He embraced her, stepping forward, pressing her firmly against the palace door.

The vermilion door creaked softly; the fading rays of the setting sun slanted through the gap, gilding the crown of her hair with a thin layer of gold. The carved wood patterns of the door dug into her back, while faintly, from beyond the hall, came the murmur and hurried footsteps of passing palace servants.

The man before her had ink-dark brows swept up, his handsome face steeped in anger, the hands cupping beneath her as hard as iron pincers.

She had barely drawn a light breath when he thrust his hips forward, pinning her tightly against the door panel. One hand reached up to pull open the crimson official collar she had already half-unfastened.

Ten years she had waited for this — ten years of standing the correct number of paces behind him, of schooling her face into stillness whenever he entered a room. All of that discipline came apart at once. She stopped thinking in words. There was only his weight against her, the door at her back, the last light of the day sliding over both of them, and beneath everything, the frightening, giddy relief of finally being wanted the way she had wanted for so long.

She had meant to be composed. She had imagined, in her more foolish hours, that she might be. Instead her hands found the back of his head, then the front of his robes, tearing at the fine silk with a hunger that shamed and thrilled her in equal measure. Every place his mouth touched — her throat, her shoulder, lower — she felt marked, claimed, as though he were writing something onto her skin that she had been waiting a decade to read.

She heard herself make sounds she didn’t recognize. She didn’t care. There was no room left in her for caring what she sounded like, only for him, only for this, only for the astonishing fact that after everything, he was here, his hands were on her, and neither of them was pretending anymore.

Somewhere in the middle of it he lifted her, carrying her across the room to the ceremonial desk and setting her down upon it. With a sweep of his arm the gold belt, the jade sword, the neat stack of state ornaments all clattered to the floor, forgotten, meaningless. The solemn blue ceremonial robe — his robe, the robe of his office — was crushed beneath her, and some distant part of her thought it should have felt sacrilegious, using the trappings of his rank this way, and instead it only felt like triumph: that this man, so far above her in station, so guarded in every public hour of his life, would tear apart his own formality for her.

Everything after that came to her in pieces, disordered, too overwhelming to hold as a single thread — the desk’s edge biting into her palms, the cold air and then his warmth again, the specific unbearable slowness of him when she wanted anything but slowness, her own voice breaking apart into sounds that weren’t words. She thought, distantly, that she should be embarrassed by how completely she had lost herself. She found she didn’t have it in her to be.

When enough clarity returned to her that she could prop herself up on shaking arms, she looked down and caught sight of him — robes hanging open, his proud neck bent, lifting his head to find her mouth with his own.

The sight was almost too much to bear.

She hooked a leg around his back; as he bit down gently at her waist, she caught his wrist in her hand, leaned in, and eagerly cupped his face, kissing his left eye.

This eye had haunted her dreams for ten full years; this man had claimed her heart and devotion for a lifetime. He was so exalted in status, so striking to look at — and yet here she was, truly held in his arms like this, laid bare before him, giving herself to all of this wholeheartedly and willingly.

If he wanted her, how could she not wish to give herself to him?

Heaven alone knew her heart, knew how long she had wanted him.

What little clarity of mind she had recovered vanished the instant he bit down on her lips again. A single kiss, a single look, and she would lose herself to him completely, in life or in death.

Her movements grew urgent — she kissed his eye, then the straight bridge of his nose, then his thin lips, the line of his profile, the shell of his ear, the prominence of his throat.

He let her kiss him without restraint, his own hands growing gentler now, as though the worst of his urgency had briefly given way to something closer to tenderness. She felt bold in a way she had never once been permitted to feel around him — reached for him, touched him, gave back everything he had spent the last hour giving her, and had the singular pleasure of feeling him lose his composure in turn, his breath catching, his hands stilling against her.

It seemed impossible to her that she had any power over a man like this. And yet she did, in this room, in this hour, and she used it without shame.

“Your Highness—” she said softly, unable to stop herself from leaning in to kiss his chin. “Compared to that night when Your Highness took matters into your own hands — how does this feel, now?”

He breathed hard, saying nothing, reaching an arm around to scoop up her waist, about to press her back down.

But she refused. Smiling, she struggled free, her legs sliding down from around his waist, her hands coming up to brace against his chest and shove him back with all her strength.

For a moment he lost his footing, his body tipping backward — but unable to release her in time, he pulled her down from the desk along with him, and she landed heavily atop him.

The palace floor was ice-cold; their bodies burned hot. Her red lips hovered right before his eyes, a pair of flushed peaks trembling faintly above him, and at once the blood rushed to his head.

Without thinking, she kissed her way down him, and he caught her by the head before she could go further, breathing hard through his teeth, holding her still.

She stayed where he’d stopped her, her cheek against him, obedient for exactly as long as it took her to find a new way to touch him instead — and felt, with satisfaction, his control fray further still.