by Ella Fields
Countless labored breaths rushed free, and I didn’t. I didn’t break, and he kissed my lips, my cheeks, my eyelids. When they slowly opened, my muscles unlocking and melting, even while the slicing ruination still burned, my savage was watching, waiting. “I’m sorry.”
Stunned, I gaped at him, certain it was the first time I’d ever heard him utter those two words and concerned. Concerned because he couldn’t. He didn’t know what they meant. He didn’t know what true remorse was. Yet looking at his pained expression, those unearthly features creased with worry, perhaps he did.
Perhaps he was learning.
I melted even more, my stiff limbs unspooling, fingers reaching for his sweat-misted brow. “Sorry for claiming my virginity, or sorry that you’ve hurt me?”
He huffed out a brief laugh, the deep sound jolting my heart, lighting his eyes, and reminding me of the fire between my thighs. Humming, he stole my fingers and brought them over my chest for his mouth to skim. “I’ll never apologize for the first.” Mirth left his eyes then. “But yes, I am sorry I hurt you. That I’ve”—he swallowed thickly—“that I’ve caused you such pain.”
The room swirled behind him, my heart both sinking and soaring, but he kissed me before I could order him away from me.
Before I could wail at him and demand he explain that apology to me in full.
I was glad he did, though—glad for the meeting of our lips and the gentle shifting of his unsure yet desperate body moving inside mine—for I knew what he was apologizing for.
And I didn’t want it. I wouldn’t have it.
But I would have him.
Our skin slipped and heated, and within moments, maybe a minute, Dade was no longer kissing me. He was grunting and shaking, and I knew he was restraining himself.
Fascinated, I pulled his face away from mine to study him, the corded lines of his throat, the bunching sinew in his shoulders and arms, the half-drunk, glazed look in his eyes—a tempest waiting to be unleashed.
“Let go,” I whispered, smiling a little.
“But I…” He groaned, his hips moving faster now, instinct drowning clumsy inexperience and flooding my body with an unexpected heat as he plunged into me, over and over, and I moaned. “Fuck,” he ground out, his head falling back, muscles spasming, shadows shaking the fire into ash, and his teeth bared.
In awe, my stomach coiled into a knot of need that had my thighs clenching around him, I watched. I watched his breath hiss between his teeth, his chest rise and fall in violent heaves, as he withdrew from my body and spilled himself over my stomach.
Then he fell over me, catching his weight before I was squashed and nuzzling his nose between my neck and shoulder with a thundering rumble of harsh breath. My hair curled with the heat of it, my slick skin sticking to his. “Stars almighty,” he rasped and pushed himself back inside my body. The pinching sting was easy to ignore when he kissed under my chin. “I have to,” he grunted. “You feel so good.” He pawed at my side, squeezing my hip. “So fucking good, I never want to leave.”
“I’d say I’ve created a monster, but a monster you already are.”
He huffed, fingers clenching at my hip, his not so flaccid length firming more inside me. Tiny needles of pain sparked, but I laid still, content to ignore it for I didn’t want him to leave either.
Then he sniffed, and move he did, carefully rising to his forearms. “You’re bleeding.” But that wasn’t disgust or worry in his gaze.
It was lust.
With a rough growl that evoked a shiver, he withdrew from my body and lowered between my legs, fingers tipping my thighs wide apart when I attempted to close them. I tried to rise onto my elbows, wanting to clean myself up and rid the desire that’d fogged my brain.
“No,” he warned, and I fell back at the power behind the word. “It’s your turn.”
“I’ve had my turn, and I wasn’t aware that was how this works.”
“It works however we want it to, mate.” He drove that last word home with knife-sharp brutality. “You’ve gifted me your innocence, and now I want to further enjoy it.”
I tried to stop my eyes from widening. “As you said, there’s blood.” I waved a hand at my lower body. “Down there.”
His grin was nauseating in the way it so quickly flattened my resolve and drove this never-ending hunger higher. Wild. This male turned me into something too curious, too insatiably wild.
I hated myself for finding that I loved it, but I knew it would never be enough to stop.
I smirked when he dragged his thumb through me, parting me, then brought it to his nose and inhaled. “Savage indeed.”
He grinned, licked his thumb, and then he licked me.
He didn’t stop until I was writhing. Until my head thrashed in the pillows, and my thighs held him prisoner once again.
“Swan,” he said, groggy as morning breached the windows in the form of lighter shadows.
I’d fallen asleep upon his chest as soon as my thighs had unclamped from his head. With a wicked, arrogant smile, he’d dragged himself up the bed and gathered my limp body into his arms.
I didn’t like how well I fit inside them, next to him, atop him—it was all too perfect, too unbearable in the way I already hated the idea of his absence. “Mmm?”
“Marry me.”
Ice rained over me in a wave strong enough to evoke a shocked laugh. I searched my addled brain for something, anything useful, and mumbled, “That wasn’t a question and no.” I peered up at him, wondering if I was dreaming, if he’d lost his stars-damned mind.
He just smiled, eyes remaining closed, and whispered, “Will you please marry me, swan?”
My stomach fluttered. “Much better,” I said through a laugh, and then I killed the flutters. “But the answer is still no.”
He grumbled, shifting and turning his face into my chest and releasing a dramatic sigh. His mouth opened, pressing gently into my breast. His kiss grew hotter, wetter, as he continued to torture me from the brink of sleep. I’d had a few hours, maybe. I had no idea. But I felt both deliriously exhausted and more alive than ever before.
I made the mistake of moaning, of pushing into him when the hand at my backside drifted down behind me and felt between my legs. “Just knowing you lay here with my seed all over you is enough to make me starved anew.”
I caught fire in an instant, and he grinned, rolling me beneath him and pressing his mouth into mine. “This time,” he murmured between drugging kisses, “this time will be the last time I empty myself over your body instead of inside it, so when I have a tonic sent to your rooms tomorrow,” he cursed when I gripped him, gently squeezed the soft-coated steel within my small curious hand, “you better drink it. Unless…” He grinned again when I froze. “You want a babe growing in your womb.”
Horror threatened to steal me and rip me from this deadly yet safe space I’d found.
He noticed, brows furrowing. “Where’d you go just now?”
“Nowhere, just… no talk of babes,” I said, and realization dawned, his features falling lax.
Pretty little broodmare.
He nodded, about to open his mouth, but I released him and shoved at his chest.
He chuckled, rolling to his back and tucking his hands behind his head as I mounted his upper thighs and rewrapped my hand around him. “What makes you think there will be a next time?”
He wisely said nothing, but I relented. Deciding I’d tease him, I gazed down at his manhood. “Fine,” I said. “I suppose it is somewhat impressive.” I loosened my hold to swipe my thumb over the engorged head. “So thick, long, and angry-looking…”
He paused mid-groan. “My cock looks angry?”
“Needy?” I offered, to which he shrugged a little.
“You’re not wrong.” His teeth took his lip, then those lips spread into a disarming smile. “In fact, you could even say it’s desperate.”
“Oh?” I played along. “Desperate for what?”
The king hummed, throaty a
nd stomach flipping. “To visit his new home.”
I laughed, slapping at his chest, and he pulled me down to his side to steal my lips. “Show me,” I said, still holding him. “Show me how you like to be touched.”
With his hand at the back of my head, his arm molding my body to his, his fingers sank into my hair, massaging gently. “Sunshine.” Beneath hooded eyes, smiling, glazed eyes that I knew I’d see whenever I closed my own, he studied me, then murmured, “I’ll take anything you give me and still combust within seconds. You can do no wrong.”
Grinning, I thought to test that somewhat sweet declaration that threatened to join the other ruptures in my heart and squeezed him. Hard.
He cursed. Thick lashes bobbed low, then reopened over blue pools of fire.
Shit.
As though he’d read my thoughts, he smirked, then kissed me until my every breath burned as badly as my body.
Dade
My cock slid back inside her with no assistance.
She was ready, dripping ready for me. This time, there was no muted scream traveling down my throat, but a garbled cry, choked and silenced by her own shock as I planted myself deep and let her feel me.
Let her feel everything.
I’d experienced the pleasure of bringing myself to orgasm countless times by my own hand, the finest of wines, cuts of meats, and the sweet taste of victory. Yet nothing, absolutely fucking nothing, felt quite like this.
I was certain nothing in the entire universe would feel like her—a haunting song unraveling in violent creation beneath me, enveloping me, squeezing me, ruining me for all else always.
To be inside her, to move with her, to kiss her, was to have her sink beneath the marrow of my bones, enabling her to haunt me forevermore.
My teeth scraped over that soft, sweet-scented skin, nipping, dragging—I was damned near feral with the urge to make sure I lived inside her the way she would me.
Soft mewls soon grew rasped, her satin thighs slipping over my own and my hips. Deeper, I delved, my hands fisted in her hair and my lips climbing the elegant column of her throat. I kissed her pulse, then I gave in to the impulse that was thrumming through me too hard to ignore any longer, and my teeth pierced her flesh.
Opal stilled, her climbing hands at my back trembling over my wet skin. I couldn’t stop, kept my teeth there, the coppery essence of her slowly invading my mouth and sinking into my taste buds. My hips pinned themselves to hers, then rotated.
A gasp, and then her hands flew into my hair. I felt my eyes widen, thinking she’d pull me away, but no, she pushed, cradling my head with those tiny hands.
She wanted more.
My blood roared, a growl of approval leaving me, and I sucked and kissed where I’d marked her and kept circling my hips, pressing into her as she moaned and squirmed beneath me.
Her heat tightened around me, and I tore away from her neck, whispering so she knew, so she couldn’t yell at me about it later, “I’ve marked you.”
Her golden eyes were glossed, lids heavy, and she panted between the slow curl of her perfect bow-shaped lips, “I know.” Her leg moved, nudging at my side, and I read the intention in her eyes, placing a kiss on her ankle as I rose higher and tucked her leg over my shoulder.
I sank a little deeper, my eyes threatening to roll skyward. “Shit,” I breathed. “Fucking shit.” Shaking my head, I forced myself to check her, my attention getting snagged at her chest. Her tits heaved, sweat collecting between them, rosy pink nipples begging for my tongue. I gave it to them, her breathing sharpened, and murmured, “Does it hurt?”
“Yes,” she admitted, voice quaking when I stilled. “But it also feels good. So good.”
I released her breast, frowning down at her. “Want me to move? I fear I won’t last long if I do, and I’m quite happy to stay inside you like this until we’re forced from these rooms.”
Her eyes twinkled, fingers trailing over my shoulders, dancing into the sweaty divots. Popping one in her mouth, she smiled around it, and I might have released myself a little inside her at the sight. “Are you saying you’d allow someone to take me from you?”
Outraged, I snarled. “Never.”
Dragging her thumb over my bottom lip, her eyes following the movement, she said in a tone I couldn’t decipher, “That’s what I thought.”
“You thought right.” I nipped at her thumb, then stole it with my teeth and tongue, loving the way her golden eyes flared and her body curled into mine. “From the moment I saw you, before the bond noosed itself around our souls, I realized if I’d wanted anything before you”—I swallowed over a growing tightness in my throat, in my chest, and kissed her finger—“then I hadn’t truly wanted it at all.”
“So you came back,” she whispered, blinking slowly.
“I came back.” I brushed her hair from her cheek, then said, “I told myself it was for the right reasons, but Opal…” Breath rushed from me, my tongue tangled with things I shouldn’t be saying but couldn’t hold inside. “I’m worried.” My voice lowered to a graveled whisper. “I’m worried I don’t know what that is anymore.”
Her lips spread, tongue darting out to wet them, then she dragged her thigh back around my waist and gripped my face. “This.” My eyes sank into hers, the warmest most hypnotizing gold, her words like a promise staked to my soul. “This is what’s right.”
My mouth ravaged hers, and we rolled, hands threaded into hair, hearts thrashing in tandem—lost to ourselves once more.
Sleep soon took her, took us both, but when I felt her ass move against my cock, it left with a speed I’d never encountered before.
I kissed her arm, her shoulder, nuzzled her neck and moved her hair atop her head to grant me better access.
My stolen princess woke moaning, the sweetest song I’d ever heard, and clasped the hand I had at her waist, moving it around her body—moving it lower and parting her thighs.
Fuck, she was magic. Everything about her made just for me.
Her warmth unfolded around my finger, already wet, the scent of our previous lovemaking only driving my need higher when those luscious thighs spread wide. I shifted closer, lifting her leg back and over mine, and eased back inside paradise.
A croaked, choked sound left her, but I took my time, sinking all the way in and rubbing her shoulder with my lips. I made to remove my hand to grip her breast, but Opal pressed it back between her legs, at that nub of nerves that, when coaxed the right way, made her blast apart.
My gut tightened, my cock twitching inside her as she stole my pointer finger and twirled it around herself. I let her lead the charge and slowly withdrew from her body, both of us groaning when I slid back in.
We said nothing, and nothing needed saying. I fucked my swan until she detonated with a silent cry, my fingers now at her neck, around it and gripping gently, forcing her eyes and lips to mine as I pounded every ounce of pleasure from her body with slow, hard thrusts.
She didn’t curse me out when I spilled myself inside her this time, but she did turn, her head stuffed under my chin and her arms slithering tight around me, fingers dancing over my back. Our legs tangled, and I held her close, as close as I could without suffocating her, and lost myself within this strange dreamy realm.
With my fingers in her soft hair, twirling, rubbing gently at her scalp as she drifted off to sleep, I wondered if that was what the mating bond did. I knew it would tether souls, enrich an attraction that already existed, and allow you to feel when that part of your existence was in trouble, but I’d never heard about this.
This unexplainable feeling inside my chest that burned and cooled and terrified and thrilled.
A few hours later, the sun was up, as was the rest of the Keep, but though I knew she had to be sore, my swan still hungered as much as I did and reached down to touch me, rousing me from sleep. She wanted more.
I couldn’t refuse her. Even if I wasn’t afraid of this being the last time she so freely gave herself to me, I still didn’t want to
. I wouldn’t leave her. I refused to even if I could. Not until I’d felt her come undone around me one last time, that lithe body rupturing and shaking and fingers clawing as though I were her only tether to what I’d already found.
True magic.
Opal laughed and pushed at my shoulders, trying to remove my lips from her neck and failing.
She’d bathed, but nothing would ever remove my scent from her. I would make sure of it.
“Stop,” she said, her laughter falling into a tiny moan, her touch at my shoulders too weak for me to believe she truly wanted me to stop. “You’ll make me all disheveled before we even arrive.”
“That’s fine,” I murmured, and tilted her head back to capture her sweet mouth.
She opened for me, whispering, “If you don’t quit mauling me, we might wind up in a rather compromising position that could alert the drivers.”
“Darling swan…” I licked her upper lip, grinning when her eyelashes fluttered. “Nothing would please me more than everyone knowing I’ve had you.” I pressed my mouth to that soft lip. “Multiple times.” Then her lower lip, then stole them both when she grabbed my head and tilted hers, her greedy tongue in search of mine.
Memories of the previous night, those early morning hours, hadn’t left, and neither had she. By some miracle, I’d drawn her a bath in my rooms, and she’d stayed, only leaving to dress after we’d washed one another in the giant bathing pool.
I’d followed, of course, fearful she’d slug me in the chest with venomous words laced in regret but also just needing her near. It was instinctual, not of this world, a compulsion within the bone and blood, to make sure this creature of mine never roamed too far from me.
In her dressing room, I’d sipped tea that’d been delivered while she’d perused the many gowns hanging before her. Somehow, I’d convinced her to spend the day, what remained of it anyway, with me by tempting her with another trip to the city of which I knew she was already fond of.