Royals of Villain Academy 2: Vile Sorcery

by Eva Chase

  When it didn’t, he tugged me closer, his fingers coming to rest by the crook of my jaw. He kissed me again, a real kiss, all determined longing, so heated I started to melt. His other arm looped around my back to hold me steady.

  It was over way too soon. He drew back, leaving his arm around my waist, his hand at the side of my cheek. The tip of his nose grazed mine.

  “Rory?”

  I wasn’t sure what he was asking me. He had to be able to tell from my response to the kiss that I had no objections. Well, maybe just a possible one.

  “I thought you said we couldn’t do this.”

  “I thought we couldn’t do it.” His breath had turned a bit shaky. It scorched my skin. “But being here, thinking about everything you’d said, finally having a chance to step back from all the stress hanging over me… Maybe I have a better chance of keeping it together and keeping us both out of trouble if I can let some of those feelings out while we’re someplace safe. Maybe the fact that I want you won’t eat at me so much if I can remember what it’s like to have you.”

  I touched his chest and ran my hand down his slim but solid torso. “Are you sure?”

  “No. Maybe I’m just kidding myself into giving in. I don’t know. We still—we still can’t be close after we leave here, as long as I’m an aide. And we still can’t really be together in the long run. If that makes it too hard for you, we can stop right now. You just have to say it. I only want this if you do too.”

  No strings attached. No promises made. Nothing to figure out or wait and see about. After the messes of the last two guys I’d hooked up with, what Declan was offering felt perfectly simple. I’d been holding in the fire that kindled whenever he was around so long, it seemed to sear over my tongue as I answered.

  “I do. I want you.”

  He didn’t need any more answer than that. His mouth collided with mine again, his dry cedary scent washing over me, and I gripped his shirt, tucking my other hand around the back of his neck. His silky hair tickled my fingers. His lips slid against mine, finding a deeper angle, and the fire inside me spread through every inch of my body.

  We were really doing this—me and Declan Ashgrave. After all those weeks of restrained desires, he was giving himself over to me. Putting his livelihood, his security, and his family’s future in my hands. So much trust, so much more than I could imagine having in anyone right now. My heart swelled with more emotion than I’d thought it could contain.

  Declan walked me backwards one step, and then another, until my legs bumped the side of the bed. He reined in the urgency of his kisses, drawing the next one out long and slow, his tongue teasing over the seam of my lips. He pressed another kiss to the edge of my jaw and charted a path along the sensitive skin there all the way to my ear.

  “This might be the only time we get to do this,” he murmured. “So I’m going to take my time. I want to remember all of it.”

  “I’m not going to argue with that.” I stroked my fingers up his neck into his hair. He let out a tight hungry sound and reclaimed my lips.

  Between kisses, I started unbuttoning his shirt. When I’d made it halfway down, Declan drew back for just long enough to pull it up over his head, rumpling his hair even more. He looked younger like this, flushed and eager, more like he really was only a couple years older than me and less like the professional persona he put on so often. I liked it.

  Compact muscles lined his slim body. I traced my fingers over them, and he tipped my head into another kiss. His tongue teased over mine and twined around it. I kissed him back harder.

  When it felt as if he must have explored every inch of my mouth and my nerves were singing with need, he eased me onto the bed, following me as I scooted farther across the mattress to make room. His fingers slipped along my waist to grasp the hem of my blouse. I raised my arms in case he needed a definite invitation. With a crook of his lips, he tugged off the shirt and dropped his head to kiss my shoulder. My collarbone. The swell of my breast just above my bra.

  My necklace with the glass dragon charm, its base broken from when Malcolm had forced me to smash the others, slid across my chest. Declan paused over it with a hint of a wince, maybe at the same memory. He kissed my skin just beneath it and eased it to the side to rest on the pillow.

  His fingers traced heat over my shoulders as he eased down the straps of my bra. He tucked his hand beneath one of the loosened cups with careful attention, stroking the soft curve and then sliding over the peak. My nipple pebbled instantly. When he rolled his thumb over it again, pleasure rippled through me and jolted a gasp from my throat.

  He unclasped my bra, and I pulled him down for another kiss as he brought both hands to my breasts. My breath broke as he fondled them at the same time. I gripped his shoulders, massaging the taut muscles there.

  Declan bowed his head over mine, watching my expression as he teased me, softly and then with a squeeze that provoked a shock of pleasure. I pressed my head back into the pillow with a whimper.

  “Is that what you like best?” he said in a lightly teasing tone. He pinched my nipple carefully between his thumb and forefinger, and my back arched off the bed with the rush of sensation.

  “Feel free to keep doing that,” I replied raggedly.

  He repeated the gesture a few more times until I was squirming with the tension building between my legs. Then he set to work with his mouth. His lips closed around one peak with a forceful flick of his tongue, and a sound that was half moan, half growl wrenched out of me.

  I wanted to be the one taking. Calling the shots, leading the way. I was a fucking scion, wasn’t I?

  The pleasure we were stoking between us was mine as much as his. I would own it, and whatever happened after happened.

  I would not regret this. I would make it exactly what I needed it to be.

  For another minute, I trembled under Declan as he worked more bliss through my chest. When the need burning in me flared higher, I ran my hand down to his stomach and pushed. He eased away, checking my face with a flicker of concern, and I shoved him right over onto his back.

  A smile curled his lips as I straddled him. I trailed my fingers up and down his torso, and he pulled me in for a kiss. My body rocked against him instinctively, flaming hotter at the solid length that met my core through our pants.

  Declan groaned. He gripped my ass, encouraging the motion.

  The friction between us left my head spinning. Fuck taking our time. I fumbled with the fly on his slacks, and he popped open the button on my jeans in turn. Before he tugged them down, he stroked his hand between my legs, earning him another gasp. We wriggled out of our pants between more hasty kisses.

  I teased my fingers over the bulge in his boxers, and Declan tipped his head back with an inarticulate sound. I’d never really explored a guy’s body this intimately before. The rush of my longing eased back as I caressed and then gripped his erection through the fabric. Declan stroked my breasts in turn, his eyes glazing each time I swiveled my thumb over the head of his cock.

  “That feels so fucking good,” he rasped. “God, Rory.”

  Something deep and distant twisted inside me, sharply enough that I couldn’t ignore it. I leaned closer to him. “No regrets?”

  His gaze cleared as he looked back into my eyes. “No regrets,” he said firmly.

  I yanked his boxers down, and he kicked them the rest of the way off. The smooth hardness of him felt even more thrilling skin to skin. I had the urge to kiss him there, to take him into my mouth, but I was getting too impatient for that. My panties were damp, my sex aching.

  Declan pushed himself upright and helped me squirm out of my panties. He stayed there, sitting up to meet me, as I lowered myself over him. We kissed, his cock sliding against my clit, and my teeth grazed his lip with my whimper.

  “Hold on,” he murmured. “Let me…” He spoke a couple of casting words, his fingertips gliding between my thighs, and a similar protective tingling to the one Connar had provoked rippled up thro
ugh me.

  I drew him to me and sank down so his cock pushed inside me. Declan’s breath caught, and I gripped his shoulder tightly as he filled me. A sudden swell of emotion nearly overwhelmed me.

  Maybe there’d been no going back from the first moment I’d accepted his kiss, but in this moment, we couldn’t have been any closer. He was offering up so much power to me that it left me breathless.

  I cupped his face and kissed him with all the tenderness I had in me. With a shift of my hips and a rush of bliss inside me, our lips parted with a shared gasp. I flexed my thighs, pumping up and down over him, while Declan braced his hand against the mattress to hold himself with me. His other hand traveled over my side, stroked my breast, tangled in my hair as we kissed again, roughly now.

  With each roll of his hips, each thrust to meet me, the pleasure building inside me soared higher. I bucked harder, faster, letting my body sway backward. Declan wrapped his arm around me and caught my nipple in his mouth, and that extra spark of ecstasy set off the final chain reaction.

  I clenched around him with a cry I couldn’t hold in, and my release blazed through me in a wave of fire. Declan let out a choked sound and plunged into me even more deeply. The sear of his cock sent me spiraling higher. He came with a groan against my shoulder, flooding me with fresh heat.

  Declan tugged me to him, but not for a kiss, just to rest my cheek against his as my breath evened out again. I let myself relax into his embrace.

  “I—” he started, and caught himself.

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Never mind. Nothing important.”

  When I pulled back to look him in the eyes, he gave me a bittersweet smile. “I promise, it’s not anything you have to worry about. It’d only make letting go of this when we leave here harder.”

  We snuggled together on the bed for a while, and then I dragged Declan downstairs for a late lunch he absolutely needed, sitting with my knee resting against his beneath the table. Drawing out the contact for as long as I could until I couldn’t have it anymore.

  When we finally headed out, I found myself taking his hand as we walked toward the gate. He twined his fingers with mine. I pressed my other hand to the panel to open the gate. It swung open—and my heart stopped at the sight of another car parked behind mine.

  I dropped Declan’s hand, but not fast enough that I was sure the two strangers standing by the second car hadn’t noticed.

  “Persephone!” the woman said in a gasp of a voice, and hustled over, her silver-white curls swaying around her broad face. The man, his short-cropped hair pure white, approached more cautiously, his broad shoulders and contrasting narrow face striking a chord of recognition in me.

  I took a step back before the woman got all the way to me, tensing at the thought that she might try to hug me. She halted with a disappointed expression. “You don’t know us at all, do you? How could you, you were so little? I told that headmistress at the university we should be allowed in to see you—”

  “You’re my grandparents,” I broke in as the pieces clicked. My father’s parents. “What are you doing here?”

  “We keep in touch with the Bloodstone staff,” my grandfather said in a more even tone. “They mentioned you were coming out here today. It seemed like an ideal time to introduce—or rather, re-introduce—ourselves.”

  “We knocked on the gate a few times, but I suppose the house is so far away, it’s difficult to hear. You’ll really need to get a new intercom system set up now that you’re back.” My grandmother peered at me, still looking like she was judging how she could finagle a hug out of me. “We have so much to talk about. You’re all we have left.”

  That felt like an awful lot of pressure from two people that as far as I could remember I’d only just met. I was sharply aware of Declan standing tensed beside me, of the way they’d seen us coming out together. Of the fact that they’d seen us together here at all. And clearly Jude’s account hadn’t exaggerated their pushiness. The hairs on the back of my neck rose.

  “I—I’m sorry,” I said. “I really don’t remember you. It’s been a big adjustment, and I’ve been taking things one step at the time. Right now I need to get back to school. Maybe we could arrange a time for us to grab lunch together in town and talk, or something like that?”

  My body balked at the idea, but I had to offer them something so we could get out of here. And they were family. I could give them a chance, even if their showing up here like this rubbed me completely the wrong way, just in case there was more to them than a regular fearmancer would recognize.

  My grandmother’s face fell. Her husband grasped her shoulder. “Of course you have your own plans. We’d only like to make the transition smoother in whatever ways we can. Let me give you my phone number so we can arrange that lunch.”

  As he jotted the number down on a slip of paper he retrieved from his pocket, my grandmother peered at Declan with sudden interest.

  “Ah!” she said as if she’d solved a difficult puzzle. “You’re the Ashgrave boy, aren’t you? There’s a lot of your mother in you.”

  “Thank you,” Declan said, not quite able to smooth all the tension from his voice.

  Her pale little eyes flitted between us. A knowing smile crossed her face. “The adventures of youth. I remember them well. You be good to her and don’t promise anything you can’t follow through on.”

  “We’re not—It’s not like that,” Declan said.

  Her eyes twinkled with even more curiosity. “Oh, is it not? This is a rather long way to come from the university for just a friendly romp. If you want to keep your adventuring quiet, you don’t have to worry. We can keep it to ourselves.” She winked at me.

  Oh, fuck. I had no idea whether we could trust her, but every instinct told me no.

  To my limited relief, when my grandfather handed over the phone number, my grandmother drew back beside him. “If you’re sure we can’t talk more now…”

  “I have a tutoring session,” I lied. “I’m almost late as it is. I’ve had a lot of catching up to do, of course.”

  “Of course,” my grandfather said, but his face momentarily darkened, and for the first time I got the sense that he wasn’t all that pleased with how their impromptu visit had turned out either. “It was a gamble, dropping in like this. It was good just to see you.”

  They got back into their car, turned it around, and headed back down the drive. I waited until they were out of sight before I slumped into the driver’s seat of the Lexus. My hand shook when I pushed in the key. Declan said nothing.

  If I’d just driven the car right up to the garage after I’d opened the gate—but that might have been worse. They might have spotted it through the bars and stuck around anyway, and I’d still have had to stop to talk, and they’d probably have noticed both Declan and the spell meant to hide him. Then it would have been even more obvious how secret we were trying to keep this excursion.

  My thoughts tumbled around in my head as if they were caught in a clothes dryer as I aimed the car toward the university. I couldn’t help searching for something different I could have said, something better. A growing horror filled the pit of my stomach with each passing minute that Declan didn’t speak.

  If they said something to the wrong person, my risky plan could completely screw him over. Why hadn’t I left well enough alone? We’d been fine the way things were. No regrets—ha. He was going to regret ever speaking to me. Any lingering pleasure from our coming together had soured.

  “I’ve taught you just about everything I can anyway,” Declan said abruptly. “I’ll talk to Professor Sinleigh tomorrow about starting up those advanced sessions she promised you.”

  Now that he was speaking, my stomach only squeezed tighter into a ball of misery. “Okay.”

  “It’ll be better if we don’t even talk for a while, just to offset anything your grandparents might say. That shouldn’t be hard once we’re done with the tutoring.”

  “It shouldn’t,�
� I agreed. My hands gripped the wheel harder. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have—I dragged you out there. It’s my fault. I—”

  “No. Rory—” Declan motioned to the side of the road. “Pull over. We can’t talk properly when you have to focus on driving.”

  I did as he asked, braced for the anger that had to be coming. He’d snapped at me just for the fact that he’d lost control and kissed me that day in the library. This was a gazillion times worse. This time I really had fucked up.

  As soon as I put the car into park, Declan set his hand over mine. When I met his eyes, his expression was solemn, nothing worse.

  “I’m not saying these things because I’m upset at you,” he said. “I’m not saying them because I don’t want to see you. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known they’d come nosing around.”

  “I was still taking a chance, asking you to come out here. It was my idea.”

  “And I went along with it—I decided to take that chance. That’s on me. Inviting me out here, giving me that space to really breathe and think, is the nicest thing anyone’s done for me in ages. Okay?”

  I sucked in a shaky breath. “Do you think they’ll stay quiet about seeing us together? Would they even know that you’re not supposed to—that you’re an aide and all?”

  “I don’t know,” Declan said. “But if word gets back to the university staff, it won’t matter whether they knew how much shit I’d be in.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “So that’s why we have to make everything look totally professional and distant now. Maybe if someone hears what seems like just a rumor, they’ll look at how we are with each other on campus and dismiss it. That’s the best we can hope for.”

  “Yeah,” I said quietly. I’d known we weren’t going to keep anything like that brief intimacy after we left the cottage, but I’d thought I’d still have him in the ways I’d had him before.

  Declan squeezed my hand. “I’ll still do what I can to help you. It’ll be harder, but—I’m not abandoning you.”

  “Okay.” I couldn’t seem to say more than that. I was afraid that if I did, the burn forming behind my eyes would spill over into tears. I couldn’t cry over this. Over a relationship that had barely even existed in the first place. It was just the shock and the suddenness of the threat catching up with me.