Ayame surfaced one sense at a time, face down in ruined ritual silk, and the first report her body delivered was that everything ached in the specific way that meant everything had been wonderful.
She groaned and rolled off her front, flopping onto her side, one cheek against the cool boards, and her mouth had already begun loading a complaint about being stored on the floor like luggage when her nose came back online.
The hall was thick with it. Sex, hours deep, layered like incense in a shrine to something deeply disreputable.
'...Oh. Right.' The memory arrived in one warm flood. The sacred duel. The forfeit.
Quin had destroyed her, thoroughly and with ceremony, and her body was a signed confession that she had loved every second of it. She let her eyes slide shut again, at total peace with her ruin.
Then her ears caught up.
Wet, rhythmic, unhurried, and close. And riding over the top of them, a woman's breathing.
Ayame's eyes opened.
