Page 105 of The Unseen Hour

I’d just as soon have him rip it off, but our clothes were limited.

I reached for his shirt in turn, and he obligingly pulled it over his head with one arm. The need for him, the desire to be closer, was driving me. It drowned out any lingering voice in my head that might have insisted on propriety.

I stepped out of my borrowed trousers, only pausing for a moment. I didn’t think he’d noticed it in the woods, but I had that large scar from my incident with Pellix and the wolf. I knew Orion wouldn’t judge me for it, but would he be disappointed?

I was fully exposed to him at that point but refused to let embarrassment stop me. Orion grabbed at my waist, tugging me back against him.

“Magnificent,” he whispered as his hands crept higher.

He palmed one of my breasts, then ran his thumb along the nipple. Another shiver trailed down my spine, and that same helpless sound escaped my throat.

I tried to clamp it down.

“Oh no, Starlight. I want to hear every sound you make.” He repeated the motion, and I whimpered. When he leaned in toward my neck I could feel his grin against my skin.

“Much better.”

His hand delved lower, until his fingers brushed against my clit. I’d had no experience with the trysts in Emrys, but I was very familiar with my own anatomy. There had been many nights in my own bed at Scops when I’d touched myself, but it didn’t compare in the slightest to the feel of Orion.

He swirled his fingers over my clit, and I began to moan. He captured my mouth in his.

I was on the verge of losing myself to the moment entirely.

“Ry!” I squirmed beneath his hands.

I wrapped my arms around his back, my fingers digging into his shoulders as I clutched him against me.

“I want all of you, please,” I begged.

He broke off our kiss, tugging off his trousers hurriedly. I’d seen him working outdoors without his shirt on before. But I’d never seen him fully unclothed like this.

He was breathtaking. Muscled arms and chest from his work in the Ether, and no small number of scars. He’d told me that he made mistakes when he was first figuring out how to survive here, and I saw them like a timeline along his skin. I reached out and traced a finger over a long, thin scar on his forearm.

“So many,” I murmured.

He laughed.

“I’m not the most handsome man at the ball, but as long as you don’t mind⁠—”

I shook my head.

“I wouldn’t want anyone else. I’d let you escort me to a thousand balls. Even without a shirt.”

He beamed.

“You’d get us thrown out, Starlight. What would people say?”

My reputation was already destroyed a thousand times over by now, but as long as I had Orion, it didn’t matter in the slightest.

“We’d both be effectively ruined,” he insisted.

I reached up, my fingers weaving into his hair as I pulled him down.

“Then ruin me.”

One of Orion’s hands trailed down my side, clutching at my hips. His touch made me want to jump out of my skin; every nerve responded to him.

My entire body lit up as his fingers trailed along the most sensitive part of me, not lingering, teasing with light touches.