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She had a voice that rose from the earth, the way I’d imagine a root would sound if it could talk.
“Aye,” I stated. “You will.” Because whatever barriers we confronted, they
I won’t be one of a dozen.
Yet what she failed to grasp was that none of my lovers had ever witnessed me uncensored the way she had.
No one else had met my son.
predator wasn’t one of them. I didn’t lure unwilling partners to my bed.
My heart thought, I’ve had what you desire. I’ve tasted his tongue and wrapped myself around his body. I’ve felt the rhythmic pulse of his erection against me, and I’ve wanted more ever since, wanted it so badly I shook from the need of it. And I still want it, still envision it, still crave it. And none of this was supposed to happen, and I can’t talk to you about it, and I’m sorry for stealing him from you, if only briefly. Please. Forgive me.
Our eyes stumbled across one another like thrusts of lightning, sudden and perilous. In those fleeting seconds, our gazes held fast. They collided, like fists and lips.
I didn’t feel bereft of things I couldn’t name. I didn’t feel the sting of disappointment or the embers of jealousy.
“I—rescue men all the time.”
“It took me longer to brave those stairs than it took you,” he confided. “In my humble fool’s opinion, you don’t know your own strength. For pity’s sake, look at what you did to the urn. Loutish princess.”
Poet. I shouldn’t. I can’t do this. So stop me. Please, just stop me.
Green eyes clicked toward me. They flashed, then gleamed with elation. I wanted to tuck that visual in a box for safekeeping, to gaze at whenever I felt like it.
“She’s developed a case of the naughties, has she?”
It would be easy to stop and wait for him, to allow this sinner to reach me, to let him hoist me onto the well, so that my legs spread around his waist and my skirt rucked to my hips. The prospect was so tempting, that it physically hurt. Poet must have seen something cleave through my face, because he paused. From across the rim, he raised his brows in nefarious inquiry. It felt wrong to shake my head, but I did. All the while, I gripped the ledge, to prevent myself from grabbing him. And all the while, his own fingers curled, nails digging into the stones until his veins rose. “No kisses, no
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As I watched, I felt a pair of eyes on me. They breached the distance like a physical touch, skimming over my profile until my flesh prickled.
I knew that wish. I’d met that child.
My mouth parted, though no sound came out, because I couldn’t let it. Yet that didn’t matter. Everything loud occurred within me as Poet’s hand scorched my flesh.
The possibility of him whipping his finger in and out of me, with everyone none the wiser, was so tangible I felt its penetration.
When the princess didn’t restrain herself, she still moved with a clunky lack of rhythm, but her awful coordination hardly mattered. For the dancing made her happy, and that happiness made her the brightest fucking thing in this garden.
Enthralling woman. Hypnotized jester.
I still tingled with the urge to fit them inside her.
the end of an era as we traveled a path back to ranks and precedents.
And if there was another reason I intended to decline Cadence’s offer, I’d rather not dwell on it.
We were in my chambers, on my bed, fun-drunk, and masked in darkness.
brunettes are the soil, blondes the sun. You’re a redhead—every fiery, inflaming thing in between. You’re sheer magnificence.”
You’re so eager to slut-shame people for yearnings you have no experience with, for indulging in the basics of human nature, which you would call voracious and trivial.
“I’m talking about you. I’m saying you should stop doing what you do with people.”
Briar hadn’t been criticizing me for enjoying sex. She’d been worried for me.
“I’ve engaged myself with others, mostly men. They’re safer. As for the rest, I’m cautious and creative. Bodies—hands and tongues and props—can work around the obvious, achieving heights whilst still partially dressed. There are plenty of ways to know pleasure without it amounting to fucking. And there’s rapture in restraint.”
“It happened, but it didn’t go as far as you expect. My fingers were the culprits, not my cock. We’ve never shared anything more.”
“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.”
“I refuse to be a conquest. You’ve had scores of visitors here.”
I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“I’ve never had anyone else in this room.”
“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.”
“I won’t stop until I’m so lost in your memory, your hand will tingle whilst I come.”
My body wants to tear your body apart, to make you sing and sigh, to fill you with incoherent noises.”
Her moan shattered between my open lips and chipped my soul to pieces.
The jester poised himself against the aperture in my undergarments. His gaze locked on mine, and with languid motions, he slung his waist forward.
Poet pulled back again to watch me. His features cinched—harsh, pained, possessive.
Spent, I reached up to hold his jaw. And at once, he slowed his movements, his waist and cock ebbing to a halt.
The kohl under his lashes crimped. Those eyes flared through the half-light. Whatever he saw, felt, or thought, I couldn’t say. But something in his expression transformed as he watched me coast back to earth.
Despite what we’d done, he touched me in a different way now—obsessed, entranced, almost uncertain.
“Nay, sweeting,” he whispered. “Just you.”
I could rule a nation. And I could do this to him. Yet I could not say which felt more powerful.
I need you. I resent you. I envy you. I crave you. I miss you. I want you.
“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.”
Caught in the aroma, I stepped nearer. The pad of my finger extended toward one of the rose spikes.
