“Elias,” my voice was a breathless rasp that stoked the heat between us. Kai read it, too, but he made no sudden moves to touch me. Instead, he reached forward and plucked the egg from my fingers, and turned to deposit it safely away from us. When he came back, his eyes had lightened to that dangerous blue hue.
“If this was what you wanted…” Elias pulled me close by the skirts, so that my body pressed tightly against his, so that I felt every pane and glorious inch of him. I felt the way he opened up to me instantaneously, the warm hardness of him pressing against my stomach. He bent down, brushing his lips across my temples, sliding them down, further and further to the corner of my mouth. “...then all you had to do was ask.”
And then he kissed me.
My response was immediate, my body burned from the inside, desperate for contact, for him. I pressed myself against him, grasping his shoulders to tug him closer still. His mouth explored mine as if we didn’t already know the architecture of one another. As if it were the first time and the last time.
And then I felt an extra set of hands, not Elias’s, who had wrapped his around my waist, but Kai’s, who’s long fingers danced up my neck to hold me in place against Elias.
His face came close to us, lips grazing across my cheeks, alternating between Elias and I, talons scraping deliciously along my skin.
“Kiss her neck,” Kai ordered firmly in Elias’s ear.
Elias obliged, breaking away from my mouth to trail his own down the arch of my neck. He pressed open-mouthed kisses against my skin, inciting cries from my lips. I trembled at the sensation, already open and desperate for them.
I gasped, nails digging into Elias’s shoulders. “Please…” I begged, hips pressing into him, desperate for the hardness against my stomach to be inside me.
“Soon, my gem,” Kai promised, his lips pressing to my cheek, and lower to my lips. He kissed my mouth as Elias kissed my neck, and by the time Kai pulled away, I was dizzy and shaking with need.
“Please…”
Kai smiled, a dangerous, imposing thing. “Lift your skirts,” he ordered.
My head spun, and I dropped my hands from Elias’s body to obey, sliding them slowly up the length of my tails, past my flaring fins to expose my readiness to them, to their caresses.
“Elias… kneel before her…”
Elias was all too eager to oblige, dropping at the tail before me. I felt the warmth of his ragged breath across my stomach, blowing into my opening and causing me to shiver. Gods, I wanted him. If I didn’t have him now…
“Soon, my gem.” Kai’s talons raked across my arm before pulling away. I watched, eyes half lidded, as he hiked up his own kimono and bared himself. He was erect already, and with one hand, he gripped himself, sliding his palm up and down his shaft. With the other, he held the back of my neck, and pulled me close, so close that our lips touched. And then he gave his order, “Pleasure her.”
Elias’s mouth crashed into my intimacy at the same time Kai’s mouth plundered into mine. His tongue pushed apart my lips, tracing the inside of my mouth, commanding, claiming. And Elias was doing the same. Somehow, they worked the same rhythm until I was mindless, breathless. My hips jerked into Elias’s mouth, desperate for release. I climbed high on that edge, waiting to drop into the chasm…
He pulled his mouth away, and a moment later, Kai tore his away to suck in a shocked breath. We looked down, only to find Elias had left me teetering desperately on the edge to switch the pleasure onto Kai. His mouth wrapped around the head of his member and slid down the length of him slowly.
Kai groaned, though it sounded more like a growl. “I didn’t order you to…” He broke off and sucked in a breath as Elias worked over him faster and faster, before slowly pulling away to look up at Kai with a smug expression.
“I think it’s time you felt the pain you inflict, Dragon Prince.” And then his mouth was on Kai again, sucking him, sliding up and down his shaft.
Gods, but it was a sight to see. My own frustration at the lack of release forgotten, I watched in fascination, between one mer and the other. As Elias sucked, harder and faster, Kai dropped his head against my neck, clawing at me, his hips thrusting, and his mouth desperate on my skin.
“Maisie,” he whispered desperately. “Elias…”
I dug my fingers into the roots of his silken hair, tugging and pulling him up to face me. I wanted to see his expression. Wanted to see that exact moment when he found his release. I wanted to feel it in my own bones, share this moment with them both.
“I want to see you,” I commanded, feeling powerful, in control. As in control as he was when the three of us were together.
“Great Dragon,” he cursed, and then his hands were on me, fighting for the control he had so obviously lost. “If I go, you’ll come with me.” His hands pressed into my opening, diving in and stroking my desire all over again. I cried out, clinging to him, but my eyes never once straying. I watched his expression, following him on the current paved in pleasure. The thrusts of our hips matched, and when his eyes lowered, and he bit his bottom lip, I knew he was close to his release, so I followed, plunging myself to the drop at the same moment he did.
He cried out, his hips thrusting against Elias’s mouth, his fingers curling tightly into me, talons scraping across the nub of my desire that sent me spiraling after him.
We both sagged on shaking limbs, and Elias pulled away, a satisfied smile on his lips.
Kai glared at him half heartedly.
From his position at the desk, Tiberius groaned. “You are distracting me,” he admonished.
“You’re welcome to join us, if you like,” Elias smirked in the captain’s direction.
I heard the clatter of a quill dropping onto the table, and turned in his direction. From what little I saw of his profile, his cheeks were flushed, his eyes widened. The strain of his muscles against his tunic was great, and looked as if the material was about to tear. I almost wished it would.
When Tiberius didn’t answer right away, I felt the smallest flutter of disappointment that was quickly whisked away when Kai lifted me suddenly in his arms. I gasped, hands wrapping around his neck as he swam to the bed and lay me gently down on it. He straightened and turned to glare at Elias.
“Lay next to her,” he ordered, back to his dangerous, commanding presence, as if the last few moments of him losing control had never happened.
Elias joined me, his movements confident and smug as he slid into the empty space next to me on his back. He used his hands as cushions behind his head, and raised his brows up at Kai, who loomed over the both of us.
“Do with me what you will,” Elias said.
“Oh, I will,” Kai promised darkly. “First, I’m going to make Maisie suck you.” As if to highlight his point, his hand went down to grasp Elias’s shaft at the hilt. He squeezed, startling a gasp from Elias, and then he slid his palm up and down. His eyes flicked to me. “Would you like that, Maisie?”
I licked my lips, his slitted blue gaze following the movement. “I would…” I’d never done it before, but I would. Kai made me bold.
Kai nodded, as if my words had been exactly the answer he’d expected of me. “Then when she’s brought you to the point of coming, I’ll make her stop until you’re aching with desire.”
“Do it,” Elias dared, his dark eyes glittering at the prospect of a challenge.
My body heated at the conversation passing between us, the words as casual as if we were merely discussing the weather. What I really wanted was for the words to cease. For their hands to be on me again, for them to take me to the depths of pleasure all over again.
I squirmed uncomfortably and turned, my eyes catching Tiberius at the desk. He was looking at us, ever discreetly, an intense look in his blue eyes.
I smiled. “Join us,” I offered.
Kai’s gaze snapped over to him, and he let out a mischievous smile. One I tended to only associate with Elias. “Yes, Captain. Come and play. Can’t you see h
ow much Maisie desires you?” His claw swiped down the bodice of my dress, tearing it so the flaps fell open to expose my breasts. A talon scraped down the soft mounds and to a peaked nipple, pausing there. I arched against him, desperate for the feel of his fingers, his mouth, his tongue.
“Please,” I begged, straining against him.
“Don’t you want the captain to join us, Maisie?” Kai leaned down to ask, his mouth hovering over my nipple.
“Yes.” The word came out as a hiss.
“If he joined us, what would you have him to do you?”
My face heated and my eyes flew open—when had I closed them?
“Maisie…” Kai’s voice held a hint of warning. “What would you have him do to you?”
“I—” I turned to look at Tiberius. He had turned, so I could see every shadowed angle of his face and the glowing desire in his eyes. “I’d have him touch me…” I answered breathlessly.
Kai’s tongue swirled around my nipple and I moaned. “Where would you have him touch you?”
I couldn’t look away from Tiberius. I was emboldened by Kai’s strokes, by his words, even if my face flamed at all the thoughts pushing through my mind, all the things I wanted Tiberius to do to me. I gave my desires voice. “I want you to kiss my breasts.” I spoke the words directly to Tiberius. “I want you to kiss me until I’m breathless. I want you to touch me… there…”
“Where?” Kai interrupted. He licked my nipple again, then let his tongue travel to the valley between my breasts. “Where, Maisie?”
“At the heart of my desire. At my opening. I want him to touch me, and kiss me there, and then I want him inside me. I want—”
Tiberius shot up from the chair, his brusque movements causing it to scrape against the floor and fall backwards with a clang. His chest rose quickly with the harsh breaths he took. “I’ll do it,” he said gruffly. That was all he said before he stalked forward, nudging Kai aside to loom over me, and then his hands were on me, touching and teasing, inciting cries from my lips. He pushed the flaps of my dress impatiently aside, and I lifted, helping him to tear them from my arms.
“Love her slowly,” Kai ordered softly.
Tiberius stilled, and turned a glare on Kai. “You are not my ruler, Prince. And I don’t need you to tell me how to love Maisie or where to touch her or how to make her come, I assure you.”
Kai smirked, but Tiberius was already turning away, back to me. His eyes were hungry, desperate to have me. Calloused fingers skimmed over my stomach, dancing over my skin in tantalizing movements. His fingers hooked into the waist of my skirts and he yanked them down, slipping them from my tail and tossing them to the side.
I reached up with anxious fingers, tugging at the hem of his tunic. Impatiently, he obliged, yanking it from his body. I watched the flex of his muscles, sliding my fingers up the ridges of his abdomen, palm stopping just over the rapid beating of his heart.
I smiled. “Make love to me.”
“Always,” he growled, just before he bent down and took my lips in a searing kiss.
I abandoned myself to his body, reveling in the sensation of the scrape of his teeth, the caresses of his tongue. The way his hands slid over me, leaving no inch unexplored. Beside me, Kai murmured delicious things to Elias, things that only made me groan.
Elias turned, capturing the lobe of my ear between his teeth as Kai slid kisses down the length of his body and lower still, where he captured the length of him into his mouth. Elias bucked, and I felt the pleasure of it spiral through me painfully.
I lifted my own hips in a silent plea to Tiberius, but he was taking his time, tasting and sucking. His lips went down my stomach and lowered right at my entrance.
Just like I’d begged him to do.
He pleasured me with his mouth, tongue and fingers diving in and out of me until I writhed beneath him. My hands dug into his hair, to pull him closer, to keep him right where he was, even as I desired his length inside me.
Pleasure spiraled through me in painful waves. I didn’t know what sensation to focus on anymore, his tongue, Elias’s lips against my neck, or the sounds of pleasure coming from Kai’s throat? It was all too much…
I fell into that abyss.
And I screamed.
My body shot up from the bed as I cried out the sound of my release. When I fell back to the cushions, Tiberius slid up my body, his hardness pressing to my entrance. Even though I’d just found my release, a thrill went through me at the feel of him there. I clutched at his shoulders weakly, a gasp tearing from my throat when he pushed himself inside me to the hilt.
And then he was moving, and my hands fell back, where Elias reached for me and held on, as we rode that vicious, deadly wave of pleasure.
Together.
~~
“I’VE BEEN MEANING to ask you…” Tiberius began lazily, his fingers tracing along my skin. “Do you worry… I mean… about… children?”
My eyebrows rose at the question. “What do you mean?”
He seemed to share a look with Kai and Elias, both of whom had suddenly stiffened. Elias shifted uncomfortably. “I didn’t think about it,” he murmured.
Kai looked chagrined. “I did think of it… but didn’t take a care. I’m sorry.”
“What are you guys talkin’ about?” I sat up, looking left and right between them.
Tiberius scratched behind his ear and made a face. “I mean about… babies. What if you get pregnant?” he blurted.
My eyes widened, and I broke out into a smile. “Does that have you worried?” I teased.
“Well…” He looked at Kai, and Elias shrugged. “We all love you,” Tiberius said firmly. “And if you had a child, any of our children, I wouldn’t mind. I’d still want you, and I’d still love the baby.”
I looked around, watching both Elias and Kai nod their agreement. I smiled. “Good to know.” I flopped back onto the bed.
There was quiet, and then Kai asked, “Are you worried?”
I couldn’t hold back the laughter that bubbled out of me. They all shared a look of exasperation and confusion, which only made me laugh harder. “When a mer turns eighteen,” I explained slowly. “Once a year, for a week, she will be fertile. It’s when the body is ready for babies, and the only time a mer can get pregnant.” I couldn’t fathom how they didn’t know this. Kai and Tiberius had sisters. But if they were anything like the mermen of Lagoona, I was sure they avoided those topics they deemed ‘uncomfortable’.
“And, are you?” Elias asked. “Fertile. Right now, I mean?”
I laughed again. “Trust me, when my time comes, you’ll know.”
They looked doubtful, but I didn’t go into a lengthy explanation of the mermaid mechanisms and bodily functions. They were grown mer, and really should have had basic knowledge of this. But a part of me was glad they’d brought it up, because now I knew what everyone thought about it.
I hadn’t really thought of having children with them before, but now that they mentioned it...I could picture it vividly. Kai and Tiberius would be such good father’s. Parts of Elias were still a bit of a mystery to me, but he seemed willing to stay by me, and that was all I could ever really ask for.
If I had been unsure about them before, I was positive now. This was a new start of my life, and I wanted nothing more than to share every bit of it with them.
~~
“YOUR FATHER HAS been stalking the halls of the palace like a guppy without his mother.”
I sighed, dropping my head into my hands briefly. I’d been dancing around the subject of my father for days. Even if he’d defended me, had publicly accepted me as daughter of Kappur, I couldn’t bring myself to face him. A part of me feared that it had all been some type of farce, something said in the heat of the moment, though once he mulled it over, and actually figured out who I truly was, he’d regret it.
Accepting he was my father, accepting that I was a Princess was easier than mustering up the confidence that he’d truly and would wholly
want me in his family.
“You’re still on that self pity current?” Odele sounded annoyed. When I didn’t reply, she reached over and pinched my arm.
“Ow! What was that for?” I rubbed the sore spot.
“Wake up, Odalaea. He tore apart Thalassar, kept a war going for years just so he could find you. Rejoice, cousin, because at least your father fights for you.”
I turned sharply to her, my expression softening into one of understanding and sadness. What must she be feeling? What must it be like? She was right, my father had fought for me, in methods I didn’t entirely agree with, but he’d fought for me just the same. King Xristo had watched for years as Queen Circe treated his daughter ill. He had left her alone, had let her form her own way without a hint of guidance.
“Don’t look at me with pity in your eyes. I can’t bear it.”
“Sorry,” I apologized. “But you’re right, I need to face him sometime.”
Odele nodded her agreement. “Yes, you do. Perhaps you should go do that now. He’s in his rooms.” A delicate eyebrow rose. “Although, you should probably change into something more appropriate first.”
I gave a pointed look down at my outfit. It was a simple black tunic, one of Elias’s. I no longer felt comfortable wearing Odele’s dresses. I hadn’t really been made for them. And what was the point, when every dress was destroyed in the throes of passion anyway? It was a waste. So I wore a black tunic, belted at the waist, where my black blade hung off the side. It was a simple garment, long enough to cover a little ways past my torn fin.
I looked like a mer from Lagoona.
I got up and sighed. “No,” I decided. “If he’s goin’ to meet me, he might as well meet the real me.”
Odele eyed the outfit distastefully, wrinkling her nose at it. “Well good luck. You’ll need it. He might take one look at that atrocity and tell you never to set fin in his kingdom. Ever.”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks for that vote of confidence.”
She shrugged. “I’m nothing if not honest, cousin. And I honestly think you look like something scraped from the bottom of a rock.”
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