Arthur trailed warm, slow kisses down her neck and onto her shoulder, pushing her dress aside. Her skin tingled from his touch, and all the hairs on her body stood up. She arched herself against him, and he groaned.

Her name escaped from his lips like a prayer, or maybe a spell, and she murmured his back, her breath caressing his collar. Here, in the cool quiet of the library, he was just Arthur. Just a handsome, dreamy-eyed boy, who wanted nothing so much in that moment as to kiss her. And she was just a girl who was eager to kiss him back.

She grabbed a handful of his hair as his hand found its way underneath her impossibly full skirts. Slowly, wickedly, it slid up her thigh, and then stopped.

“This has to go,” he said with a grin, tugging her wand from its makeshift holster.

“If you insist,” Emry said raggedly.

“Oh, I do.” Arthur’s warm brown eyes met hers as his fingers traveled higher, and a delicious ache bloomed in her belly.

Arthur brushed the space between her legs, and his touch nearly undid her.

“Clothes off, wizard,” he demanded, tugging at the laces of her dress. “That’s an order.”

“Right away, Your Highness,” she teased, mumbling a spell that she’d used countless times backstage at the theater. She stared into the dark pools of his eyes as her dress fell to the floor.

She wished she didn’t have that infernal wound across her rib cage, wrapped tight with gauze. But Arthur didn’t seem to notice. His throat bobbed, and his breath hitched as he took in the sight of her.

“That was quick,” he breathed.

“Magic,” she replied.

They crashed together, his breath hot and urgent as it fanned across her ear. She yanked his tunic loose from his trousers, and he shucked off the rest of his clothing while pressing rough, insistent kisses against her lips.

His clever fingers found her again. She raked her nails down his back as everything within her went taut, until she could barely breathe for wanting. She was going to come undone in his arms, in the sarding library, and he knew it. His mouth pressed hungrily against hers, and she gasped. She broke apart into a million glittering stars. And then she reached for him and made him shatter, too.

Arthur stumbled from the library, straightening his jacket. He had better get back, he knew, before he was missed. It had been a risk to slip away, but ever since Emry had walked into the ball looking like that, everything had emptied from his mind except her.

It seemed impossible that the ball was still going, that courtiers filled the dance floor and sipped from their drinks.

“Where were you?” Lance demanded when Arthur returned.

“The library. What? It’s the truth.”

“Where’s Merlin?” Lance asked, and then muttered, “No doubt also in the library.”

“At least I was safe,” Arthur protested.

“Were you?”