A House of Cloaks & Daggers (The Gift War #1)

31. Yes… Please

Chapter thirty-one

Yes… Please

I f Wren protested, I didn’t hear it. If he left the room, I didn’t see it.

There was a whisper of movement, the swish of Morgoya’s gown and clink of heels against the floor, and the echo of the doors as they closed.

Then my heart, pounding in my chest like a war drum, as I watched Lucais’s eyes slide down my neck, over the buttons of my shirt, to where the ends of my hair were sitting in tangled curls over my chest. The silence was tense, like the strain of a match scraping against the side of the box, only moments away from catching ablaze. I could feel the hairs on my arms beginning to raise, rough against my silk sleeves, and the heat growing between my hips, resistant to my thighs pressing together to squash it.

I cursed the House, cursed the absence of underwear, cursed the whole of Faerie, and yet I remained in Lucais’s lap. I was too scared to stay but far too curious to leave.

With deliberate, steady leisure, he brushed my hair over my shoulder with the backs of his hands. The curls dragged over my breasts with featherlight pressure—only enough to send a small wave of dull, aching pleasure rolling out across my body—but it was his eyes, his focus on the shape of my nipples poking through the white silk as hard as stone, and the dark satisfaction in his gaze that undid me.

I bit back a small whimper, half desire and half desperation, as his throat bobbed, and he looked up at me again.

Lucais dragged a hand down his face and held it up between us, studying it as if it belonged to someone else. “If my hands ever go anywhere you don’t want them to,” he said, voice low and thick, “then you have my absolute permission to slap me.”

Pressing my lips together, I shook my head and writhed in his lap, trying to avoid the inevitable as I felt the wetness pooling between my thighs. The mating bond was stretched between us, taut and ready to snap, but it was also as thick as a cloud of heady smoke, drawing me towards him like I was suffocating, and he was the only source of air.

“What do you need, Aura?” he pressed, keeping his hands still. “Would you like to leave?”

I shook my head again because I didn’t know. Every part of my body was suddenly aching with borderline ecstatic tension, electrified by Lucais’s proximity, and his hands hadn’t been nearly as close or rough or greedy as some unruly and absolutely shameful part of me wanted them to be.

“Why will it be stronger?” I breathed, inhaling the scent of a bonfire so realistic that I could have been choked by it. His throat worked, and I could see the blood pounding through his veins, the barely restrained tightness in his neck as he bent to rest his forehead against mine. My eyes shuttered, trying to contain the explosion of lust-induced fog in my head. “What has to…settle?”

I knew very well that I had to settle down, for starters, but I didn’t seem able to do that, so I was hoping for another option. An off switch. Or maybe a really strong and off-putting cologne. Absentmindedly, I wondered if Faerie had anything equivalent to a skunk, and if Lucais would agree to being drenched in its scent for a while—just until I got my thoughts under control again.

“Maybe some space would be best for us,” he whispered, even as his hand slid up to cradle the side of my face, and he traced the length of my cheekbone with his nose.

“Haven’t you had enough space?” I asked boldly. I couldn’t stop myself.

He made a strangled noise, half-sigh and half-moan. “I haven’t been thinking. I’m not thinking clearly. You really don’t have to feel obligated to—to respond.”

High Mother spare me . I was going to spontaneously combust.

I touched the tip of my nose to his, the softest caress, and inhaled another unwieldy dose of him. His lips were so close to mine that I could almost taste them again, and I knew I wanted to—hadn’t I already decided that I wanted to?—but I was caught in a whirlpool, flailing halfway between fate and reality.

Don’t do it don’t do it don’t do it—

I brushed my mouth against his, a magnetic force tugging us together, and felt the warmth of his lips spilling out across my entire body like a dam bursting in the summer. The ache between my hips throbbed, a contraction of building pressure desperately begging to be released as his lips parted to let me inside, and his tongue stroked mine with slow, deliberate hesitation.

Each part of the kiss was prolonged, giving us both time to change our minds or commit the taste to memory. Lucais’s tongue lazily caressed the edge of my teeth, the roof of my mouth, twirling around mine in the steps of a perfectly rehearsed dance. Every stroke had me weakening, heating up, and dripping.

Tentatively, I explored the sharp point of his elongated canines with my tongue, and a shudder came over me as he angled his head to allow me deeper into his mouth.

Hands fisting in my hair, he pulled me in tighter until I was straddling his lap, and the arm he wrapped around my waist brushed against my bare skin as the silk slipped and slid over my body. My breasts felt heavy and full, and when he bit my lower lip and dragged his teeth across it with a soft and breathless moan, a stab of impatient pleasure tightened my nipples.

I braced my hands against the flat surface of the wooden chair so I wouldn’t totally collapse onto him and rocked my hips against his lap, against the part of his body that had hardened like stone and began pulsing underneath me.

Lucais pulled back, panting, and gazed at me with heavy, half-lidded eyes. “Aura,” he crooned, the slightest hint of warning in his voice. For both of us.

This is not supposed to happen .

The High King had commanded the others to leave the room in order to give me space to clear my head, not for whatever I was on the brink of doing now that we were alone.

Nerves throbbing, my mind one thought away from madness, I rested my hands on his shoulders as I arched my back and tilted my face up towards the ceiling, taking a gasp of fresh air from above. I just needed to breathe …

Lucais groaned as if he was in pain, and I looked down to find his eyes locked on my breasts again, the peaks of my nipples at eye level. “You’re going to have to slap me in a minute,” he said roughly, without moving his gaze.

“I’m not going to slap you,” I whispered, because it was true.

His eyes darkened until they were nearly black as he tested my word, holding my gaze a prisoner of his own as his hands trailed up my thighs and over my hips. The silk between us felt like sandpaper as his fingers moved over my stomach, every touch a little more than the last until they were curved beneath my breasts.

He finally glanced down, his admiration like a physical caress, and I gasped quietly as Lucais brushed his thumbs over my nipples, watching my reaction with intense interest. A small moan reverberated in the back of my throat as my hips moved again, grinding the overstimulated bundle of nerves at my centre against his erection. The sensation spread like wildfire throughout my body, and the low ache between my legs demanded more.

Lucais released a breath that sounded like a growl and plucked the first button on my shirt open with a single hand, and then the next, until my upper body was completely exposed to him, the shirt hanging loosely at my sides. Eyes glazing over with heated desire, he rubbed his jaw and swore under his breath, and then threw his head back, hard, into the high-backed chair.

God, I was sweating. I couldn’t feel it, couldn’t smell it, but I was so sure that I was sweating. It was so hot; I was burning up from the inside out.

The High King watched me, taking the view of my body in like an ocean sunset from a famed tourist vantage point, his eyes devouring me, his pulse quickening. I was so exposed, so vulnerable, but I felt so, so…

Safe.

Looking up at me from beneath dark lashes, his eyes sought my permission, which he was unequivocally granted.

Gently, he took one of my exposed nipples between his thumb and forefinger and pinched it, causing me to drive my hips against him in response. His fingers tightened, pulling and twisting harder each time, and then he bent his head forward, capturing my other side between his teeth, his breath scalding against my breast.

I gripped the back of his head with one hand, holding his face to my chest as he indulgently nipped and licked at me, threading my fingers through his dark curls. His tongue was so hot that it nearly burned as he stroked me with it, until his hand and mouth fell into a greedy rhythm that dragged shallow, sharp moans from the depths of my lungs.

Heat bloomed in my core, a tense and expectant desire tightening my lower belly, and I began to move against him in earnest, trying to ease the build up of pressure between my legs.

Lucais dropped his hand from my breast and wrapped it around my waist, rising from the chair in one fluid motion and pinning me down on the long table, his other hand laid flat against the wood beside my head. His mouth released me with one final, sharp tug of his teeth, accompanied by what could only be described as a hollow growl. He pulled back far enough to gauge my expression as his hand explored my body, travelling lower and lower until I could feel the heat of his palm right over my throbbing centre.

I trembled beneath him, breathing unsteadily as he cocked his head to the side and asked, “How would you feel if I touched you down here, Aura? Do you want me to?”

I couldn’t speak. I could only nod.

Lucais didn’t wait a second longer before he slid his hand beneath the waistband of my pants. His fingertips immediately slipped against my skin, hot and wet, and found their way to my clit, which he began to explore with demanding circular movements that sent pulses of pure bliss out across my body.

He bent his forehead to mine and groaned, the sound deep and raspy. “ Fuck. You’re this wet for me?” He sounded like he couldn’t believe it.

“You would have realised sooner—” I gasped, writhing against the table as his fingers dipped further down into the arousal pooling at my entrance. “If you’d stayed a little longer after kissing me these last few weeks.”

“Hmm,” he murmured, trailing his lips and tongue down the column of my throat and back. “Let me make it up to you.” He kissed me deeply while his hand gradually moved lower. “Do you want me inside of you, Aura?” he asked against the corner of my mouth. “Be a good girl and say please for me.”

I could feel his fingertips barely there, almost within reach, and a flare of pleasure shot out to meet them. “Yes,” I breathed, bucking my hips against his hand. “ Please .”

Lucais slipped two fingers inside of me, an expectant and ecstatic smile on his face, and I gasped in shock at the sudden fullness, rising from the table until I was halfway to sitting. His mouth found mine, and I held onto him with my arms around the back of his neck as he moved his fingers in and out, finding the perfect spot to touch, repeatedly, so deep inside me that his palm massaged my swollen ball of nerves. Each stroke of his hand and brush of his tongue felt like he was adding kindling to a fire that would eventually cause an explosion within me.

He moved his lips to my ear. “I want to taste you,” he said. “I love the way you smell right now, all hot and bothered and soaking with need, and I am fucking dying to know how you taste. Will you let me?”

Let him? I was practically begging for it. “Anything,” I answered, the word catching on a moan as he curled his fingers.

Carefully, he lowered me back onto the table until I was lying flat. I watched as he removed my pants, caught the nearly feral glimmer in his eyes as he appraised my body, stripped bare before him.

He bent to kiss me. My mouth first, where our tongues tangled and our teeth clashed, and then he made his way down my body, licking and suckling, his hands sliding along my sides as he lowered himself to one knee. His lips brushed my hip bone, his tongue caressed my inner thigh, and then Lucais grinned up at me wickedly as he spread my legs with his hands…

And buried his face between them.

We both moaned at the contact, and the vibrations of his sent an almost intolerable wave of pleasure skating through me. It was so intense that it bordered on pain.

His mouth was a welcome warmth as his tongue lapped up my arousal, sliding inside of me in long, languid motions and then circling my clit. After a few moments, he placed his hands on my hips, threw my legs over his shoulders, and tugged me further down the table as if he couldn’t get enough, couldn’t get close enough.

All I could see was the top of his head, black curls against dark skin against my body, and his large, strong hands gripping my thighs as his arms wrapped around from underneath and held me up to his face. The chair towered over us behind him—the same dark wood as the table beneath me—and I averted my eyes, idly blinking up at the rafters on the ceiling high above us as a destructive wave of pleasure built and built, threatening to utterly destroy me.

He heard my whimper and groaned in reply, a delicious sound that pushed me to the crest, and he rose to his feet, taking me with him, his face crushed against me. I shuddered, trying to hold back a scream as I came against his mouth so hard that I saw stars in my mind.

When I opened my eyes, I found him watching me, an atrociously self-satisfied smile in his own. And that look alone sent me over the edge again—or for longer, I wasn’t sure.

Lucais waited until I had stopped writhing and twitching before he softly lowered me back to the table, where the cold wood bit at my bare skin. My legs were shaking violently, and he smoothed his hands over them, tracing circles with his thumbs.

“You are the most perfect, exquisite thing,” he told me, and then a dazed look passed over his eyes. “Fuck. I’m never going to be able to sit here and want to eat anything else again.” He frowned as if he had only just realised that he had pinned me down on the dining table. I must have paled or ceased shaking, because his expression softened. “Aura?”

We were on the dining table, and neither of us cared.

It wasn’t supposed to be that easy—to want him in such a way, a man I barely knew. I could’ve sworn the stars were laughing in my face.

“If we do this,” I whispered, glancing at the very obvious and borderline intimidating size of his erection, “will it help? The bond, the scent—”

“Oh, for the High Mother’s sake, Aura. No.” Lucais’s eyes lightened, drilling into mine with sudden clarity. “You’re not doing this for that —” He broke off and muttered a filthy curse, shaking his head as he took his hands off me and ran them through his hair. “There is nothing you can do about this. I’m sorry if we made you believe otherwise.”

The heat fizzled out across my skin, and I gaped at him, momentarily lost for words. I reached for my shirt, pulling it closed around me, but the buttons were magically done up before my shaking fingers could find them. And then my pants were back on.

“I’m not—I’m not whoring myself out to the High King to try to save Faerie from another war,” I stammered, and I was amazed at how hard my voice was when the rest of my body felt like jelly.

His eyes narrowed. “No, that’s not what I meant. The timing is just…” He trailed off with a sigh.

“Time and place, right?” I snapped, scrambling to climb down from the table, fumbling for the sense of control that had been teased, taken, and thrown back at me. “You couldn’t have thought about that sooner?”

I recognised the look on his face.

Not quite embarrassment or regret, but—guilt. As if paying our debt to the stars went against some kind of moral instinct. As if we shouldn’t have acknowledged the debt in the first place.

I certainly shouldn’t have. God, I didn’t have to sleep with him to try to save his life .

I still hadn’t decided if it was worth saving, for crying out loud.

The High King could lie, and he might still turn a blind eye to the brutal torture of prisoners. For all I knew, that’s why the Oracle predicted it would happen to him in the future. Revenge! Did he have enemies? I didn’t know. I didn’t even know if he had any friends. I had questions—lots and lots of good, reasonable questions—that I hadn’t bothered to ask before I jumped into his lap and started purring beneath his touch like a cat. A sudden and intense wave of heat engulfed me from my head down to my toes, and I felt sick.

Mere moments before, I had been completely naked in front of him and had allowed him to possess my body so completely that it qualified as a religious experience, but he hadn’t removed a single item of his own clothing. Hadn’t shown me even a strip of his own skin.

I’d let my guard down, and the High King’s inner circle had started taking me apart piece by piece.

“Auralie,” Lucais called as I turned on my heels and stormed towards the doors. Tears burned behind my eyes. “Auralie, wait.”

Lucais was not my High King, so I ignored him and slammed the door behind me as I left the room and started my indignant march down the corridor.

I made it all of five steps.

“I see you finally decided to listen to me,” a dark voice purred from behind me.

Wren .