Chapter 25 #2
If he was looking for permission, I’d already given it to him. Anything more would be begging, and he’d had me do quite enough of that. He knew exactly what I wanted next. Exactly what he wanted.
Yet as I stood there, I began to fear that his desire to hurt me was stronger than his desire to have me.
Like fingertips, uncertainty pressed against my bones, prodding harder with each breath. Maybe this was the worst idea I’d ever had. Maybe I should have said something else—done anything other than remain so unbearably bare before him as I stared into those emerald eyes.
Cold crept into my veins, eradicating the last of my courage. Unable to endure the silence, the stifling tension, and my foolishness any longer, I averted my gaze. I stepped back. Reaching for my robe, I noticed his fingers curl into his palms.
Then he grabbed me.
I was released just as quickly. My body bounced onto the middle of his bed.
Before I could understand what was happening, Brey was looming over me, knocking my legs open with his knee, and inside me.
Though I’d been well prepared, he plunged so deep so fast, my back arched.
Pained and drawn, he groaned then went still.
I thought I would never forget anything about this infuriating king. Certainly not the pleasurably perfect fit of his cock inside me.
Yet the warmth of his body against mine, the brush of his soft hair on my cheek and lips, made me realize I’d forgotten such seemingly insignificant things. Made me realize they weren’t insignificant at all, and I’d therefore taken them for granted.
I didn’t get to find out if I’d taken anything else for granted. I didn’t even get the chance to place my hand on his trembling back.
He began to thrust.
With his forearms braced beside me and his eyes squeezed closed, Brey gave me the confirmation I needed within mere moments.
And I understood that was precisely why he’d hesitated to do this. Why he’d broken our kiss a handful of evenings ago.
He hadn’t wanted me to get suspicious—because a king who’d been fucking other people for moons was capable of more than four erratic thrusts into his wife’s body before coming so hard that the four-poster bed shook with him.
It was true. My husband paid the feeders to do goddess knew what in here so I’d believe he’d moved on.
For some reason, I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t tell him I knew. As he dropped over me, I swept my hand down his back and decided that knowing was enough.
But my victory was short-lived.
“Ethel?”
Though my name was muffled by my hair and neck, the way he’d said it made me think he’d say something amusing or mocking about what had just happened.
Smile stretching, I said, “Yes?”
“I don’t just hate you.” My giddy heart ceased beating as he eased up to murmur in my ear, “I fucking despise you.”
I failed to find a response.
There was no time to even give him one. The bed shifted as his hand dragged over my chest. My breast was squeezed so firmly, I gasped. That hand then slid to my throat as he pushed onto his other to rise above me.
Lust heavied his long lashes. But beneath them shone nothing but menace.
My stomach quaked.
Too late, I realized he was still fully erect inside me. His fingers tightened around my neck, thumb pressing into my thudding pulse. Those eyes refused to release mine as he carefully withdrew from my body with a breath hissed between his bared teeth.
Just as slow, he pushed back in and ground against me, fingers flexing at my throat.
My hand went limp, falling from his skin to the bed. My breath caught.
His expanding pupils darkened his eyes.
The next thrust lingered deep as he studied my flushing face. Though he stared at me as if torn between hurting and pleasuring me, warmth unfurled into spreading spirals. I moaned, and his head tilted.
Then he lowered to capture my quivering bottom lip with his teeth. The bite drew blood. But my slight whine became a whimper as he licked the wound.
His head rose, eyes fastening to the plum spilling onto my lip. A purred growl, then his tongue swept over my chin to collect the blood. When my mouth dared to catch his, his fingers unlatched from my throat.
His thumb pressed against my lips, keeping them closed.
Moving out of me again, he stroked his nose along the length of mine. Then he pushed back in. “I wish I’d never laid eyes on you.” His gentle voice didn’t comfort. It only infused more venom into each word he said. “Maybe then, I’d be able to see someone—anyone—fucking else.”
His name joined my gasped breath. “Brey.”
Two fingers slid between my teeth, silencing me. They pushed down on my tongue as he continued to fuck me with slow yet violent precision. “I want to tear every memory of you from my mind and watch them burn.”
Trying to speak was futile. I gagged, and feline satisfaction flashed in his eyes.
It was then I knew with certainty that this wasn’t any kind of reunion. This wasn’t even sex.
It was punishment.
My body didn’t care. As his pace increased, sparks of pleasure began to singe. My moan was trapped—choked by his fingers.
With a tortured-sounding groan, he rolled his forehead against mine. “The mere sound of your voice makes me want to vomit.”
Those words should have hurt. Repulsed me.
But I understood. After the first time I’d glimpsed the feeders in his rooms, I’d barely made it back to my own before vomiting. Each time I’d thought I was done, that I wouldn’t be sick, I would remember and vomit into the chamber pot again.
“And hearing that fucking laugh…” A growled and humorless chuckle came with a slight shake of his head. “It’s like teeth are tearing into what’s left of my soul.”
My thighs shook.
“Sometimes…” His lips skimmed my cheek. “I’ll even paint this hypnotic face just so I can spew profanity at it while I milk my cock over and over and…” He groaned as my core clenched tight around his length.
With a hoarse and choked cry, I unraveled.
My eyes watered. Maybe it made it more intense—being trapped beneath his fingers and cock and body. But I came even harder than I did on his hand. Struggling for each breath, I grasped the bedsheets, squeezing them as I shuddered and writhed.
Brey fucked me faster. Each plunge deeper.
“But this?” A cruel smile brightened his eyes. “This I fucking love. Watching you suffer even while you convulse around my cock. So tell me…” He kissed the tip of my nose. “Am I doing it right?”
Squirming beneath him, I bit his fingers as wave after heady wave swarmed me. A storm with nowhere to go.
“Is this unqueenly enough for you?” Catching my eyes, he crooned, “Is this everything you want? Because I would have happily given it to you. I would have gladly given you anything.” Then, so quiet I almost missed it, he said, “If you’d only fucking asked.”
And there it was.
He thought this was what I needed.
He thought I had continued to see Maxus because I wasn’t satisfied without merciless hands around my thighs and throat. Muffled moans and choked breaths. The thrill of depravity and secret trysts.
Breathless, I could only stare.
I now knew that Brey had seen more than my attendance at events before I’d met him. More than me sneaking into the barn on my family’s estate to be with Maxus. He’d seen us together—fucking.
My teeth loosened on his fingers, and they slipped from my mouth as his hips jerked.
Brey surged into me one final time before his hands pushed into the bed and his head tipped back. With a strangled gasp, he shuddered. Fading moonlight caressed his blood spotted skin and the muscle cording in his shoulders and throat.
Vision hazed yet cleared, I gazed up at him.
The urge to touch him, to collect the sweat misting his clavicles and lick it from the pad of my finger, was almost painful to ignore.
Perhaps sensing my attention, he shivered and looked down at me.
Beneath the weight of that gaze, I felt trapped anew. As if merely breathing would cause hatred to harden his drowsy eyes as they drifted over my face.
I’d gotten what I came for, as well as two orgasms, so I shouldn’t have cared.
Yet I knew, even when I left him and this palace, I would spend the rest of my immortal life caring about this haunting king. I knew no one would ever crave me quite like he did.
No one would watch me for years. No one would have my favorite treat become their own just because it was mine.
No one would paint me in ways I would never deserve and fill an entire room with proof of their unending fascination.
No one would come back every time I cruelly sent them away.
No one would take such dramatic revenge against me for breaking their heart.
No one would love me like Brey did. Had. And there was nothing he could say or do that could ever be worse than knowing that.
The tears coating my eyes blurred his features. But I saw him frown, heard him mutter a curse, and felt him tense.
With a slight grimace, he withdrew from my body. He didn’t say anything. He simply left me and the bed.
Maybe it was his absence. Maybe it was all he’d said. But knowing was now not enough.
“I know,” I rasped. When he just strode toward the bathing room, I cleared my throat and sat up. “I know what you’ve been paying the feeders to do.”
He stopped. A mirthless chuckle accompanied his scathing response. “Are you trying to say that I pay people for sex?”
“You don’t pay them for that.” Thickly, I said, “You pay them to make me believe that’s what you’re doing with them.”
Silence.
I supposed it was better than denial.
He braced a hand on the doorframe and appeared to clench it. Then he pushed off it and disappeared into the bathing room.
My chest became unbearably tight. I climbed over the bed to sit on the edge. “Now that I think about it, I’m unable to decide what’s worse,” I said, knowing he would hear me. “You fucking other people or merely pretending to in order to hurt me.”
More silence.
And I almost wished he would deny it—just so he’d say something.
When he did finally speak, the words slithered into the bedchamber like a serpent, cold and low. “Why are you still here?”
My throat constricted.
“I’m not sure.” I stood and grabbed my robe from the floor. “Honestly, I’m no longer sure why I cared to know the truth.” Pushing my arms into the silk sleeves, I hurried down the dawn-bathed stairs of his tower and out into the hall.
Not even the steel door could mask the unmistakable sound of something shattering against a wall.