Trick (Foolish Kingdoms, #1)

by Natalia Jaster

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.”

Are you saying he hasn’t fucked you?

So you marked each other, after all,”

but I had to believe people could change if given the chance. I needed to believe that.

In every Season, contradictions existed. Savagery and beauty. Brutality and kindness. Pleasure and pain. Hate and love.

Me, the Fest Fool.

appointing more than one Fest Fool.

The people wanted two fools? We would give them two fools.

Like this, she dominated me. And like this, I violated every restriction she’d ever followed. Together, we smashed the rules to a fucking pulp.

I couldn’t tell whether this meant we were holding on or letting go.

And she knew. “This is …”

“Aye.”

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 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.

exposing the knob of her shoulder, sprinkled with freckles.

“You want something from me, don’t you?” “I do,” she confessed.

“Then take it, sweeting. Take what you want.”

Take what you want.

Dancing behind, fingers down my spine.

“Shh,” I implored, not truly meaning it.

“That’s it, Your Highness,” I encouraged. “Ride them like you rule them.”

If I never made anyone feel anything ever again, so be it. I’d made her feel this. Nothing else would outdo that.

“Who said you were done?”

I nipped her lobe and let my voice ooze like candle wax. “You’re going tell me what you want, and I’m going to oblige. I’m going to ruin your body with my mouth, tongue, and hands until you’re pent up, until the only thing your pussy craves is the part of me I haven’t given it yet. Then I’ll use this—” my free hand guided one of hers, bracing it against the solid width of my cock, “—to fill every wet edge inside you. I’ll use it to push your body beyond its limits, then shatter those limits to pieces.”

gonna or to

“I don’t think you’ll fit.”

We’ll make ourselves fit.”

And for a future queen, the jester would kneel.

More. Louder, sweeting.

Come here.

Face to face, skin on skin, level with one another, like equals.

I wanted Briar against a wall. I wanted her sprawled across a desk. I wanted her astride my cock, riding me on her throne. I wanted Briar in her bed and in my bed. But this patch of grass had to suffice. Thrusting into her, I lived the fantasy.

Her expression pleaded with me. Finish this. Her ragged features begged. Never finish this.

This was how it felt like to fuck someone I loved.

I’d given her every bit of myself, stripped myself raw in nearly every way. All except one.

Quietly, I spoke against her pulse and told her my name. Not Poet. Not the Court Jester of Spring. My real name.

His name poured into me like melted honey.

letting this final secret envelope me. His name. I felt it like a touch, like a confession, like a promise.

“I feel in love.”

The jester lay naked,

I stored the knowledge inside, as though it were a keepsake clasped within a locket. Yet always, he would remain as I’d known him. My jester. My Poet. Mine. All mine.

Yes. Show me.

“You’re beautiful.”

just like we’ve always collided yet managed to fit. We’ll make ourselves fit.

Come for me.

It had never been like that with anyone. Briar had wiped my past clean. Only she existed now.

Like a trickster, she fingered the inclines of my hips.

Seasons no longer came between us. But that left three-hundred and fifty-three other conflicts to deal with.

Pain rippled through me. I balanced myself beside her, wanting to take the words back even as I spoke them. “I’ll be your Court Jester. I’ll entertain and advise. I’ll gain countless fans and foes, as befits my station. And on some fateful day, I’ll watch you marry an archetypal suitor with immaculate teeth and table manners.

“I don’t want to conceal what we have,” Briar persisted. “Not again, and not in my court. It may take years, but someday the people will accept it.”

I can’t have my stamina depleted by making you come every night.”