The castle at night held a kind of magic. Not the loud kind β not spells or lightning in the sky β but the quiet kind. The kind that crept in with the flicker of candlelight and the echo of footsteps down stone corridors. The kind that wrapped around you like velvet.
I had wandered the halls barefoot, the hem of my robe trailing behind me, pulled by a feeling I couldnβt quite name. Curiosity, maybe. Or longing. Or something warmer.
He was already waiting in the tower room β the one with stained glass windows and a fireplace that hadnβt stopped glowing since dusk. He didnβt speak as I entered. He just looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered.
The moment I stepped into his arms, the rest of the world fell away.
He pulled me close, not roughly β but with intent. Like heβd been waiting for this moment longer than either of us dared admit. My hands slid into his hair, and when our lips met, it was soft and searching. But it didnβt stay that way.
The tension had been building for days β in glances, in brushes of fingers, in half-smiles across long corridors. Now it broke like a wave, and all we could do was ride it.
He laid me back on the thick fur rug by the fire, his hands finding the tie of my robe, opening me to the heat and the light. My breath caught as he kissed down my neck, my collarbone, across skin made sensitive by the chill of stone and the warmth of want.
The room was silent but for the sound of our bodies moving together β slow, then hungry, then slow again. Every touch felt sacred here. Every sigh echoed just a little louder.
And when I arched into him, every muscle aching for more, I saw stars not in the sky, but behind my eyes.
After, we stayed curled up on the rug, the castle silent around us, the fire dimming to glowing coals.
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and whispered something Iβll never forget.
I didnβt reply.
I didnβt need to.
He already knew.