Trick (Foolish Kingdoms, #1)

by Natalia Jaster

For once, I wanted something in this court that I couldn’t have. For all my power, this was one exception where my cunning words wouldn’t get it for me.

Even if that weren’t so, the more important dealbreaker was this: She didn’t want me.

press (f)

I don’t know. I’m scared. Don’t leave. Come back. Let me go.

Nothing happened.

not me immediately thinking he's repeating her words back to her about what happened in the meadow AND NOT HIM ASSURING HER HE DIDNT FUCK THE GUY LMAOOOOO

I sat in a chair amid the wisteria arbors, engaged in conversation with the Queens of Winter. At which point, a hand balancing a candle broke us apart. The jester presented the flickering taper he’d once denied me, his gesture hushing the crowd.

“Your Highness. This is overdue, for the leenix was no match for you. What an honor to be saved by Autumn. And so, I thank you.” “You’re welcome,” sprang from my tongue. “I—rescue men all the time.”

“The only person who gets to laugh at the princess—” his voice dripped with venom, “—is herself.”

“Jester,” I began, the formality tasting bland on my tongue. “It’s my turn to thank you.”

Humor has its merits, after all.

An unpleasant fact dawned. They’d located his chambers without having to search. For unwelcome reasons, the notion triggered a vile side of me and raised my combative hackles.

Me, in love with nobody. And Poet, in love with himself.

Poet stared at me in a way that bordered on feral.

Many things happened to us that night. Many things I never saw coming … *

In short, the people were ignorant. I wanted to pull this female from the roots, expose her for the goddess, warrior, and ruler she truly was.

For the dancing made her happy, and that happiness made her the brightest fucking thing in this garden. Enthralling woman. Hypnotized jester.

Yet. Still. Her.

I want to be someone's "Yet. Still. Her."

My Autumn Princess

What’s more, brunettes are the soil, blondes the sun. You’re a redhead—every fiery, inflaming thing in between. You’re sheer magnificence.”

“I’m merely suggesting discretion and safety.” Briar stood her ground. “You’re a father. And you’re worth more than a series of half-hearted affairs.”

“There’s only one person at this court I want looking at me, Briar. There’s only one stare that matters. There’s only one I care about.”

For the life of me, I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Stunned, she reexamined the space, her eyes tripping across every furnishing. Every pot of color, every textile. Flamboyance be damned, I coveted my privacy. Having this woman here peeled another layer from me. For devil’s sake, I shuffled my feet like an antsy juvenile. I begged like one, too. “Stay,” I said, the word raw on my tongue.

“I see you. I see your resilience and strength of will. I see your determination and tenacity. I see your desire for control and your longing to dance. I see your integrity and daring, even when every other fool in a packed room fails to. I see it all, and I want it all, for you’ve bewitched me out of my wicked fucking mind.”

“You broke my rules,” I said. “Now you’re in my head like a verse and a curse. You’re a plague and a fantasy. You’re there when I’m tossing and turning in bed, twisting the sheets into a heated mess. It’s you who I picture moaning beneath me, above me, in front of me. I’ve pumped my cock to those desires, and I’ll keep doing so until long after you leave this place. I won’t stop until you’ve drained me dry.” The humid words rose from my mouth. “I won’t stop until I’m so lost in your memory, your hand will tingle whilst I come.”

“You’re the one targeting me now,” I confessed. “You’re every bitter and euphoric feeling I have. You’re in every word I speak, every move I make. All of it is you. Whatever happens from now on, you will be my ecstasy and my downfall. “And that face of yours. How I’d like to twist it in a thousand ways, in the ink of this room. My body wants to tear your body apart, to make you sing and sigh, to fill you with incoherent noises.” On a sweetly erotic impulse, I took her hand and kissed the inside of her palm. “Say you want that, as much as I want to give it to you. Either that—” I lifted my head, leaned in, and husked against her trembling mouth, “—or stop me.”

I moved nearer, fusing us together, my pulse on hers. “Dance with me.” Her gaze clung to mine, anchoring there. “We already did.” “Nay, sweeting. We haven’t.” Not the way I intended.

She kept still, trembling as if on a precipice, expecting to be caught. And oh, but I would catch her. This woman didn’t know the half of it.

For this desire felt honest and difficult, this privilege temporary.

I need you. I resent you. I envy you. I crave you. I miss you. I want you.

“Look at me, sweet thorn.” And when I did, his expression halted my fingers. “I want to see your body. I want every beguiling part of you on my mouth. But most of all …” His breath sailed across my lips. “I want to see every truth about you—everything raw and real. I want you to destroy me.” He ducked his head and met my gaze. “Show me those lovely secrets, and I promise, I’ll honor them.”

“Ah, ah, ah.” Poet lifted my knuckles to his lips, then spoke against them while staring at me. “Never those.”

From behind, a masculine timbre slid through the darkness. “Come here.”

“What are we doing?” I asked, helpless. “What’s happening between us? Are we fools?”

“Come. Here. Briar.”

every person at court wanted the jester like this, looking at them with a frenetic light that bordered on possessive.

That look was mine. He was mine.

“Are you wet?”

are you serious?

Wicked fuck,” he rasped. “Feel that?”

Seasons almighty. That sort of kneeling, I don’t mind. Ever.

Her own name dangled from my tongue, but I kept it in, kept it close, because she was mine. And I was hers. All hers.

Yet it was more than that. I wanted to make her happy.

“Hmm,” I cooed. “Something amiss, Highness? You look flushed. Did someone fondle you inappropriately? Tell this jester at once, and the perpetrator shall endure a slow and agonizing castration.”

I gazed at her, warmth flooding my chest. She wanted to help.

Seasons almighty. At this rate, the woman would slay me.

“Princess, I never wanted to kneel before a ruler so badly in my life. My mouth has been parched for you. It’s never been that way with anyone.”

What could I say? This besotted jester couldn’t keep his hands off this magnetic princess. In an alternate reality, I would stay with her so we could take a victory lap, bring the fantasy to life for a second time. More innocent books would plummet. The entire library would quake off its hinges. And once we had our clothes back in order, she and I could investigate together.

She had the glow of someone recently and repeatedly licked, rubbed, and sated. Her jester did that. His tongue would do it a million times over, until his knees embedded into the floor.

Fluid splashed onto my sleeve. I jolted as wine overflowed from the cup in my left hand, whilst the tipped flagon arrested in my right poured claret liquid all over the fucking place.

Oh, I knew other ways to make those teeth sink into that lip. However, that was the bloody problem. I had been mentally stripping her to the point where I’d forgotten the vessel in my grasp, and now the page closest to me hastened to wipe the mess.

To their applause, she beamed. To that beam, my chest warmed.