Serpent & Dove

He collapsed on the rooftop a few moments later, white-faced and panting, his eyes shut tight against the open sky. I poked him in the ribs. “You’re missing the view.”

He clenched his jaw and swallowed as if about to be sick. “Give me a minute.”

“You do realize how ironic this is, right? The tallest man in Cesarine is afraid of heights!”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”

I lifted one of his eyelids and grinned at him. “Just open your eyes. I promise you won’t regret it.”

His mouth tightened, but he opened his eyes grudgingly. They widened when he saw the sweeping expanse of stars before us.

I hugged my knees to my chest and gazed up at them with longing. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

Soleil et Lune was the tallest building in Cesarine, and it offered the only unimpeded view of the sky in the entire city. Above the smoke. Above the smell. The whole of the heavens stretched out in one great panorama of obsidian and diamond. Infinite. Eternal.

There was only one other place with a view like this . . . and I would never visit the Chateau again.

“They are,” Reid agreed quietly.

I sighed and held myself tighter against the chill. “I like to think God paints the sky just for me on nights like this.”

He tore his gaze from the stars in disbelief. “You believe in God?”

What a complicated question.

I propped my chin on my knees, still peering upward. “I think so.”

He sat up. “But you rarely attend Mass. You—you celebrate Yule, not Noël.”

I shrugged and picked at a bit of dead leaf in the snow. It crinkled beneath my fingers. “I never said it was your god. Your god hates women. We were an afterthought.”

“That isn’t true.”

I finally turned to face him. “Isn’t it? I read your Bible. As your wife, am I not considered your property? Do you not have the legal right to do whatever you please with me?” I grimaced, the memory of the Archbishop’s words leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. “To lock me in the closet and never think of me again?”

“I’ve never considered you my property.”

“The Archbishop does.”

“The Archbishop is . . . mistaken.”

My brows shot up. “Doth mine ears deceive me, or did you just speak ill of your precious patriarch?”

Reid raked a hand through his coppery hair in frustration. “Just—don’t, Lou. Please. Despite what you think, he’s given me everything. He gave me a life, a purpose.” He hesitated, eyes meeting mine with a sincerity that made my heart stutter. “He gave me you.”

I brushed the broken leaf aside and turned to look at him. To really look at him.

Reid truly believed his purpose was to kill witches. He believed the Archbishop had given him a gift, that the Archbishop was good. I reached for his hand. “The Archbishop didn’t give me to you, Reid.” I looked up to the sky with a small smile. “He did—or she.”

There was a heavy pause as we stared at one another.

“I have a present for you.” He leaned closer, blue eyes boring into my very soul. I held my breath, willing him to close the distance between our lips.

“Another one? But it’s not Yule yet.”

“I know.” He looked down at our hands, sweeping a thumb across my ring finger. “It’s . . . it’s a wedding ring.”

I gasped as he withdrew it from his coat pocket. Thin, beaten gold made up the band, and an oval mother-of-pearl stone sat at the center. It was clearly very old. It was also the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. My heart pounded wildly as he held it out to me.

“May I?”

I nodded, and he slid Angelica’s Ring off my finger and slipped his on instead. We both stared at it for a moment. He swallowed hard.

“It was my mother’s . . . or at least, I think it was. It was clenched in my fist when they found me.” He hesitated, eyes meeting mine. “It reminds me of the sea . . . of you. I’ve wanted to give it to you for days now.”

I opened my mouth to say something—to tell him how lovely it was or how honored I’d be to wear something so meaningful, to carry that little piece of him with me always—but the words caught in my throat. He watched me raptly.

“Thank you.” My throat bobbed as an unfamiliar emotion threatened to choke me. “I . . . love it.”

And I did. I did love it.

But not as much as I loved him.

He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I leaned back into his chest, trembling at the realization.

I loved him.

Shit. I loved him.

My breathing grew more painful the longer I sat there—each breath jarring and stoking all at once. Hyperventilating. That’s what I was doing. I needed to get it together. I needed to collect my thoughts—

Reid gently pulled my hair aside, and the small touch nearly undid me. His lips brushed the curve of my neck. Blood roared in my ears.

“‘Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from you.’” He trailed his fingers down my arm in slow, torturous strokes. My head fell back on his shoulder, my eyes fluttering closed, as his lips continued to move against my neck. “‘Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.’”

A low, breathless sound escaped the back of my throat—so at odds with the reverent words he’d spoken. His fingers stilled instantly, and his gaze honed in on my rapidly moving chest.

“Don’t stop,” I breathed. Pleaded.

His body tensed, and his hands clamped down on my arms in an unyielding grip. “Ask me, Lou.” His voice turned low, urgent. Raw. Heat pooled directly in my belly at the sound of it.

My mouth opened. The time for games was done. He was my husband, and I was his wife. It was foolish to pretend I no longer wanted the relationship. To pretend I didn’t crave his attention, his laughter, his . . . touch.

I wanted him to touch me. I wanted him to become my husband in every sense of the word. I wanted him—

I wanted him.

All of him. We could make it work. We could write our own ending, witch and witch hunter be damned. We could be happy.

“Touch me, Reid.” To my surprise, the words came out steady despite my breathlessness. “Please. Touch me.”

He grinned—slow and triumphant—against my neck. “That’s not a question, Lou.”

My eyes snapped open, and I turned to scowl at him. He raised a brow in question, pressing his lips to my skin. His eyes locked with mine. Lips parting, he trailed warm, open-mouthed kisses down the side of my throat and onto my shoulder.

His tongue moved slowly, worshiping me with each stroke, and I practically combusted.

“Fine.” My traitorous neck extended under his mouth, but my pride refused to succumb so easily. If he wanted to play one more game, I would oblige him—and I would win. “Would you, oh brave and virtuous Chasseur, stick your tongue down my throat and your hands up my skirt? My ass needs grabbing.”

He spluttered and reared back incredulously. I arched against him, grinning despite myself. “Too much?”

When he didn’t respond, disappointment trickled through the fire in my blood. I turned to face him fully. His eyes were wide, and—to my chagrin—his face was pale. He didn’t look like he wanted to ravish me, after all. Perhaps I’d overplayed my hand.

“I’m sorry.” I extended a tentative hand to his face. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

There was something in his gaze as he looked at me—something hesitant, something almost self-conscious—that made me pause. His hands trembled slightly where they clutched me, and his chest rose and fell in rapid succession. He was nervous. No—terrified.

It took only a second for understanding to rush in: Reid really was a virtuous Chasseur. A holy Chasseur.

Reid had never had sex.

He was a virgin.

For all his earlier arrogance, he’d merely been posturing. He hadn’t ever touched a woman—not in the way that counted, at least. I tried not to gape at him, but I knew he could easily read my thoughts by the way his expression fell.

I searched his face. How could Célie have abandoned him in this? What else was first love good for but bumbling hands and breathless discovery?

At least she’d taught him to kiss properly. I supposed I should be grateful for that. My throat and shoulder still tingled from his tongue. But there was so much more than just kissing.

Slowly, purposefully, I shifted in his lap, taking his face in both my hands. “Let me show you.”

His eyes darkened as I straddled him. My skirt slid up at the movement—the wind tickling my bare legs—but I didn’t feel the cold. There was only Reid.

I watched his throat bob, heard his breath hitch. His eyes darted to mine in a question when I pulled his hands to the lacings on my dress. I nodded, and he carefully pulled.

Despite the chill, his fingers were competent. They moved steadily until the front of my dress fell open, revealing the thin chemise beneath. Neither of us breathed as he reached a hand up and skimmed the bare skin of my upper breast.

I leaned into his palm, and he inhaled sharply.

Faster than I could blink, he swept aside the shoulders of my chemise, sending the fabric to pool around my waist. His eyes roved my naked torso hungrily.

I couldn’t help but grin. Perhaps he wouldn’t need much teaching after all.

Not to be outdone, I tugged the hem of his shirt from his pants. He pulled it up over his head, mussing his coppery hair, before his lips came down hard against mine, and we were pressed together, skin to skin.

It was short work after that.

He lifted me easily, and I tossed my dress away.

His eyes burned—pupils dilating, the blue around them hardly visible—as they took in my stomach, my breasts, my thighs. His fingers tightened on my hips possessively, but not tight enough. I wanted—no, needed—him to press me tighter, hold me closer.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathed.

“Shut up, Chass.” My own voice came out a gasp. Locking my arms behind his neck, I rolled my hips against him. His own hips bucked up to meet mine in response, and he groaned. I gripped his shoulders to still him. “Like this.” Leaning back, I motioned to where our bodies met. We watched in unison as I rocked against him—slowly, deliberately, rubbing up and down at an agonizing pace.

He tried to increase my speed—his hands desperate, insistent—but I resisted, pressing myself flush against his chest and biting the sensitive spot where his neck met his shoulder. He jerked, and another low groan escaped his lips.

“This is how you touch a woman.” I pressed into him harder for emphasis, grabbing his hand and bringing it between my legs. “This is how you touch me.”

“Lou,” he said in a strangled voice.

“Right there.” I directed his fingers, my breath turning ragged at his touch. My chest heaving as he continued the movement I’d shown him. He bent forward abruptly and took my breast in his mouth, and I gasped. His tongue was hot, demanding. A deep, delicious ache built too quickly in my belly. “God, Reid—”

At the sound of his name, he bit down lightly.

I shattered completely, lost in the pleasure and pain. His arms tightened around me as I came, his lips crashing down upon mine as if to devour my cries.

It wasn’t enough.

“Your pants.” I fumbled at his laces, crushing my lips against his between breaths. “Take them off. Now.”

Reid was only too happy to oblige, lifting me awkwardly to strip them down his legs. Tossing them aside, he watched me anxiously, face still pale, as I straddled him once more. I grinned in response, tracing a salacious finger down the length of him, savoring the feel of him pressed against me. He trembled at the contact, eyes shining with need.

“Another time,” I said, pushing him gently against the rooftop, “I’ll show you just how foul my mouth can be.”

“Lou,” he repeated, pleading.

In a single, fluid movement, I sank down, burying him inside me.

His eyes screwed shut, and his entire body jerked upward as he plunged himself deeper, right to the hilt. I would’ve cried out—it was too deep—but I didn’t. I couldn’t. There was pain, but—as he receded and thrust again—the pain intensified into something else, something sharp and deep and aching. Something needy. He filled me completely, and the way he moved . . . I threw my head back and lost myself in the sensation. In him.

The ache spiraled upward, and I couldn’t stop from kissing him, from tangling my fingers in his hair, from raking my nails down his arms. It hurt, this throbbing, yearning feeling in my chest. It consumed and obliterated and overwhelmed everything I’d ever known.

His arm snaked around my waist, and he spun, pinning me beneath him. I arched upward—desperate to be closer, desperate to relieve the building ache—and hooked my legs around his sweat-slicked back. His hand came down between us as he increased his pace, and my legs began to stiffen. He touched me exactly the way I’d shown him, stroking me determinedly, relentlessly. A low growl escaped his throat.

“Lou—”

Everything inside me tightened, and I clung to him as he pushed me over the edge. With one final, shuddering thrust, he collapsed on top of me, unable to catch his breath.

We lay like that for several moments, oblivious to the cold. Staring helplessly at each other. For the first time in my life, I had no words. The heady ache in my chest was still there—stronger now, more painful than ever before—but I found myself defenseless against it. Utterly and completely defenseless.

And yet . . . I’d never felt more safe.

When Reid finally withdrew, I winced despite myself.

He didn’t miss the movement. His hand shot to my chin, lifting it, and his eyes grew wide and anxious. “Did I hurt you?”

I attempted to shimmy out from beneath him, but he was too heavy. Realizing what I wanted, he pushed up on his elbows to accommodate me before rolling to his back. He dragged me on top of him as he went.

“There’s a fine line between pleasure and pain.” Trailing kisses down his chest, I grazed my teeth against his skin—then bit down abruptly. A hiss escaped his lips, and his arms clenched around me. When I leaned back to meet his gaze, however, it wasn’t pain in his eyes, but longing. My own chest throbbed in response. “It’s a good hurt.” I smiled and flicked his nose. “Well done, you.”