Babies were something I had never given much thought. Motherhood was a far-off concept that hadn’t even registered on my radar yet. For the past few years, the only thing I had cared about was finishing my PhD to the point that dating had even fallen to the wayside. Now suddenly I was about to be a mother to a child that I might not understand, and I was terrified.
I covered my mouth as a small sob broke free. It was in that moment I knew that, no matter what, I wouldn’t tell Sethian about the baby. No—not for a while. I needed my husband to keep coming to me, to comfort me, to kiss me, to hold me in his arms. I needed him to be my pillar until I could come to terms with the crazy path my life had taken and stand on my own two feet.
I had chosen this for myself, after all. After everything Lariel, Saeria, and Rinwen had told me regarding the distant past when elves had taken human brides, I truly believed that Sethian would have allowed me to return home if I had cried and pleaded with him after that first night. I had chosen the hope of finally not being alone over the certainty. I had given up everything I had worked so hard for just for that slim hope.
I now had to lie in the bed I had made and somehow convince my husband that he wanted to be there as well—because I was there. The thought only made me cry harder.
I doubted that I would get much sleep that night.
CHAPTER FIVE
When the knock came at the bedroom door the next morning, I was lying in much the same fetal, self-comforting position as I had started out in, exhausted but too nauseous and upset to sleep. After crying softly for what had felt like hours, I had actually managed to doze off sometime in the middle of the night only to abruptly wake up an indeterminable time later on the verge of puking. I had barely made it to the bathroom in time. After that, I had only been able to lie in bed curled up in misery to wait for morning and presumably Lariel to arrive as sleep had become an impossibility at that point.
I had long since given up on the hope that Sethian would return, which given how awful I felt, wasn’t exactly a bad thing. The problem was convincing the part of me that yearned desperately for him.
I forced myself to sit up and lean back against the large, wooden headboard into a semblance of composure before I called out for my visitor to come in. Sure enough, Lariel entered the room with a cheerful smile and a breakfast tray that immediately made me want to scream inside.
“Good morning,” she greeted, setting the tray over my lap.
“Morning.” I eyed the covered dishes as if they were full of poisonous snakes. I had eaten practically nothing yesterday, so there was no way I would get away with refusing my breakfast today. My chest suddenly tightened painfully as another, more important reason to eat crossed my mind.
Not eating wasn’t good for the baby.
“Did you talk with my lord husband this morning?” I asked as I watched her lift the covers off all the various dishes.
I was relieved to see that along with the usual fruits and cheeses I had become accustomed to eating for breakfast, a small loaf of bread was included. If I stuck to having just the bread and tea, then maybe I could get through this meal without raising Lariel’s suspicions again.
“A messenger,” she replied as she sat on the edge of the bed. “Saeria and Rinwen will be along with a change of clothes shortly. His Majesty wishes for you to remain here in his rooms for the day.”
I wondered if Lariel knew that I had slept alone last night. I wanted to ask, wanted to know if she knew where Sethian was right now, but I just picked up the loaf of bread and remained silent. I wasn’t really sure if it was proper to ask those types of questions, even if I was the king’s wife. Prying into or blabbing about the king’s business wasn’t something we had ever discussed in my etiquette lessons, and even though I considered the three elven women my friends, they were still part of the king’s staff and would be expected to follow courtly protocol.
“You didn’t sleep much last night did you?” Lariel suddenly accused, nearly making me choke on the piece of bread I was swallowing. My stomach gave an unpleasant lurch, but thankfully I didn’t feel the need to gag.
I coughed and gave her a wry smile. “Do I look that bad this morning?”
“Your cheeks are as white as those sheets. Your eyes are shadowed and also tinged with red.” She tsked. “I didn’t realize that humans had so much trouble with sleep.”
“Most don’t,” I said. “Sometimes I just have a hard time turning my brain off.”
Lariel fixed me with a particularly deep stare that made me want to fidget and turn away. It was almost like she was trying to pry into my mind. With a start, I wondered if she could. So far, the girls had been really vague about the seemingly magical abilities of the Sidhe I had witnessed so far. Thinking that it was a taboo subject, I hadn’t pressed for answers, but now I wondered if I should have let the matter drop so easily.
“You are still worried that His Majesty will reject you,” Lariel said finally.
I looked down at the tray, unable to meet her eyes. “I’ll always worry about that. It’s not something I can help. I’m a worrywart by nature.”
She sighed heavily. “Well, I suppose only time will cure that particular woe. Finish your breakfast and then we shall go to the baths. Hopefully a nice, warm soak will relax you enough for a nap afterwards. Your lessons can wait for another day.”
I managed to eat half the bread and a couple of slices of apple without having to make a mad dash for the bathroom, which at that point was a small miracle. Focusing on Lariel’s steady stream of light-hearted chatter had certainly helped.
When Saeria and Rinwen showed up, we all headed for the royal baths.
As Lariel had predicted, once enveloped by the pleasantly warm water coupled with the soothing feeling of Lariel’s fingers massaging my scalp as she washed my hair, my stomach seemed to settle down enough that it was all I could do to keep from dozing off. A nap was certainly looking more and more possible. Maybe a nice deep sleep was all I needed to better manage my morning sickness.
Yeah and maybe you’ll be crowned the elven queen tomorrow, I thought glumly.
Once back in Sethian’s rooms, I changed into one of the nightgowns Rinwen had brought me and settled down for a nap with a promise from Lariel to wake me for lunch. I really had to stop skipping meals.
It felt like I had only been asleep for a few minutes when I abruptly heard someone say “Emily” into my ear.
Hearing my name had me jerking up in bed, looking around wildly in utter confusion and panic while my heart tried to escape my chest. Before my eyes could properly focus, I felt a hand cup my cheek, and the panic seemed to just melt away along the wave of warmth that began to flow into me. I blinked, and Sethian’s face blurred into vision. He was looking down at me with a frown and concern in his eyes.
“Sethian!” I blurted, then immediately flushed and looked down, horribly embarrassed at how desperate my voice had sounded.
“I did not mean to startle you,” he said, sitting on the bed beside me.
I rubbed the remaining sleep from my eyes and shook my head. “Sorry. I guess I was just really deep asleep. Lariel was supposed to wake me for lunch, but…” Like my room, Sethian’s bedroom did not have any windows, so I had no idea how long I had been out.
Sethian’s frown deepened. “It’s well into the night.”
My eyes widened. I must have looked worse than Lariel had let on for her to have allowed me to sleep through two meals. My friends were always going on and on about how I never seemed to eat properly, so there was no way they would have let me sleep the day away unless they thought I needed the rest even more.
I anxiously looked more closely at Sethian’s expression, wondering if they had been worried enough about my ragged appearance this morning to mention it to him. It was all well and good to blame my insomnia and sickly appearance on my insecurities to my friends, but I couldn’t use that excuse here without opening a whole new can of worms that I never intended to open. However,
I really didn’t know my own husband well enough yet to read anything beyond his obvious concern.
Speaking of concern, I finally realized that I was shockingly nausea-free at the moment. I could only think that this glorious fact was his doing before he had awakened me and wished I could show him how extremely grateful I was for his foresight.
Instead, I nervously smoothed down my hair and said, “I wonder why she didn’t wake me up.”
“You did not sleep last night after I left, did you?” he asked as if I hadn’t spoken.
I stiffened and tried to look away, but he immediately grasped my chin and turned my face back towards him. I reluctantly met his eyes again, afraid that I had made him angry, but they still reflected the same concern. I relaxed minutely.
“Emily?” he said, his tone commanding.
“I—” I took a deep breath and forced myself to continue, “I was worried that something bad had happened. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head, and before I knew it, Lariel was knocking at the door with my breakfast.” So won’t you tell me what you were doing? I could only wish to be so straightforward.
I was actually surprised at how smoothly the lie had flowed from my tongue, but to my relief, Sethian merely hummed in acceptance and his grip on my chin turned into a soft caress against my cheek. I closed my eyes and turned my face into his palm.
“If I had known you were going to worry to the point of losing sleep, I would have sent word that all was well sooner,” he said quietly.
I opened my eyes and offered him a tiny smile. “I would’ve still been worried. Sometimes I can’t help it. It’s in my nature.”
He leaned forward and brushed his lips briefly against mine before I could react, as soft and fleeting as rose petals fluttering across my sensitive flesh on their way to the ground, before pulling back slightly until only a millimeter separated our mouths. “Then let me make it up to you.” His warm breath ghosted over my lips with every word, making me shiver.
I completely expected to feel his mouth crash against mine with the wild passion of all our previous kisses, so it was almost a shock when those silky lips pressed against mine in what almost felt like a hesitant caress, as though he wasn’t sure his attentions would be welcome. I closed my eyes and leaned into the kiss, clutching the front of his tunic tightly with both hands as I opened my mouth to him in encouragement.
His tongue slowly slid against my own in a single, teasing stroke before he pulled back completely from my mouth. I let out a soft sound of protest before I could stop myself and instinctively tried to recapture his retreating lips, but he ducked his head down to my neck and planted a soft kiss along the side before pulling away from me completely.
“Take off your gown for me,” he commanded in a voice deeper than normal that seemed to reverberate throughout my entire body, the heated look in his eyes piercing right through me. “I want to see you.”
That one sentence had the effect of launching my entire blood volume straight into my face so quickly that I was surprised that my head didn’t explode. It was one thing to be nude while we were making love, but the thought of completely exposing myself to him while his eyes deliberately took in every inch of my body brought out my shyness a thousand fold. I had to fight the urge to cross my arms over my chest.
The fact that he could just use his elven magic to make my clothes disappear like before made his command that much more poignant. Was he testing me? Or was I just reading too much into it, and he simply wanted a show today? It wasn’t as though I had known him near long enough to have learned even a fraction of his kinks.
I felt awkward and utterly unsexy as I closed my eyes and slowly lifted my nightgown up over my head, the cool air of the bedroom against my bare and heat-inflamed skin driving the fact of my nudity home all the more so that I couldn’t even look at him as I haphazardly tossed the garment over the side of the bed. The urge to cover myself was now so strong that I had actually started to lift my arms before I felt Sethian’s scorching hands encircle both my forearms and gently, but insistently, push them down to my sides.
“Let me see,” he repeated, releasing my arms and pulling away from me again.
His heated tone made me glance up at him, my cheeks now so hot that I was surprised that they weren’t glowing. I met his intense gaze for a brief, breathless moment, before lowering my eyes and squirming a bit in embarrassment.
Even though I did not look at him again, I could feel his gaze on me like a physical touch as he took in the entirety of my body. It was as if he was moving his fingertips lightly, teasingly, over my skin, making me yearn for his actual touch but unable to make myself ask for it. My heart was pounding so hard at that point that my chest was beginning to ache. I wondered if Sethian could hear it and if so, if this blatant show of my excitement pleased him.
It seemed like a small eternity before I felt his actual hand on my skin, making me jump then gasp sharply as he slowly moved his palm down the curve of my breast, his thumb lightly caressing my already hardened nipple a single time, before he cupped the soft mound completely and squeezed firmly. A small, satisfied smile stretched his lips when I looked back at him, and I realized that his last action was merely to make me look at him, a part of the sensual game he had begun.
I covered the hand that cupped my breast with my own and moved to my knees, blushing and struggling to hold his gaze as his eyes narrowed slightly with keen interest and increasing lust. I gripped his shoulder and leaned in to lick his bottom lip with a slow, drawn-out swipe. This close I could see his pupils dilate, and the sight gave me a tiny sense of power that I could affect him this much.
My eyes flickered over to one of his ears. I would have to be careful not to touch them this time. I didn’t want him to lose control and our lovemaking to end in a rough frenzy like last time—for more reasons than one.
I yelped as I suddenly found myself tumbled onto my back. His still fully-clothed body loomed over me, straddling but not quite touching yet, his weight supported by a forearm on either side of my head. He dipped his head and took my lips hungrily, thrusting his tongue inside my mouth aggressively in contrast to the gentle kisses earlier. I opened my mouth wider with a hum of appreciation and sucked his tongue in deeper, sliding my own alongside it until I could no longer differentiate the two.
Blindly, I reached up and grabbed his shoulders, trying to pull him down farther onto my body. There was something immensely satisfying about feeling his weight pressing me down into the mattress, and I desperately wanted to feel that right now. However, it was as if I was tugging on a statue for all I managed to move him. I pulled down harder, but he stubbornly refused to budge.
His lips moved to the skin beneath my chin and sucked hard. The sensation went straight to my groin, making me throb and gasp. I arched up in an attempt to connect with the full length of his body for some much needed friction.
“Please Sethian…” I pleaded when I felt him immediately push my hips down with a firm hand.
“Not yet,” he said against my neck, and I nearly groaned in frustration.
He had barely touched me at all, and my whole body was already tightening and throbbing with a painful arousal that had me writhing beneath him just as fervently as all the other times when he had taken me with little to no foreplay. Hell, just the smell of him was like an aphrodisiac, an indescribable musk that defined the very essence of what it meant to be male and powerful.
Sethian moved his hand from my hip over to my groin, his fingers sliding through my already damp pubic hair to the very center of my pleasure where he began to slowly, maddeningly massage my clit with two fingers in a light, barely there stroke as his mouth moved down from my neck to latch onto one of my aching nipples. I entangled the fingers of one hand in his hair along the crown, absently tugging in time to the circular motions of his fingers teasing me towards completion while I crammed the other into my mouth and bit down hard in order to keep from screaming.
Being masturbated by Sethi
an felt inordinately different than pleasuring myself. The utter lack of control over the rising tide of my approaching orgasm had somehow amplified that pleasurable tension by at least a factor of three. For all I knew, his intensions could be to bring me to the brink of ecstasy and then at the last second leave me hanging and begging him to let me come just to tease me. I never knew that uncertainty could be so stimulating…
I cried out and nearly yanked his hair out by the roots when I abruptly felt him bite down on my nipple with enough force that the sensation crossed the pleasure threshold into pain. I shuddered as his tongue immediately began to caress the sting away and his hand between my legs began to rub my sex more quickly and aggressively. I gripped the sheets tightly in my hands and arched into both sensations, his name spilling from my lips over and over as if that alone would push me closer to the climax I was now so desperate to achieve.
Sethian pulled on my nipple with his teeth as a parting tease that broke my litany of his name and made me squeal before moving his head down my body. Then suddenly his hand was gone from between my legs, and I groaned in utter dismay at the loss of stimulation just as I was nearing the peak.
I arched up, trying to find something, anything to rub myself against to relieve the maddening throbbing and pressure in my groin, but Sethian once again firmly pushed my hips down. He proceeded to spread my legs a little before I could voice my displeasure, and then I nearly swallowed my tongue when I felt the first wet, utterly fantastic swipe of his tongue across my clit.
I had always thought that I would be too embarrassed to ever allow anyone to perform cunnilingus on me, but it had never occurred to me that the very act would short-circuit my brain to the point where I couldn’t have formed a thought to save my life, much less felt anything like shame. My whole existence had shrunk down to only the feel of that tongue vigorously caressing the most intimate part of me until my toes were curling into the sheets and I was pushing myself into his mouth, literally begging him to give me release before I went insane with overstimulation.
Claimed by the Elven King: Part Three Page 3