Chapter 18
Eighteen
SENAN
I wake to Allette beside me, her soft exhales tickling my bare chest as she watches me through heavy-lidded eyes. Is this a dream? If so, I hope to never wake.
She smiles and shifts closer, her arm draped across my stomach squeezing tighter.
This is real. She is real.
“When I promised to bring you to the seaside, this is hardly what I had in mind,” I whisper, my mouth dry as sand.
“I think it’s quaint,” she says with another sleepy smile, snuggling closer.
She would find the silver lining in this dark situation. What would I do without her?
Her lips trail kisses across my chest, up my throat. Even on my deathbed, my body stirs for her.
“As much as I’d love to take this further, my brother could return at any moment.”
“He won’t be back for ages. He stayed in Kumulus to search for Jeston.”
“How did you get here, then?”
“Bilson.”
At least one of my guards turned out to be a decent male. I pull my love so she’s draped over me like a blanket. “Have you been here long?”
“I don’t know. I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow.” Her fingers trail along my ribs, spreading chills across my abdomen. “What do we do now?”
I run my finger down the slope of her neck to the strap of her shift. If Aeron isn’t coming back… “I can think of a few things.”
She smacks my chest playfully. “I meant after we save your little brother and get the antidote.”
Oh, right. Let me see…
Returning to this realm was never part of the plan, so I haven’t thought about what would happen if we ever found ourselves back here. “We cannot stay in Kumulus.”
“I know.”
“We’re right on the border with Stratiss. I imagine Aeron would welcome us into his kingdom. That might be our best option.” The farther we are from Boris, the better.
“As long as I’m with you, I don’t care where we are in this realm or any other.”
I know exactly what she means. Happiness can be found anywhere if you’re with the people you love. I’ll have Allette by my side and be able to meet with Aeron from time to time. Rhainn would keep my secret, and perhaps at some point in the future I could even see Kyff again.
Assuming Aeron manages to find Jeston and the princess.
I don’t want to think about that right now. Not when my girl is in my arms. I need something positive to keep me going. “If you could live anywhere, where would you choose?”
“Let me see,” she muses, a smile in her voice as she tucks her cool fingers beneath me. “What about a house on the coast where we could walk along the cliffs and listen to the waves?”
That sounds terrible.
Being so high up without a pair of wings to catch us if a gale knocked us off the cliff? No, thank you. But if it’s what my girl wants, I will do my best to make it a reality. There are plenty of small coastal villages in Stratiss that would make perfect hideouts. Who knows? If I manage to get some sunlight, perhaps I’ll even regain access to my magic.
Allette and I make plans as though we have time, as though the entire world isn’t about to come crashing down on our heads. Plans that cease when my stomach decides to embarrass me with a guttural howl.
“You must be starving.” She throws the coverlet aside, revealing long, bare legs that I’d love to have wrapped around me. “I’ll find us something to eat.”
As famished as I am, I say, “I’d be more than content to have you for breakfast.”
Her bubble of laughter is as effervescent as her smile. “Says the man who can barely lift his head.”
I tap my fingers against my smirking lips. “Sit down right here, and I won’t have to move at all.”
“Senan Vale!”
I love it when my girl acts scandalized, but I can see that wicked mind of hers working. “Get yourself some breakfast and we can try it out.”
Laughing, she throws a plain gray muslin dress over her shift and slips on a pair of stockings with her worn boots. When she leaves, I hear the turn of the key in the lock, as if she’s keeping me locked away, her very willing prisoner.
Turns out I don’t mind being caged nearly as much when Allette is my jailer.
Ten minutes later, my girl returns carrying two plates laden with sausages, bacon, and ham—basically an entire pig’s worth of breakfast, along with eggs and thick-cut toast.
I give the closet and chest of drawers a cursory glance. “Do you have more men hidden in here that I’m not aware of? That’s enough food to feed an army.”
“Very funny.” Her skirts billow when she sinks down next to me. “You’ve been so picky lately; I wanted you to have options.”
I’ve only been “picky” because the food in the human realm never had much flavor. The smell of all that bacon grease is making my mouth water.
We eat as if we haven’t been fed in months, washing it all down with a bottle of wine.
Allette dabs her lips with the corner of her serviette, peeking at me from beneath her lashes, and then glancing back down at our empty plates, a delicate pink stain washing over her cheeks. “So… The position you mentioned. How does it work?”
My girl has been thinking about my proposition while we dined, has she?
My body stirs, and although I still don’t feel quite like myself, I’m not going to let a little thing like being on the brink of death keep me from missing an opportunity to show her this.
“I lay down nice and comfortable, so you have no worries about me straining myself. Then you spread those pretty thighs on either side of my head and feed me your delicious cunt.”
She launches her serviette at my head. “You have the wickedest mind.”
“You have no idea.” If she knew all the positions I’d love to have her in, the ways I long to take her, she’d probably keel over.
With her cheeks and neck the color of a blush rose, she twists her hands in her lap. “Wouldn’t I smother you?”
“What a way to go.”
She smacks my shoulder far too hard, clearly forgetting that I am a dying man. “You’re mad.”
Mad about her.
Now that this is on my mind, I can’t seem to get it out. “What if I tell you that it’s my dying wish?”
She lifts her eyes to heaven. “You’re not going to die.”
I will if Jeston cannot acquire the antidote or if the antidote doesn’t work. Not that I say any of that aloud. Wouldn’t want to piss all over her garden of hope.
I reach down to adjust myself in my trousers. The more I think about it, the harder I get. This is the perfect way to distract ourselves from the direness of our situation. I slide a hand down to her ankle, then slip it beneath her skirts, tracing and trailing until I reach the lace along her undergarments. “Should we take these off? Just in case.”
She lifts her hips, allowing me to slide the fabric down her thighs, all the way to her ankles. Once her undergarments are gone, I help her straddle my hips. “That’s my girl. Now, get up here and grab the headboard with both hands.”
Slowly she complies, her face the perfect shade of pink as she climbs higher, until her skirts fall around my neck. “Up you come. Lift onto your knees.”
I grip her skirts, gathering them so I can slip beneath, urging her higher still, until her knees are on either side of my head. “Sit down.”
“I don’t think?—”
“I said sit down .” I grip her backside with both hands and drag her onto my face. A moan eclipses her gasp when I fasten my lips around her clit and drench my tongue in her slick heat. What a way to go is right. This is exactly what I needed, to taste her. To consume her. To fuck her with my tongue.
The way she grinds herself drives me to the brink. I match her pace, licking and sucking and losing myself. Soaking in her heat. Her scent. Her taste.
Not only my dying wish, but my living wish too.
All my wishes from now until forever.
To have this, to have her, to bring her to the edge of climax, teasing, tasting, pulling back when her thighs begin to tremble against my head. Smiling against swollen flesh at her frustrated curse before going back for more. Harder. Faster.
“Senan…”
She’s close. Teetering on the edge. Tipping over. Falling.
Squeezing. Pulsing. Fracturing.
Drenching.
I continue working her until she falls away, rolling off me onto the mattress, gasping.
I drag my sleeve over my mouth, the sweet taste of her still clinging to my tongue. “I can die happy now.”
“You think I’ll let you die after that? You’ve never been more useful to me.”
Two quick raps on the door interrupt my retort.
Wide, golden eyes fly to mine. “Who is that?” she mouths.
I haven’t been out of this bed since arriving however many hours ago. How am I supposed to know? “I don’t know.”
“Should I answer?”
The person knocks again. Harder.
“Probably.” They must have the wrong room.
She whips her undergarments from the bed and steps into them on her way to the door. Over her shoulder, she hisses for me to hide. My stiff cock barely fits beneath these covers—how does she expect me to hide? I suppose I could stuff myself into the closet, but it’s all the way over there.
I flop onto my back and draw the covers over my head, listening to her bare feet pad across the creaky floorboards. The lock gives way, and she gasps. “What are you doing here?”