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And if there was another reason I intended to decline Cadence’s offer, I’d rather not dwell on it. And if that reason had to do with a certain redhead to whom no one could compare, who I couldn’t evict from my head, and whose skin I craved like a drug, I certainly wasn’t in the mood to analyze it.
“You’re a thorn in my side. Also, you’re loyal, courageous, and compassionate. What’s more, brunettes are the soil, blondes the sun. You’re a redhead—every fiery, inflaming thing in between. You’re sheer magnificence.”
“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.”
Why, you wonder? That’s easy. For the life of me, I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“Stay,” I said, the word raw on my tongue. Briar shook her head and pleaded, “Why are you doing this?” “Because I lack the strength not to.” “Poet—” “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.”
“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.” A strangled noise squeezed from Briar’s lips. “You’re the one targeting me now,” I confessed.
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“How I’d love taste your pussy and fuck you tenderly.”
“I thought I was your target.” Poet leaned down and scraped his incisors along my ear. “You still are.” Then his mouth blew into the shell. “Every. Single. Part.”
Then I realized something with a measure of disappointment. He hadn’t orgasmed with me. At some point, my legs had fallen from around Poet, but I moved to encircle him once more, to give back what he gave. As I started to wiggle my sodden core against his cock, Poet’s hoarse groan accompanied the shake of his head. “Nay, sweeting,” he whispered. “Just you.”
How I loved wiping that mouth clean of mockery. How I enjoyed that my touch could do him this harm. I could rule a nation. And I could do this to him. Yet I could not say which felt more powerful.
“Ten minutes hereafter, I shall have you moaning.”
“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.”
From my seat on the dais, I squeezed my drink. My chest burned with desire, teemed with pride, and stung with envy. Others wanted him, but this jester was mine.
As he passed behind me, his silken voice brushed my ear. “Leave your chamber unlocked tonight.”
and exposed as a wound. I took tentative steps forward. “You’re dismantling all my assumptions.” “Aye,” he agreed again, prowling my way. “And you’re ruining all my plans.” “Breaking down the walls.” “Burning them to cinders.”
That look was mine. He was mine.
“That’s right.” And this time instead of asking, he whispered, “I’m going to touch you now.” “You are touching me.” “Nay, Briar. I haven’t begun yet.”
“I could devour you senseless,” I swore whilst drizzling a finger between her collarbones. “I could open you up, right here against these books.”
“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.”
That evening, I dressed to slay.
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.
When anger came out and drew words like swords, so did the truth.
case you were wondering, no one cares for your snide and petty remarks. They’re about as valuable as your simpering, and I’m tired of hearing both. If you cannot say anything without due respect, then do your work, act like the lady you’re supposed to be, and keep your bitchy mouth shut!”
Poet was going to murder the guard. I fantasized about it, too.
Nicu extended a finger and traced each wet path. “You’re raining.” I’m crying because there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.
I had wanted to snarl at anyone who so much as looked at the princess with judgment or hostility, and I’d come close to acting on that.
He didn’t drive me to fury and frustration. He didn’t humble me. He didn’t stir my blood with his moans. He didn’t inspire me to thoughts I’d never had, to actions I never considered myself capable of. He didn’t smell of tart apples. He didn’t have hair so red it glowed like a bonfire. He didn’t collect illuminated manuscripts. He didn’t spend hours in the library until ink stained his fingers. He didn’t have a chin that crinkled when he was upset. He didn’t make my son smile. He didn’t alter the speed of my pulse—then shatter it to fucking pieces. He wasn’t her. No one else would ever be her.
Hellfire, she looked exquisite when inflamed, not to mention visibly primed to kill someone.
Briar extended a hand, her palm on a dangerous course toward my chest, or toward that beating nuisance inside my chest. If her hand landed there, it would go through my skin and find what it was searching for. Then she would know it belonged to her.
If something happens to me … If anything happens to you … Crimson would pool across the floor. Hearts would be ripped from chests. My daggers would maim and nail bodies to the wall for target practice. That was assuming I showed mercy. No one would be safe from me if they touched her.
As for my son, retribution would know no ends. I’d maul and shave the flesh from every soul who got in my way. Carnage would litter the halls like roadkill. What’s more, this court would be reduced to rubble, torn from its foundation, and everyone who’d survived my wrath would be buried alive beneath it.
If you want what’s mine, you’ll have to kill me first. That is, if I haven’t extracted your heart by then. And if you do take him anyway, my ghost will sever this world in half getting him back. Don’t you know that, sweeting?
“Hello, sweeting. I think we’ve been caught.”
“Tell me, Court Idiot. In which manner would you like to die for stealing from a king?” Poet cocked his head. “You’ll let me choose?” “I shall let you choose.” “Excellent. I’d prefer death by old age.”
“Sweeting, if the princess doesn’t want to be touched—” he increased the pressure on the guard’s trachea and enunciated, “—you do not touch her.”
“You could have snapped that man’s neck.” “If he’d bruised a single inch of your flesh, I would have.
“And you’re hurt.” “I’m inconvenienced.”
If you didn’t exist, then someday those feelings might grow. But not once have I been torn or doubted for whom my heart pumps, however futile.”
“The greatest courage a person can have is to love another, for there are only two outcomes. Either the love lasts, and our lives are compromised, or it doesn’t, and our lives are emptied. Either way, we suffer more than we celebrate. I’ve enjoyed suffering with you. We are a tale for campfires.” His mouth descended, pressing flush and hot against my own. “That is all. That is everything.”
“Which means the hour is precious. If this is the only place we can happen, I’ll take every drop of it.”
She’s sitting on me, facing me astride my lap, her lovely wet cunt coating my aching cock as it pitches into her, and I’m going higher, deeper with each pass. And it’s such a poignant, passionate, and privileged place to be.”
“Should she wish it, I shall do this to her forever, even as the walls crumble around us and the land burns to ash. I will stay with this woman, follow this princess into hell, and keep touching this future queen the whole time. I will keep wanting her, keep sparring with her, and keep coming back to her.” Poet whispers, “Right now, I’m loving her … because I do, and have, and will.” My hands shook as they clasped his face. “Poet.” “I love her,” he hissed, capturing my mouth.
I loved him. Seasons save me, I did. I loved this devilish man so much it hurt. He was everything that enflamed and emboldened me. He was my craving and my comfort, my abandon and my bedrock, utterly out of control yet safely rooted to the ground.
“I’ll be fine. Now get the fuck out of here, darling Briar.”
Gasps broke through the tent. I stilled, then caught her face and kissed her the fuck back.
It wasn’t nearly enough. It would never be enough. I wanted her breath, wanted the taste of her branded on my tongue. I wanted her cries, wanted every sound this woman was capable of uttering. I wanted her loud and soft. I wanted her ruined, burned, and lost. I wanted to step into that inferno with her.
but I moved slowly, needing to work for this, to reveal each piece of her skin like a forbidden secret. This had to take effort, to be earned.
As long as I was near her, this beautiful body would never know pain, only pleasure.
“That’s it, Your Highness,” I encouraged. “Ride them like you rule them.”
She stood naked with only the weed circlet around her head. So fucking ethereal. So fair, this woman of Autumn. My sharp lady. My Briar.
