Chapter 16
I lowered my parchment cards to reveal a mated pair of swans.
Brey scowled.
I grinned and pulled the lemon cakes toward me—just as he set down his cards.
And revealed a mated pair of Pegasus.
My hands clenched the plate. I glared at the painted depictions of the black and white winged horses, then at the king. “You filthy, rotten, lying liar.”
“You asked if I’d played much, not if I was any good.” Smiling like a cat who’d gotten the cream, he plucked a lemon cake from the plate and pushed the whole square into his mouth.
“Luck, then,” I said scornfully, and gathered the cards. “Let’s see if you’re so lucky this time.”
He eased back in his chair. “Lethal…” He licked his fingers with intentional slowness and loudness, groaning a little before taunting, “Are you a sore loser?”
“Of course I am.”
He laughed. Crumbs flew from his mouth onto the parchment card I’d been about to pick up. I glowered at him.
Extra dramatically, he gasped. “Oh no.”
“Not to worry.” I collected the card, then leaned over the table to wipe it on his lovely, ruffled blue shirt. “There. All clean.”
But before I could lean back, he snatched my hand and tugged.
“Don’t you dare, you—” I squealed as my other hand landed on the plate and flattened a lemon cake.
We both froze.
I looked down at the plate, and at Brey, who rolled his lips between his teeth. Then I smeared the cake on my fingers over his cheek.
Smiling, I whispered, “Oh no.”
His eyes rounded. But one side of his mouth lifted, and his pupils thinned.
A warning I didn’t wish to heed.
I was seized beneath the arms and dumped onto his lap. “Not to worry.” Taking my chin in his fingers, he held me still as he rubbed his cake-smeared cheek onto my own. “There,” he crooned. “All clean.”
I laughed and shoved him, then laughed harder when he licked the cake from my cheek.
“I could listen to that sound for the rest of my nights.”
“Then you’re indeed lucky,” I teased. “Because you just so happened to sign a contract that says you have to.”
As his lips roamed down my neck, a groan climbed his throat. My fingers sank into his silken hair as my head tilted for him. He snuck his hands underneath my skirts and ass. “Darling lethal.” His rich voice deepened. “Do you think I need a contract to eternally enjoy you?”
When I failed to answer, he ceased kissing my fluttering pulse and squeezed my ass.
I squirmed into his erection. “I think…” Leaning back against the table, I took his face in my hands and whispered to his mouth, “I need to be enjoyed right now. Thoroughly.” I kissed him. “Enjoyed.”
His eyes caught mine, held and searched them. “Right now, you say?”
“Right now.”
“The Mother is merciful,” he exhaled.
My heart gave a giddy kick. I gathered my skirts and reached between us to free him from his pants. As my fingers wrapped around him, he groaned.
“Hurry,” he said. “I’ve been hard for two hours.”
“Since we last fucked?”
“Say that again.”
I laughed.
His nose nudged mine. “I fear I shall be eternally hard for you.”
“You like that word.”
“When it’s associated with you,” he murmured, “I fucking love it.”
I had no time to respond. He kissed me, hard and lingering, then softly clasping.
Using his shoulders, I pulled myself up. His breath hitched when I rubbed him over my entrance. I watched his long lashes flutter and his jaw harden, and wondered why I’d never cared to watch another man’s reaction to me before.
Brey’s responses to me made me feel vital—as if no one could affect him like I could. Such blatant honesty gifted a taste of power that was almost as addictive as surrendering to him.
We both sighed as I slowly took him into my body.
His hand folded over my cheek, thumb glossing the corner of my mouth. Though he knew, he still asked, “Good?”
“So good,” I whispered.
For some moments, neither of us moved. As I relished feeling so wonderfully full, his heavy gaze roamed my face. “I find myself torn between wanting to tear open your dress to see those glorious tits and needing to see your face flush from pleasure.”
A noisy breath fled me.
His thumb brushed my warm cheek. “You look both sleepy and inebriated.” Nose kissing mine, he murmured, “It’s fucking intoxicating.”
My core clenched. My toes skimmed the floor as I rocked into him—urging him impossibly deeper.
We both gasped.
Gathering my hair over my shoulder, he trailed his finger down the exposed side of my neck. He pressed my pounding pulse, then stroked it while his other hand squeezed my ass. “I can feel you,” he rasped, “leaking onto my testicles.”
My eyes widened. Even as my body clenched again.
He grinned, but it was the most sinister smile I’d ever seen him wear. His hand joined the other at my ass, smoothing over the plump flesh.
Then he gripped it in both hands to move me.
“Hear that, lethal?” Slow yet firmly, he rolled and ground my body against his, ensuring my clit found friction. “That I can make you so aroused, I hear it every time you move over my cock…” His fangs grazed the curve of my neck. “I finally feel like a king.”
My head fell to his shoulder as sensation took over.
Pleasure swarmed.
Then he stopped. He lifted my head—our mouths close—and I felt a tug. Ripping sounded, and I hissed, “Monster.” Yet I quickly pulled my arms from the velvet sleeves.
“Your recurring forgetfulness with undergarments…” Brey pushed my ruined bodice down over my breasts, then immediately scooped them into his hands. “I vehemently approve.”
“I’ve discovered they’re pointless,” I said. “With someone as greedy as you.”
His eyes rose from my breasts. He dug his fingers into them. “Greedy. Come now.” A violently tender kiss was placed on my lips. Our eyes locked, and he whispered roughly, “I’m merely obsessed.”
“How obsessed?”
Another squeeze of my breasts came between each low word. “Fanatically, irretrievably, perilously.”
My heart leaped over a beat.
But he eradicated any further questions with his mouth. Hard and soft, he devoured me while feathering his fingers over the swells of my breasts. I unbuttoned his shirt to slide my hands across his chest.
He shivered, and I delighted in his sighed groan.
As I felt his heart thud against my hand, a different hunger dried my mouth—had it leaving his and descending his jaw to his throat. I licked it, sucked on his clavicle.
I hadn’t fed since I’d left my family’s estate nearly a week ago. Maybe Brey had, but I hadn’t seen him do so.
Understanding what I craved, he shifted his hair to his back. “Go on then.” Gently, he pushed my head. My mouth fused to the curve of his shoulder. “Sink those tiny fangs into me.”
It was all the encouragement I needed.
My lips peeled back, and I bit him. Warm, wondrous blood filled my mouth. He was unlike anything I’d tasted before—a heady, honeyed copper. I swallowed, then sucked until my mouth filled again.
Brey allowed it three more times. Then he wrapped my hair around his hand and tugged. “Fuck me, then you may have some more.”
As my lips were forced to unlatch from his skin, I nearly snarled. Mercifully, the sound was a croaked groan. Twining my arms around his neck, my breasts squashed against his chest, I rocked over him. Wanting more of his blood, I lapped at the punctures I’d made.
But my hunger was overpowered by another when his cock pushed harder against the greediest parts of me.
My breath hitched.
Brey whispered, “Fuck, lethal.”
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t as I resumed feeding while I continued to move back and forth. Each noise I made was muffled and thick, my mouth refusing to leave his neck and my throat clogged with his blood.
A rough curse, then his fingers bunched my hair.
Sharp pain flared at my shoulder—quickly followed by soothing heat.
As he sucked and swallowed my blood, something wild took hold, and I stopped feeding. I rode him. Sensation threatened to drown me as it rapidly swam through my body. My mind whirled. Whimpered moans escaped my clenching teeth.
Brey ceased drinking to look at me. To make me look at him although this wildness blurred his features. His thumb brushed beneath my lower lip. Those emerald eyes bobbed all over my face, darkened from his enlarged pupils. “I’d wager delirium has never looked so good.”
This was the first time I’d ever felt it—ever let someone feed from me while having sex.
“Brey,” I gasped out—warned as spasms shook me. “Fuck.”
He grinned, then grasped my ass in both hands to take over. To grind me against him until my head tipped back with a silent cry.
My nipple was snatched by his teeth. He tugged, then sucked it before licking a straight line between my breasts to my exposed throat.
A hand seized the back of my head, fingers scrunching in my hair. He stole each broken exhale with his mouth and his eyes on mine. Our loud breaths were shared as he followed me into the throes of violent pleasure.
His long groan became a growl, trapped in his throat. The hand in my hair squeezed, strands pulled as he jerked and shuddered beneath me.
I didn’t care.
I clasped his cheek and tilted my head to lick his lips as expletives passed through them. His grip on my hair loosened, and I kissed a path over the growth beginning to shadow his bladed jaw. I licked his throat clean before lowering my head to the crook of his neck.
Brey did the same. Arms tight around my waist and across my back, he held me.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that. Long enough for him to harden inside me and eventually ask groggily, “More?”
I smiled against his warm skin. “More.”
His arms remained around me. A hand climbed beneath my hair to cup my clammy nape. Using the hand at my hip, he moved me over him. Almost lazily, we drank as we shook from one orgasm toward the gathering force of the next.
And when we finally curled upon the divan to rest, Brey lifted my leg and sank inside me again.
I crossed my ankles over the lip of the bathing pool.