at doing.
”I lost my patience,” Croe murmurs pleasantly, reaching up to grab his chin, and kiss him on the mouth. ”A goddess provoked me, and I did not follow protocol. Now my office is a pile of glass and my report wasn’t finished and Alliannah is very angry with me.” From her perch on his lap, she looks down at him, her lashes making her dark eyes seem even darker in the starlight. She isn’t sure how he will react; her focus is intense. ”But not as angry as Lorraine.”
She smiles, then – it wasn’t really Lorraine, she wanted to talk about, after all – and it’s the kind of smile she has only ever shown him. Affectionate. Content. A hint of shyness, or hope, or vulnerability, or maybe all three. She strokes his hair away from his face and tucks a strand behind his ear. ”Are we monogamous, nekhet-en sedjer em er djer ta?”
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