Moonflowers

Gray had disappeared earlier in the day, called again to court. He hadn't announced his return. It was chance and nothing more that had led me to the pond at this particular moment. Chance had been favoring me ever so much lately.

My mouth went dry as I watched him there in the moonlight with the water rippling about his hips. Would his skin be as smooth as it appeared if I ran my hands across it? Would his hands be as gentle as they had been when I’d lain wounded at his mercy? What would he taste of?

It had been so long since I’d taken a lover.

I moved silently, shrugging the robe off my shoulders and stepping toward the water’s edge while he remained delightfully oblivious.

“Gray?” I called softly, stepping down into the delightful coolness of the water. He spun, looking at me with wide eyes that only grew wider when he realized that I was as naked as he was. “When you sought to seduce me into remaining here, you said that I could have anything I desired from you. Do you hold to that offer?”

"I make no promises that I don't intend to keep. What would you wish of me?" Gray replied, breathless.

I closed the gap between us, the water changing around me, flowing in distracting, elusive patterns. I stood no more than a hand's breath from Gray, close enough to read his eyes in the dim light.

"If you would allow me... I would have you."

Gray swallowed thickly, his nod almost imperceptible, his breath shallow. Those gray eyes dilated to pools of black. How had I failed to see his beauty before this? The moonlight through the glass of the ceiling painted him in shades of blue and silver, the droplets of water clung like gems in his hair.

Yes, his skin was porcelain smooth to my own callused fingers, and breathtakingly yielding under my touch as I drew him to me, the length of his body pressed against mine. I breathed into the hollow of his neck, carefully exploring with lips and tongue. He tasted...fresh. Like dew on the surface of a plum.

He tilted his head obligingly, allowing me greater access, and I chose a path along the underside of his jaw, finally working my way to his mouth. He yielded completely to me, sinuous in my arms, his own arms curled languidly across my back and sketching erratic patterns there. I drew my hips forward, letting him feel the press of my arousal. His answered my own.

"Here, now, in the pond?" Gray asked, breathless, as soon as I'd released his mouth.

"It would please me, if you're willing," I answered, narrowing my eyes.

"I don't know what might happen. You know how thick the magic is here."

"I know."

And to still any further conversation, I captured his mouth again. In five hundred years, no one had ever yielded to me. I wasn't about to let this chance slip through my fingers.

Gray stepped backward, arms still twined around me, and I followed his lead until his back was pressed against the smooth stones of the pond's far wall. He leaned against it, elbows on the leading edge, letting it support his weight as he lifted his feet and circled my waist with his legs. Clever little archmage. I pulled back, looking down at him, drinking in the sight of one so totally powerful willing to allow me this trespass. He was so beautiful... humans call elves beautiful, but here was beauty before me, open to me, waiting to do my will. I ran my fingertips along chest and belly, snaking down to take hold of his hips.

And then I was inside of him, and all else in the world ceased to be. There was nothing but Gray and the water and the magic that flowed around us, new threads flowing outward into the web, old bonds growing stronger and new bonds being forged. There was Gray's flesh around me, Gray's skin under my hands, Gray's voice breathing warm encouragement into my ear. My hand found its way to the small of his back, the other to close around his length, so hot in the cool water. This was the essence and totality of magic. This was life. Nothing else needed to be.

He caught the tip of my ear between petal-soft lips and teased it with slick, hot tongue. The world came apart at the edges, flowing into a single glowing point of purest ecstasy, and Gray surged upward to take my mouth as I had taken his, leaving us both to tumble into the water and float languidly there in the aftermath as the world slowly put itself back together.

"We made flowers," Gray mused into my ear in a sated voice before laying wicked waste to it with lips and tongue.

"Hmm?"

"Look..." he nosed along my jaw, making me turn my head. On the grassy bank all around the pond, hundreds of tiny white moon blossoms which had certainly not been there before nodded knowingly. I looked back to Gray, but he only grinned.