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“Life is hard. But during the kiss, my cock was not.”
“What precisely do you have against fuck? ’Tis a lovely word. I do have a fetish for lovely words.”
“Allow me,” I volunteered. “The phrase you’re looking for is a meaningless fuck.” She stiffened, her pupils dilating with offense. “A meaningless bout of carnal relations.” “That’s one annotated mouthful to describe sex. Likewise, I would argue that orgasms are never meaningless. For a start, they put you in a good mood.”
“Do you know the difference between a hard kiss and sweet fuck? One is deep, the other is long. A nobleman will give you a choice between the two, but a jester will give you both.” My voice burrowed into the gritty crawlspace left between us. “And he’ll do it at the same time.”
“You’ve been behaving in my absence? Staying away from suitors? Avoiding scandals?” “Yes. Yes. Yes.” “Then I should have raised you better,” she quipped, though a hint of truth dangled from her words.
“You are a wordsmith, therefore a liar. I know what your tongue is capable of.” And I knew an opportunity when I heard it. I prowled forward, lowered my voice, and let the words drizzle down her skin. “Now, now,” I husked. “You haven’t begun to learn what my tongue can do.”
Guilt flickered across her face. “I-I apologize. I shouldn’t have imposed on your absence.” “Hmm. Repenting for the intrusion whilst suspecting me of being a criminal and holding a weapon to my cock? Such irony. You truly are from Autumn.”
Who did this to you?
“My opinion? A fool is a man who believes glory can be found at the tip of a sword instead of on the tip of his tongue. ’Tis a person who judges with their eyes closed. ’Tis people who invent aberrations from speculation and rumors. ’Tis bred from ignorance. That is life’s cruel trick.
“Bundleberries.”
I shall only say this. Had we been alone in the cottage, that night would have turned out differently. Had the princess given me a trace of permission, the counter would have been swiped of its dishes. Had she given the slightest indication, she would have been hauled off the ground—and that fucking water glass would have shattered to the floor.
“Oh, fuck my permission,” Poet hissed, then rounded on me and whisked a finger against my lips. “We’re finished talking, sweeting. So very fucking finished.” Then he grabbed my face—and his mouth slammed against mine.
“What are you doing?” “Everything,” the jester husked. “And if you wish, everything I wanted to do to you last night.”
“Do not patronize me.” “Please,” he flouted. “’Tis my craft to patronize everybody.”
And in my weakness, I found a new type of power—the means to shut him up.
“You’re playing a treacherous game, Princess.” The response trembled out of Briar like a small flame, one that could detonate into an inferno at any moment. “Then play it with me,” she dared. Wicked. Hell.
Briar gave a cry, the sound fraying across my tongue. A curse strayed across my tongue but never made it out, for my mouth clung to hers. Instead, I chased that sound with more punctures of my hips, hitting her from below and tasting her moans from above.
I could kiss her until we both passed out. I could make her come whilst doing so.
Then I wanted to have her all over again. I wanted to make her pleasure my sole ambition, to fit myself inside her until she branded my skin.
The web tightened before my eyes. Eliot, in love with Poet but thinking the jester was in love with the Seven. Cadence, in love with Poet but thinking the jester was in love with Eliot. Posy and Vale, in love with each other—and with Cadence. Me, in love with nobody. And Poet, in love with himself.
“I’ll lose my valuable testes, and you’ll lose your virtuous prestige, if they find you here. Now jump and moan.” “I beg your pardon?”
“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.”
“I won’t stop until I’m so lost in your memory, your hand will tingle whilst I come.”
This was wanting
Emboldened by this, I flicked out my tongue, licking the tip of his snaggletooth. Victory. Poet hissed. The sound came out feral, as though he’d felt the sensation much lower.
Seasons almighty. That sort of kneeling, I don’t mind. Ever.
“Aye, My Thorn?” “If someone sees, I shall tell them you abducted me.” “Be my guest,” I encouraged. “Now then, what are you meddling in down here? Tell me or I’ll continue to violate you.”
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.
“Poet, I believe from the bottom of my heart in what you’re doing. I’m on your side, but you’re looking at this as a father. I must look at this as a Royal. I can’t shirk what my ancestors put in place.”
“Stop talking down to me, Poet. I’m not a lost child who will never grasp the difference between left and right. I’m not Nicu!”
“Do I not appeal to you? Because you appeal to me, sweeting. You have no idea how a hairy man violates me in dreams.”
“The princess was under my spell.” Poet raised an eyebrow, his voice cutting to the quick as he scrutinized the room. “And don’t each of you know what that fuckery is like.”
“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.”
“Their body is their blood. Their blood is their family,” I translated. “In and of itself, that’s an irrefutable fact.
“And impressive, especially when she’s ruined,” Cadence finished. “It sounds like quite the spicy enemies-to-lovers story. I can respect a princess who beds the most provocative trickster at court, then has the spine to smack me. It actually makes me tolerate you more.”
“No.” Balancing on my tiptoes, I brushed his lips with mine. “I sound like your friend.” “That, most of all,” he whispered, grinning and kissing me back.
“That’s it, Your Highness,” I encouraged. “Ride them like you rule them.”
“I don’t think you’ll fit.” My lips crooked against her lobe. “I’m flexible by trade. You’re industrious by nature. We’ll make ourselves fit.”
“Whatever it takes, you’re not leaving this place without shouting. Because you see, my standards for your pleasure are rather high. It won’t be enough to give you bliss. Nay, I want you to keep that bliss. I’ll give you that hard kiss and sweet fuck I’d once promised. And I’ll use both to make you come so wetly, so loudly—” my lips pressed a kiss to her lobe, “—you’ll feel and hear yourself for days.”
And for a future queen, the jester would kneel.
She felt mesmerizing, sexual, powerful. She felt like my destruction.
“And I can look out for myself.” “I know you can,” I assured her. “That doesn’t mean I won’t take up where you left off and do damage to anyone who so much as sneezes in your direction. That’s what allies do, if not lovers.”
