The night did not hurry.
Neither did he.
Midnight came and went without announcement — no clock in the room, no candle burning down to a marked hour, just the slow progression of darkness outside the window deepening and then, eventually, beginning its almost imperceptible retreat toward something that was not yet dawn but was no longer fully night.
In between: everything.
He started with the chains.
Not removing them. Working with them — using the X between Eliantra and Helviana as the instrument it had been designed to be, pulling the links whenever he wanted a response from a woman he wasn't currently occupying, the gold conducting pleasure and pain through both bodies simultaneously with the efficiency of something that understood its function perfectly.
He took Eliantra from behind.
