Page 136 of Dare
Briar’s naked spine jutted against the central column while Poet stood between her spread legs. Naked and drenched beneath the shower, the pair rocked into one another, the jester’s bare ass pitching leisurely into the vent of his wife’s thighs. While the fountain poured streams down their entwined limbs, they panted and feasted their gazes on one another.
For an instant, I marveled. Briar’s freckled breasts rubbed into Poet’s rippling chest, and his irises flashed like crushed bits of jade. With a low growl, he seized the back of her head and pumped slowly, sinuously. Their open mouths grazed, and their eyes clung, and private groans echoed through the space.
That’s what it looked like to mate while in love. That’s how it looked when two people knew one another’s bodies, as they knew one another’s souls.
That was passion. That was eternal.
It looked so beautiful. They looked so beautiful.
After a spellbound second, I whirled behind the threshold. In the corridor, I flattened myself against the wall, astonishment stapling my feet to the floor. Liquid moans drizzled into the atmosphere, in cadence to their deep lovemaking.
“Poet,” Briar whimpered. “I love you.”
“I love you more,” Poet hissed. “And I’m going to fuck you that way.”
Guilt pinched my throat for stumbling in on them. Yet a tender smile curved my lips, their passion filling me with light. If only two people could grace this wild with their happiness, I felt glad it was them.
Poet and Briar had earned the freedom to consummate in every corner of this continent. And I hoped they would.
As their moans grew louder, thoughts of Jeryn holding me, kissing me, fucking me, tugged a wistful sigh from my throat. Thankfully, my friends couldn’t hear it.
But the man standing in the shadows did. My gaze staggered across Jeryn idling halfway down the hall, those eyes piercing through me. He must have come up here to quench his thirst, the fountain being our main drinking source.
The prince’s orbs simmered with awareness. He heard them too. The sensuous noises caused him to tense, his fingers seizing the flagon he’d brought with him.
While Poet’s groans and Briar’s cries shook through the ruins, the prince and I watched each other in the half-light. While they celebrated their bond, we remembered the night when lightning rain had fallen, when he’d knelt before me, and when we let loose in a thrashing sea.
We sucked in forbidden gusts of air. The crux of my legs warmed, and his nostrils flared, yearning gripping us by the throats.
But swiftly, Jeryn’s features creased. Then he turned, his tall form dissolving into the passage, the vision blurring as my eyes stung.
The breathtaking sounds continued, resonating from that breathtaking couple. Like a balm, it eased the longing. And so I smiled through unshed tears, then left my favorite couple to their pleasure.
***
We danced in a lush copse where raptors whistled a tune. It was the type of sultry but energetic music that thrived in Summer’s culture, meant for people to lash their hips and spin in complex patterns. Partners gyrated in a fast tempo while pressed against one another. To heart pounding rhythms, citizens would dance to break a sweat.
In this rainforest, the elements replaced instruments. This sacred copse emitted its own percussion and acoustics, like drums pounding while birds of prey added their own song, and vibrating twigs replicated guitar strings.
Poet had been the one to find this place. And despite having no Summer roots, the jester was a paragon of movement. He knew the steps, as he knew the dances of all Seasons, keeping up with me as we joined hands.
We twisted one another into a dizzying pattern, our arms whipping about like fluid. Jubilant, I ducked and spun around Poet while our hips matched the pace.
Aire bowed like a gentleman and offered Aspen his hand. Although I couldn’t see her expression under the hood, I sensed the corner of her lips tilting. Naturally, their dance was innocent, using measured steps one would find in a ballroom. Still, the interaction was endearing.
Briar and Jeryn indulged in a similar formal dance. However, their heads routinely craned toward me and Poet.
The princess basked in the sight of her husband, who donned a sheer vest, his torso rippling under the mesh. Whereas his wife had chosen a gown of bronze and scarlet, which fell to the floor like water and revealed a plunging back. I had overheard Poet growl seductive notes into Briar’s ear when she’d first stepped into view.
As for the prince, he watched me with an intensity that burned my flesh. Trussed up in a short dress woven of ivory and gold, my body glowed like a candle. But it was his sizzling gaze—not the dancing—that had me sweating.
Without warning, things got sneaky. Like matchmakers, Poet and Briar circled past one another and switched partners. With seamless motions, the jester slid my hand into Jeryn’s while the princess did the same to the prince. Forcing us together, the clever pair wrapped their arms around one another and continued dancing through the enclosure, as if this had been choreographed.
The prince and I halted. In the glowing light, our gazes fused.
From a few feet away, I heard Poet murmuring against his wife’s mouth, “She likes to lead.”
“So do I,” Briar flirted before the couple got lost in one another.