10. Miri
10
Miri
L ex stared up at me from his knees, a smile spreading across his aristocratic features when I agreed. Normally, he was so good about hiding his emotions, locking all of it away so no one could tell what was going on in that brilliant, maniacal brain. But I knew him too well.
I’d seen the brief flash of fear that I might turn him away. After everything I’d been through, after all we’d seen together, he should have known that was the last thing I would have done. Silly boy. I had always loved him.
He looked again at the vibrant scars on the insides of my thighs, and I knew better than to try to hide them this time. He held my eyes with his penetrating hazel counterparts, keeping my thigh firmly in place while he leaned in and kissed the one farthest down. A spark of lust shot up my leg, ending with a hard throb at my clit. I gasped, watching as his pink tongue darted out and dragged up the next one, and that silky warmth radiated everywhere. A moan barreled over my lips, my fingers clenching the sofa for stability. My heart pounded and my muscles shook, especially the ones by his head. He must have felt it, must have known what he did to me, because he smirked and laughed and did it to the next scar. And the next one, each lick bringing us one step closer to each other. Then, he turned his head and did it to the other leg, kissing and sucking, his gaze firmly locked on mine.
The eye contact would have been uncomfortable with anyone else, but not with Lex, not like this. The intimacy between us could rival epic romances. There was nothing Lex and I hadn’t shared, even other people, even other great love stories.
“Princess,” he said once he’d had his fill of the last mark. “You will not do this to yourself again, do you understand?” His voice smacked with the authority of a king, of someone used to people doing what he told them the first time without question.
I couldn’t tell if he meant the scratching or the separation, but ultimately decided on both. I nodded.
“Say it.”
“I won’t do it again,” I told him.
He moaned an appreciative noise, his eyes closing in relief. I hadn’t lied. We’d figure out a way to break this curse, despite what Siobhan said. And even if we couldn’t, I’d find a way to get out of this engagement to Reginald, the prince of Monaco. I wanted to stay. I wouldn’t put us through this again, not now that I knew better.
“You could never hide the darkest parts of yourself from me. I see you, all of you.” He didn’t let me respond before spearing his tongue through my most sensitive skin, drawing it out while he had his fill. “And I’ve loved you anyway.”
“I know.” His deep grumbling moan made me roll my head back on my shoulders, melting into the contact, remembering when Lex had taken me before. Hundreds, if not thousands, of times, and no two were the same. He had always been insatiable for me, just as I had always lusted after him like a lovesick puppy. Now, he held on to me like he was starved, like I’d been denying him a basic need for decades. When I tunneled my fingers through his silky-soft hair, he preened into the touch and glanced up, molten fire swirling in his irises. He let me go with a hard suck , sending a shock up my spine and down my toes.
“Don’t do this to me again.”
“Yes, of course I won’t.” I said the words, but they didn’t give him the same relief as it did before. Now, he seemed suspicious.
“Hmm.” He stood and licked at his glossy lips before leaning in to kiss me, pushing that velvet tongue into my mouth like he was trying to coat the inside with myself. “You taste that?” He did it again, and I sucked on it, swallowing down me and that minty, smoky flavor that had always been Lex Fairfax. It intoxicated me, making my head spin.
“I do,” I said, when he finally leaned back to look down at me.
“That’s what I do to you. Me.” He brushed his nose against mine and pressed his forehead along my temple. “You’re mine, and I claimed you in a Scottish cottage when you were eighteen.”
“I know,” I said.
“Don’t ever hurt yourself to protect me again, Miri,” he said, leaning in to kiss me harder. My heart swelled and tears blurred my vision, sliding down my cheeks before I could wipe them away. He brushed his thumbs under my eyes, forcing me to look up at him. “I forbid it.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
The childish response elicited a brilliant smile from him, and I nearly froze to take it in. He liked the humor, certainly, but he also liked the opportunity to prove me wrong.
He groaned again, wrapping his hands around the backs of my thighs. “We’ll see about that.”
In one quick movement, he lifted me, and I hooked my ankles together at the base of his spine. I hung my arms over his shoulders, grinning like an idiot as I kissed him. He walked us to the back of the plane, depositing me in one of the free beds before shutting the door. I scooted into a more comfortable position while he leaned over me, the tips of his dark hair falling into his eyes.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he said, pressing his lips against me to draw the answer out of the depths of my soul.
“I’m yours,” I said.
I shivered when Lex lowered his weight on top of me and settled his hips between mine, his body so warm and sturdy and safe. He slotted his dick right up against my clit, the thin fabric of his boxers the only thing separating us, and slid a hand over my neck to my throat. Being with him, being with all of them, had banished the fairy king to the furthest reaches of my consciousness, so dim that he became an afterthought. He wasn’t allowed here with my true king, and never would be.
With his lips millimeters from mine, he whispered, “Say it again.”
Hot breath coasted over my cheeks as a chill echoed down my body. He smiled and intertwined the fingers from his free hand into mine to bring it over my head. Our palms brushed up against each other, the thick curves of our matching scars lining up.
Until the end.
It was coming faster than either of us wanted to think about, but those were worries for another time. I needed this reconnection with my prince of darkness. I needed to know he still loved me.
He tucked his face into the space under my ear, biting my lobe as he chuckled softly to himself.
“C’mon, Princess.” He kissed my cheek, my jaw, the corner of my mouth, taking his time to devour me as slowly as he ever had before. “Say it again.”
“I’m yours, Lex. Always yours.”
“That’s right.”
I absolutely loved when he took control, when he cared for me like I was the most precious thing in the world, rolling his pelvis into mine to tease me. Lex could be a cruel, arrogant prick. He’d once delighted in breaking Ivy’s composure on purpose, and I’d seen the marks he left on Carter after their nights together. To watch such a powerful man bring himself to be tender just for me flipped a go switch in my libido—it always had.
Lex had never been as mean to me as he was to everyone else. Despite our on-again, off-again thing in college, he’d never done to me the things he reveled in doing to others. It had always made me feel special, unique in a way no one else could ever be. Lex Fairfax hated the world and everything in it… except for me.
Of course, that wasn’t still true. Now, Lex admitted how much he loved Carter and Ivy, and that turned me on even more. I loved watching him with our spouses. It reminded me of how special our relationship was and how much love he had to give in general. For a boy who once wished it had been him that died instead of his brother, he now knew such profound affection he’d had no choice but sink into it like a hedonist.
I dragged my nails down his back, adding that spice of pain that got him off, and he moaned, arching into the touch before grinning and kissing me again. Holding himself up with one hand, he reached into my curls with the other, tugging my head back so he could nibble on my jaw.
“So greedy for me, huh?” he said.
I nodded and licked his bottom lip, relishing in my own delight when he hissed in a gasp and grumbled low in his chest.
“God, I fucking missed you.”
A desperate yearning rose up inside of me, an emptiness that only he could set right. I needed Lex to reset my equilibrium, to remind me what it was to be with him, the one who had shaped me and molded me in a million different ways.
“Please, Lex,” I whimpered.
“Please, what?” he said, brushing his nose over mine again. “Tell me what you need.”
“I need you, please.” I sounded desperate and needy, even to my own ears. My hands dropped to his hips, tugging him tighter against me, and I ground harder against him, tilting just right.
“I need you, too,” he said, reaching between us so he could position himself at my entrance, and when he surged home, a wave of rightness crashed over me, pulling me in, reminding me of why I’d sworn a vow to him in the woods all those years ago. Lex was mine, plain and simple. And I was his. And we were theirs.
“Fuck,” he murmured, falling forward onto his forearms, his torso trembling on top of me. “I missed this. I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.” I wrapped my arms around his chest, holding him as close as I could, and he kissed my neck and buried himself in my hair, breathing me in like he couldn’t believe I was real…like any second, he might wake up and find himself alone in his bed. I, likewise, memorized everything about the present—his pine-forest scent and how he whimpered in my ear. I focused on the curve of his cheekbones, the way they sloped down and became his jaw, and how beautiful he was in the moonlight.
We fit together, and it had always felt right, so very right. He fucked me like he owned me, like I was the most expensive and decadent thing in the world. He lavished attention on all the bits he knew I liked the best, and when the pressure built in my nerves, when I begged him to speed up and go harder, he obliged. Lex knew how to take me, how to bring me right to the brink, until he finally pushed me off the edge. I floated into outer space.
He met me there a few moments later, panting and cursing his way through his climax. Eventually, he collapsed on top of me, and I kissed his temple, holding him tighter and running my fingers through his hair.
“I love you,” I murmured one last time. “Until the end.”
He didn’t say it back, just lifted his head and gave me a slow, gentle kiss. “You better fucking mean that.”
I did.