Transcend

by Natalia Jaster

  Her insides slump, yielding to the gentle, torturous pressure. His lips punish her, bait her. His slick tongue laps at her nape, the result torrential, causing a flood of sensation that builds in her core. With each flick, she feels that place grow heavy and hollow under the robe. It’s a greedy thing that needs friction, the frustration soaking her to the brim.

  Envy’s hands drag from her hips to the robe’s neckline, where they disappear inside. His palms are smooth when they should be calloused from archery, those thumbs gliding down the arcs of her breasts.

  Her chest rises and falls. He’s never done this to her, turned her into such a needy, gluttonous, mindless creature. He has never wound her up like this, pulling her inside-out so thoroughly, to the point where her blood rages.

  This is seduction. This is pleasure.

  And now she knows what that feels like.

  The stars glisten above them. The sea swishes against the boat, the vessel heading to who knows where. Distant cliffs spear into the sky, the edifices crowned in foliage, water spilling from the crevices.

  Envy’s evil touch is so close to spanning her breasts, but he’s merciless. He denies her, drawing out the sensuous exploration. The cruelty of it causes her nipples to stiffen.

  Sorrow squirms. She gnaws on her lower lip while arching, forcing him nearer to the peaks. This only serves to prolong his ministrations and drive her mad, so that a stuttered whine leaps out of her.

  She needs to scream. She needs, and she needs, and she needs.

  Him. She needs him.

  “Say it,” Envy hums into the recess beneath her jaw, tipping her skull farther back, exposing her throat to his searing gaze. “Say it, Sorrow.”

  But she can’t. She can only croak, “Envy.”

  He hums, his mouth a shock of delirious, open-mouthed kisses up her neck, from her collarbones to her chin and down again. The wet flat of his tongue causes her eyes to roll back. She sags, reaching behind and clutching his scalp for support. Her head lolls onto his shoulder, inviting him to do his best.

  Fates, she has missed this. Fates, she has never known this.

  Envy’s a multitasker as he sucks on her flesh with sweet, insistent tugs that wrench disjointed moans from Sorrow’s lips. Meanwhile, there’s a sweep of air as her robe shuffles, the upper half parting beneath his fingers. Her breasts spill from the material, puckering into the night air. At last, the pads of his digits circle her nipples, working them until they’re raw, and she’s senseless.

  Somehow, she manages to say, “All this time, I thought you weren’t serious. I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

  Envy rips his mouth from her throat and twists her around. “Isn’t it obvious by now?” he growls, haggard and hungry. “I fucking lied.”

  He’s barely finished speaking when he hoists her against him and attacks her collarbones. Sorrow flings her head back, her breasts pitching into his soaked shirt. Her palms hook onto his nape for dear life, for him, for this.

  On a ragged groan, he angles her into a deep bend and clamps his lips around a breast. She cries out. She can’t, she can’t take this, she just can’t.

  But she does. He makes her take it.

  His tongue flits around her nipple and pulls it into his mouth. Though heat is a lost notion to Sorrow, embers shoot from where he sucks on her, cinders burrowing within the intimate crease of her body. He’s destroying her, drenching her under the robe.

  Releasing Sorrow, Envy guides her down. Her body sprawls along the boat’s floor, her thighs spreading around his waist. Reaching behind, he peels the sodden t-shirt from his chest and chucks it aside.

  Sorrow’s belly gives lurch.

  So much dark skin. So many flexing ridges to taste.

  He doesn’t give her the chance as he spreads himself over her, finally cautious of his injury. She grapples for his shoulders while he carefully hitches one of her limbs over his hips. They’re panting now. And that’s before she feels the hard length of him erect against her pelvis.

  Envy resumes the onslaught on her other breast. At the stroke of his tongue, Sorrow bows off the ground. She claws through his hair, ripping the black mane from its tie.

  They’ve never kissed. Does she want that?

  Envy has other things in mind. Inching back, his eyes pin Sorrow with a dangerous glint. Holding her gaze, he reaches under the robe without preamble, the width of his arm splitting the hem. His touch scrapes through the dark curls and makes contact with her wetness.

  Like a coil, it springs apart around his fingers. Sorrow’s mouth falls open on a silent moan.

  Envy’s expression melts into a pained grin as he skims her folds. Slowly, surely.

  His fingers gather moisture and locate that tiny nub, coating her there. Rhythmically, he swirls his thumb over a million nerve endings, lightly scraping, patiently dabbing at the ridge.

  Overhead, the stars pierce the firmament. Out here, there’s so much open space to holler.

  So she does. She digs into his shoulders and tosses a plea into the sky.

  “That’s it, my nymph,” his hoarse voice urges. “That’s it. Swell for me.”

  And then two of his fingers flex into her.

  Together, they moan, hard and long. But she’s not sure who’s louder, and she doesn’t care. All she cares about is the tender pump of his digits as they probe inside her, nudging her into another cry, and another, and another.

  It’s the most lucid type of pleasure and pain in existence.

  Envy’s features twist, watching her, watching her. Below his waistband, she glimpses the firm length of him, and she wants it. So badly does she want him riding into her. But she can’t speak, can barely think.

  His arm lurches between her spread thighs, which fall wider apart as he accelerates the pace, her body jutting from the impact.

  Ambitious.

  You intimidate me.

  Say it again. Tell me to stop. Come on.

  Right there. His finger strikes her right there, slipping, retreating, and again, and again, and again. Sorrow’s about to pass out. The stars burst, fragments showering from the canopy and crashing into the lagoon.

  She locks up, then tumbles over a precipice. The orgasm rips through her. Her body vaults into his, a broken sound pouring from her lips.

  It’s good, and it’s glorious, and it’s impossible, and it sucks, and it’s confusing, and it’s exquisite.

  Just as her shouts of ecstasy calm down, Sorrow starts to cry.

  14

  Envy

  Envy freezes. With his fingers still poised inside her and his heart still detonating, he comes back to earth and gawks. He feels the muscles of his face slacken, from contorted rapture to utter bafflement.

  Is he hearing things? Seeing things?

  Or is she weeping?

  The sight of her trembling shoulders, and that sliced arm thrown over her eyes, is an arrow between the brows. Tears leak through the stars beneath her lashes, flow down her temples, and sink into her hair.

  Thunderstruck, he loses his mental footing and takes a nosedive from the heavens. What did he do wrong? Did he hurt her?

  He can’t recall an incident in which he’d lost control with his partner. But then, he was lost in Sorrow’s whimpers, caught up in the undertow of them. He’d been lost ever since he caught her silhouette in the dark, draped in that cotton robe—his bright idea of a gift—with her loose hair and sleepy eyes.

  The flannels had become endearing on her, but that robe? And that pert little nose, free at last of the bandage?

  Not only had she wrapped herself in his gift, but she’d finally removed the offensive strip, baring her entire face to his gaze. With her quiet profile sloped toward the vista, she’d looked breathtaking.

  Seconds before that moment, Envy had just finished the umpteenth glass of cordial that he’d prayed to the stars would finally knock him out.

  And then he saw her. The glass had slipped from his grasp before he’d picked his jaw off the gro
und.

  Then she’d seen him and opened her mouth, and so had he. His ribs must be nearly healed, because he hadn’t felt the next sequence of events.

  Her jibes. That chase. This boat.

  Her neck. And her neckline.

  Envy had been so hung up on her moans, so drunk on them. It was all he could do not to swallow his own tongue or bite the open air. Up until that point, he’d never touched her in that way, nor begged permission to savor her. He hadn’t so much as seen the beautifully soaked slit between her legs, because in the past, they’d been too busy getting the job done, getting their clothes out of the way, and getting to the main event in record time.

  But here, he’d discovered the satin cinch of her body and the electromagnetic fissures of her sighs, which had acted like a generator to his heart rate, blasting it into overdrive.

  Has it ever been like this with anyone? Has he ever made someone sob through the aftermath?

  Envy’s stomach drops. As her inner walls contract around his knuckles, he fixates helplessly on her stricken features.

  Was he just that good? Or that bad?

  Self-consciousness wrings him out. Concern and protectiveness propel him to withdraw his fingers from Sorrow’s body and then collect her from the boat’s floor. She doesn’t resist, her drenched face landing against his chest as he cradles her.

  Sorrow cries like she mocks, like she owns it. That is, she doesn’t wail but empties herself freely.

  When the noises subside, he speaks into her scalp, marginally terrified of how she’ll reply. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m j-just overwhelmed,” she hiccups.

  “Will it help if I say you’re not alone there?”

  “I don’t cry.”

  How is this moment equally painful and pleasurable?

  As much as Envy could get used to Sorrow huddling in his arms, he bolsters her chin and tilts her face toward his. “You can cry all you like in front of me.” He swipes a tear with his thumb. “In every way.”

  She matches his position, cupping his face and studying it. “I think…so can you.”

  What’s happening to them? What is this?

  The boat coasts on its own. Stars and cliffs rise over the fern trees, banked by clouds as sheer as organdy.

  They need to laugh. Preferably, they need to expedite that.

  “So, you’re seduce-able.” Envy quirks his brows. “And I’ve still got it.”

  Sorrow blurts out a watery laugh. “Bragger.”

  “You’re worth bragging about.”

  “Do I really intimidate you?”

  What’s the use? She’s already ruined him ten times over.

  He closes her robe, hiding all that yummy skin and tying the sash. “You always have,” he admits, forcing himself to meet those half-moon eyes. “My most embarrassing moment was with you.”

  It’s her turn to freeze, right before she reels back. “You’re lying.”

  “I’d call it denial. Does that count?”

  “What do you mean, it was with me? Tell me or go to hell.”

  “According to Malice, the weather is reportedly fantastic in hell.”

  “Malice is a part-time lunatic, despite his heart of gold.”

  Her glare refuses to let Envy off the hook. Blowing air, he grabs his t-shirt and puts it back on, whisking it over his head. “You were the only one I ever failed to impress. Even Love, who wanted to punch my lights out on several occasions, even she caved once or twice, forgiving my sly remarks.” He grabs Sorrow again. “But not the Goddess of Sorrow. You intimidated me, you were my embarrassing moment, and I was jealous of you ever since.”

  “That’s impossible!” she protests.

  “Oh, lucky me. I’ve gone and felt an impossible thing.”

  “You know what I mean,” Sorrow amends, slapping his thigh yet allowing him to catch her hands and thread their fingers. “When? What did I ever do to you?”

  Envy stares at Sorrow until her pupils widen, a blush lancing across her cheeks. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Can’t I? I’m glad you cleared that up for me.”

  “We were young. We hadn’t even come of age yet!”

  An ugly god is easy to spot.

  He props her atop his lap, her thighs straddling his waist. “Adolescent memories with sharp edges fuck us up. Lately, I wonder—and really, I should verify this with Wonder—whether I haven’t been jealous about anything since, because I’m still hung up on the first time. I’ve based a long life on a small moment.” His palms sneak into the naughty gap of her robe and link around her middle. “I can’t resist comparing myself to everything you say and do, measuring myself up against it.”

  Sorrow’s eyelids hood as he traces her hipbones, then the dip of her tailbone. “I don’t know what to say,” she admits.

  “Don’t try,” he mouths against her lips. “I’d rather leave you speechless. If it helps, I’m starting to like being jealous of you, being intimidated by you, being inundated by you, being offended by you. So perhaps you started showing me pain a long time ago.”

  Her head cants backward when he grazes her shoulder blades with his nails. “Maybe you started showing me pleasure a long time ago, too. Except not like this.”

  The boat rocks, bumping their pelvises together. Envy’s cock responds, lurching to the sky, just as it had before she’d begun to weep. “If that’s true, we’ve been building to a crescendo,” he says, nipping the soft concave under her earlobe. “I tried, but I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to stop.”

  “Neither do I,” she says.

  So that’s it. Pleasure and pain.

  All the way. All or nothing.

  In a flash, Sorrow’s back where she started, flattened beneath him. And he’s back where he started, hovering above her, his hips spanning between her thighs, about to get himself into a heap of marvelous trouble.

  “Good,” he purrs, bracing her arms above her head. “Now, stay down. You’re not done coming yet.”

  ***

  His mouth brings her to orgasm a second time, then a third time, his tongue a riot, working her to a glorious chant.

  His name, his name. Yes, his name.

  Her moans are as sheer as mist. She tastes sublime, like a sour-sweet fusion of red wine and figs. Envy puts his whole body into sampling that dark budding place nestled within her, skimming and sucking on the shape and swells of her. Matter of fact, he won’t stop until he’s heard every type of tumultuous sound this archeress is capable of making.

  Sorrow writhes and wrecks his hair, and Envy hums his approval. Their movements threaten to capsize the boat, water thrashes against its curvature, the prow’s pole tossing white flames across the lagoon.

  By the time Sorrow spasms around his wet tongue, Envy learns a new kind of pain. To be succinct, he’s on the brink of releasing himself without the aid of friction.

  To cope, he plants kisses on the exposed bits peeking from the robe, exploring the concavities and slopes of her form while introducing her to sensuality. She’s limp and trembling, massaging his back and sighing. Completely his.

  However, she must notice his discomfort, because she attempts to touch him. Shaking his head, he drives himself back. There’s nothing more that he yearns for than the grip of her fingers around him, the stroke of her dewy mouth around him, but he wants to savor this decadence for what it is, not clutter it. Seduction should happen in batches. It must be had in pieces, because that’s the best part: the fragmented progression.

  So instead, she rests in his arms, their legs slung together. They exhale while staring at the sky. Somewhere beyond this inlet, the great stargazer at Fortune’s Crest cranes its metallic neck.

  War seems far away right now. For one more day.

  This approaching day. The last day.

  The dawn will rise, and then by nightfall, they’ll have to make haste. Until then, Envy bolsters himself on his elbow and sketches her navel with the tip of his pinky. “There’s one more place I
want to take you.”

  Sorrow plucks his digit, merely to hold it close. “Okay.”

  He returns them to the cavern, then lugs the vessel with him, ignoring Sorrow’s protests about his ribs. At this point, the injury has rectified itself. For the most part, at least.

  Making it to the waterfall enclave, they float through pools and waterfalls that flank them, throwing steam and fog their way. Prisms of color swirl with the motes, and the occasional infant dragonfly ventures from its cove. Envy and Sorrow travel past water trees and miniature peninsulas, where he directs them through a cascading curtain, drenching them both.

  Sorrow cackles and slaps his calf in retaliation. But she hasn’t stopped gazing at the atmosphere, nor beaming at their surroundings.

  Floating behind the waterfall, Envy points out a secret tunnel.

  Upon first discovering it, his Guide, Siren, had verified it to be a shortcut to the Astral Sea. Not even the Court knows of it.

  To this day, he hasn’t tried getting through, due to the slippery crevices and sharp rocks. Because it’s a perilous trek, he hadn’t led Sorrow that way during their escape. That, in addition to his ribs; those bones wouldn’t have fared well against the uneven foundations.

  Until now, only Envy and Siren have known of this passage.

  Sorrow reclines into him. Envy encircles her midriff and coos into her nape. “We’d better go back.”

  “Ugh,” she grunts. “Noooo.”

  “Ughhh, errrr, grrrr,” Envy imitates. “Grumble, grumble.”

  “I don’t sound like that, you asshole!”

  Minutes later, they dock the boat. Envy stalls at the shrouded footpath and offers his hand.

  Sorrow takes it. When she hops onto the soil, he twirls her under his arm and sways her into a slow dance, balling their hands against his chest. “Well?” he teases. “Am I wooing you? Compliment me. Say that I’m irreplaceable.”

  Sorrow’s complexion suffuses with pink as she hides her eye-roll. That’s plenty for him. Whereas only she can drive him crazy, apparently only he can make her grin.

  It reminds him of his manifesto on sensuality, how it needs to be savored in doses. The same rule applies to being with this goddess.