Chapter Twenty-Nine #3
I wait, my hands clutching the arms of the chair as he kisses me softly inside and outside my lips. “Beautiful,” he murmurs.
“Ronan,” I beg again.
And the need for it reverberates between us. It sears into my mind, his burning desire to taste me, to feel me explode on his tongue, mingling with my desire to lose myself to him, to let him claim the darkest places in me.
He can’t hold back anymore, not when the feeling of our shared desire consumes him just as it does me. “I need you,” he says into my thigh. “I need to feel you come.”
Then he dives into my folds, devouring me with his tongue. He licks every inch of me, sucking and pulling on me with his lips. He presses his tongue at my entrance, and I shift my hips to invite him in.
The feeling is so warm, so wet and light. It’s everything and nothing, wonderful but nowhere near enough. “More. Please, Ronan.”
He grips me with one hand, kneading my thigh, as he strokes his other hand over my soaking folds. Then he slips one finger inside me as he takes my swollen clit into his mouth, sucking it hard.
“Yes,” I say, bending my head back in pleasure before I catch myself and neutralize my expression once more.
It’s a rush, trying not to let anyone know what’s happening. Imagining what they’d think if they knew the God-King of Selara had his finger inside me while he eats me out in a crowded theatre. It’s filthy. It’s shameful.
And it’s the hottest thing I’ve ever done.
I’m so soaking wet that he slides a second finger into me with almost no resistance. He’s really working my clit now, and I can feel the heat rising up my spine. My back arches. I clench around him as he pumps me with his fingers.
A wave of his desire hits me. His need to push down his pants and push himself in me, to take me even with everyone watching.
It’s so hot that I echo it the moment it reaches my mind, so hot that I thread my fingers in his hair again, fighting the urge to pull him up to my mouth so he can fill me with his cock.
He moans at my desire, and I feel the vibrations from his mouth on my clit. I clench around him, feeling the waves building within me. I’m close and getting closer by the second.
He tilts his head back to look at me again. “Come for me, beautiful. I want to feel it while I’m inside of you.”
I whimper as he thrusts his fingers in me deep. The pressure on my clit is intoxicating; the heat in my back has reached my neck and flushed my face.
I want to lean back and cry out, but I can’t. Instead, I look down into Ronan’s eyes. They’re so filled with lust that it sends me over the edge.
My Ronan. My king.
But I’m the one on the throne. I’m the one being worshipped.
I bite my lip, hard, as the waves of pleasure wash over me. My lower body spasms, squeezing against Ronan’s fingers. He keeps the pressure on my clit until the waves reside, lightening his touch in perfect synchronization with my feelings, drawing out every last drop of my pleasure.
“Beautiful,” he says again, looking up at me. “And delicious,” he says as he cleans his fingers with his mouth. “Everything I dreamt of and more.”
The praise, the pleasure, the man between my legs. It’s all too much. I’m so completely and utterly undone, I can’t form words.
He kisses my thighs gently as he nudges my legs back together and replaces my gown, smoothing the fabric until it looks like nothing has happened.
Then he crouches back into his seat and leans the image of Ronan forward until they merge.
When he sits back, it’s like he only leaned forward for a second.
Except that his hair is a mess, his face is red, and his lips are swollen and glistening with me.
He’s gorgeous.
“Bravo,” he says, applauding at the end of a song. I clap too, in a daze. “Wonderful,” he says loudly enough for others to hear him.
On stage, the performer’s faces light up from the king’s admiration.
But he leans over to me and whispers, “I mean you.”
A jolt of excitement pulses through me, already ready and desperate for more of him.
“Now, are you ready to leave?”
I’m aching with need again by the time we make it outside during intermission.
The cool night air blows my dress around me and freezes my nipples into hard points as we wait for the carriage to arrive. Ronan wraps his arm around me, rubbing warmth into my shoulders.
“When the carriage gets here, I’ll warm them as well. They look cold,” he says, brushing one of my breasts with his fingertip quickly before one of the guards can see.
“With your mouth?” I ask hopefully.
He laughs. “What do you think?”
“Ronan, a quick word before you leave?”
I recognize the voice before we turn to look. It’s Cyrus. He must have spotted us leaving the theatre.
Ronan looks at me regretfully, then removes his arm from my shoulder. “What is it?”
“It’s a question Lord Junta had about the farm taxes.”
“Fuck the damn taxes,” he says. “Can’t it wait until the morning?”
“Well…” needles Cyrus. “It would really be better if—”
Ronan sighs. “Give me a moment,” he says to me. “Just one moment,” he says to Cyrus. “Make it quick.”
I miss him the moment he walks away.
Two of his guards follow him, but Taran stays with me, no doubt at Ronan’s instruction. He stands several feet back out of the torchlight of the streetlamp, but I can see him clearly in the darkness.
I haven’t spoken to Taran since Ronan told me what happened with my father. I haven’t dared say anything. But something about tonight’s activities has left me feeling bolder than usual.
“He told me, you know,” I say to him. “About what happened.”
“What?” Taran asks as he approaches.
“He told me what happened. With my father. About what you did.”
His blue eyes widen. Ronan didn’t tell him he told me. “I—I don’t—”
“I know why you did what you did. What I don’t know is whether to hate you for it or thank you for it. Because you took my father from me. But you gave me Ronan in return.”
Taran looks down at me and then looks at his feet in shame. “I’m sorry. Whether you hate me or not, I’m sorry. I couldn’t let him die.”
“I know,” I say.
We stand for a while in silence, but the carriage doesn’t come, and Ronan doesn’t return. I’m about to go back inside where it’s warm when I see a flash of light in a nearby alley. “Did you see that?” I ask Taran.
But he doesn’t answer.
My eyes detect movement in the night. There’s something out there, and it isn’t the carriage.
“Taran, your sword,” I say, but when I look back at him, I see he’s doubled over on the ground.
“Taran!” I scream. “Ronan!”
I have no weapons on me tonight. No sword, no dagger to save me.
Nothing but my magic, if I can figure out how to use it.
“Come out!” I shout. “I know you’re there.”
“Do you?” asks a woman’s voice from nearby. It’s familiar, so familiar, but I can’t place it.
The voice is close, close enough that anyone should be able to see it, but I see nothing but the emptiness of the city street at night.
“Good night, Sylvie,” the woman says.
I feel movement behind me. I lash out with my shadows, but it’s too late.
A cloth covers my face, and my legs collapse beneath me as my vision fades to black.