Chapter 40 — First Volume, Epilogue 3 — A Night That Will Be Made to Remember, 2 (R18)
Moonlight flooded the chamber like a gentle tide, turning the rumpled sheets to pools of silver and casting Sylan's golden hair in a soft, ethereal glow. He hovered over Virelle, his lips charting a slow, heated path down from her breasts, leaving a trail of damp kisses that cooled in the night air and raised goosebumps across her skin. His crimson eyes burned with a fire that was equal parts hunger and heartbreak—raw, unguarded need that stripped him bare in a way no battlefield ever could.
Virelle lay beneath him, her body a live wire of sensation, trembling from the echoes of his earlier touches. Her black hair splayed out across the pillow like spilled midnight, framing a face flushed deep crimson, from the tips of her ears down to the hollow of her throat. Each breath came shallow and quick, her chest rising and falling in uneven waves, the thin chemise pushed low around her waist like a forgotten surrender.
She drew in a sharp gasp as his mouth lifted from her skin, the sudden absence of his warmth leaving her aching, exposed. Her brown eyes, wide and luminous in the dim light, locked onto his—storm clouds meeting a gathering dawn. Shock lingered there, a flicker of hesitation born from years of boundaries she'd never crossed, but beneath it simmered something warmer, deeper: a quiet longing she'd buried under layers of duty and deference, too afraid to name until this moment.
Her hands clutched at his shoulders, fingers digging in just enough to show her turmoil—half-pulling him nearer, half-ready to push him away if the world came crashing back. The loyal maid, always so steady in service, felt her resolve waver, cracking under the weight of this shift. Loyalty twisted into something riskier, more alive: desire, plain and unadorned, whispering that maybe, just this once, she could claim a piece for herself.
Sylan's hand wandered lower, mapping the curve of her hip with the careful precision of a soldier scouting enemy lines—but there was no cold calculation here, only a desperate softness in the way his fingers trembled against her. He traced the dip of her waist, the swell of her thigh, until he reached the hem of her skirt, bunching the fabric in his fist. His touch brushed the delicate edge of her undergarments, light as a breath, sending a jolt through her that made her toes curl against the sheets.
Virelle's breath snagged in her throat, her body going rigid for a heartbeat, thighs pressing together on instinct. The air between them thickened, heavy with the scent of their shared warmth and the faint, salty tang of sweat. It was a precipice—poised between retreat and plunge—and the room seemed to hold its breath along with her.
Then, with a quiet resolve that spoke of his need more than words ever could, Sylan slipped past the thin barrier of cloth. His calloused fingers—rough from years of gripping hilts and hauling shields—grazed her most intimate warmth, tentative at first, like a man afraid the dream might shatter under too firm a touch.
Virelle's voice shattered the hush, a gasp that bordered on a cry, her back arching off the mattress as if pulled by invisible strings. Her black hair cascaded further across the pillows, wild and untamed, and her trembling lips parted—not in protest, but in a wordless plea, her quickening breaths the only sound that followed.
—
Her thighs clamped shut on reflex, a last-ditch guard against the overwhelming rush, but Sylan's fingers coaxed her open with patient circles, tracing her sensitive folds until her body's own betrayal slickened his path. Warmth bloomed under his touch, eager and unbidden, and she couldn't stifle the moan that tore from her throat. "Ahhhhnnnn… S-Sylan…" Her nails bit into his shoulders, leaving half-moon marks through the fabric, as her hips rose to meet him, chasing the spark he'd ignited despite herself.
His crimson eyes lifted to hers, softening from feral hunger to something fragile, almost pleading, as he leaned close, lips brushing the shell of her ear. "Don't leave me… not tonight," he murmured, the words rough with emotion, a soldier's whisper against the dark. Each stroke deepened, his fingertips pressing with careful intent, drawing her higher until her cry rang out sharp and broken—"Ahhhhhh—nnnnnnhhh!"—her body bowing taut, every nerve singing in the blaze.
By the time he eased his hand away, Virelle was a quivering mess, chest heaving as she gulped air, skin flushed from crown to toe like she'd run a fever. Her heart stuttered when she felt him against her thigh—the insistent weight of him, thick and unyielding beneath the strained fabric of his uniform, pulsing with a need that mirrored her own unraveling.
With a low groan, he freed himself, shoving the cloth aside, and her eyes widened in the moonlight's unforgiving glow. There he stood, flushed deep red and rigid as forged steel, the shaft thick-veined and dauntingly long—at least ten inches of him, a soldier's build in every sense, casting a faint shadow across her quaking belly.
Her lips trembled, a whisper escaping on a panicked breath, "I-It's too big… it won't fit…" Those brown eyes flicked up to his crimson ones, wide with a tangle of fear and fire, her cheeks blazing hotter than embers.
Sylan's jaw locked tight, his whole frame coiled like a bowstring held too long, as he shifted closer, pressing the swollen head against her slick heat, smearing her wetness along the crown in a slow, teasing glide. "Virelle…" His voice cracked, hoarse and shaking, laced with a restraint that cost him everything. "I'll be careful… I won't break you… please, let me in."
Her breath caught again, thighs quivering under the promise of it all, but she dipped her chin in a faint nod, tears welling at the corners of her eyes—tears of overwhelm, of trust, of the leap she was taking. "Yes… but slowly… ahhh gods, slowly…"
He let out a guttural groan, inching forward, the broad tip parting her with a slowness that bordered on torture. Her cry pierced the quiet, high and keening—"Ahhhhhhhhhh—nnnnnghhhhh it's too much! S-Sylan… you're… too big!"—her nails raking down his back in frantic trails, her body tensing against the relentless stretch, every fiber straining to accommodate him.
Inch by agonizing inch, he claimed her, her walls yielding grudgingly to his girth, gripping him like a velvet fist that pulled a ragged moan from his chest. "Nnnnhhh—ahhh, you're so tight… I can't—ahhhhhnnn…" He captured her mouth in a bruising kiss, swallowing her gasps and whimpers, tongues tangling in a messy bid for distraction as he sank deeper, trembling with the iron will it took not to surge ahead.
Her hips bucked beneath him, tears carving wet paths down her flushed cheeks, but the sharp edge of pain began to blur, melting into a deeper, molten ache that coaxed her body to soften, to welcome. "Ahhhhhh… gods, so full… you're splitting me open…" she gasped against his lips, her thighs falling wider in silent invitation, her initial protests dissolving into fractured moans that echoed his name like a prayer.
At last, when he was fully sheathed—every last inch buried to the hilt, her body stretched impossibly around him, holding him in a clutch that bordered on pain and paradise—they stilled. His forehead rested heavy against hers, sweat beading on his brow and dripping to mingle with hers, his breath a ragged whisper in the scant space between them. "I'm inside… all of me… you took it, Virelle…"
She shuddered under him, chest laboring for air, her frame quaking as the reality sank in, a low moan slipping through gritted teeth. "I-I never thought I could… but gods, you're so deep… ahhhhnnnn…" Her inner walls fluttered around him, clenching in rhythmic spasms, as if her body refused to let go of the overwhelming fullness he'd gifted her.
And when he began to move—slow at first, a gentle rock of hips that tested the waters—her gasps twisted into helpless cries, the sound of her pleasure flooding the moonlit chamber as the impossible stretch bloomed into aching bliss.