Page 190 of The Mercy of Dawn

“Fucking hells,” he mumbled as he rocked his own hips once, twice, and his body sank flush to hers.

Cyril couldn’t help the soft gasps and ragged breaths that left her.

The sudden fullness and warmth that seeped through her took on an edge of discomfort, of unfamiliarity, but Cyril fucking loved every second of it. Especially as Mikael nestled his face into the crook of her neck and pulled her close, a slew of vulgar praise rolling off his lips and onto her flesh.

Nothing else mattered.

Every problem she had, every worry about what would happen next, even the crippling weight of her reality—they all just fell away into nothing. It was just her and Mikael and the grounding presence of his touch pulling her away to a place where none of that existed.

Cyril never wanted to leave this bed.

And when Mikael started to move, the pumps of his hips slow and deep, Cyril slipped a breathy moan of his name. She couldn’t be bothered to hold back, not when it felt like Mikael’s body was made just to be inside hers.

“Feels good?” Mikael murmured, his voice thick like honey, as he ghosted his lips over her throat and jaw, and finally her mouth.

Cyril didn’t have words for Mikael.

Good didn’t even scratch the surface of how she felt—how he was making her feel. The bodily pleasure had her head drifting in the damn clouds, but there was so much more than just the physical connection of their bodies. She’d never be able to string together the words to do justice to just how sated her soul felt with him.

So instead, Cyril nodded and hummed her breathy agreement.

In the dim outline of Mikael’s face, a flicker of pride lit up his eyes, and a smirk tugged at his mouth. She only let him bask in it for a moment before she pulled those lips back to hers and kissed him until she couldn’t breathe.

Whatever last fleeting sliver of restraint Mikael had seemed to dissolve into nothing, and he took her hard and fast.

Cyril couldn’t get enough of it.

Every rough snap of his hips drew some broken, lewd noise from her, and she still wanted more. She wanted him to make good on that bygone threat of fucking her until she couldn’t speak. Hells, all she wanted was to never be sure of where she ended and he began.

But it felt like just as soon as Mikael had settled into his punishing pace, he eased back into something far more languid. He braced himself on his forearms, putting mere inches of space between their bodies, and Cyril whined in protest.

“You’re taking me so well,” he said with an almost whispered reverence, and it went right to Cyril’s head. Straight between her legs too.

And when Mikael eased a hand down her body, his fingers sliding over their joining and circling that delicate bundle of nerves that just ached for him, Cyril nearly sobbed. She was so fucking close. All the tension coiled in her core was almost unbearable.

Mikael strung her along the edge of release, though, slowing his pace even more every time her body tensed in anticipation. He wanted to fucking torture her.

“Mika,” she panted, her fingers dug into his back, “Please, I—”

A soft rumble left him before he ghosted his lips across hers.

“Are you going to be a good girl and come for me again?”

And just like that, Cyril came apart.

Heady and blissful release rolled up her spine and set every nerve in her body alight with it. The tide of euphoria that washed over her left her dazed and clinging on to Mikael like he was the only thing tethering her to this plane of existence. As she drifted, her heart thundering and lungs fighting to breathe the same air as him, the steady tempo Mikael set faltered. His thrusts became ragged, desperate things.

“Gods, I—fuck.”

He fell over the edge right behind her.

Some strangled, bitten-off noise left Mikael, and every fiber of his muscle tensed. His hips surged forward once more, burying himself to the hilt, and Cyril had never heard such a guttural, satisfied groan.

As the tension eased from Mikael’s body and he looked at her, his eyes were hooded and heavy. His lips sat parted with ragged breaths, and the insufferable prince laughed.

“Fucking hells, wrath.” He shook his head and slipped his arms under her, settling his weight down. “That was…” He blew out a breath.

Cyril’s eyes slipped shut, and she smiled.