Chapter 29
A soft curse caused my eyes to flutter open.
Dust motes danced before the stained window. Afternoon light exposed the grime between the colored tiles. Traces of buttery citrus twitched my nose.
Then strong arms slid underneath my body—lifted me from the cold water and against a warm chest. A smooth, bare chest. Before I could wholly appreciate it, I was lowered onto a towel draped over my bed.
Walking back to the bathing room, Brey asked, “How long were you in there?”
I had no idea. One minute, I was washing my hair for the second time. The next, I was staring at the stained window, thinking about my mother and wondering if I should avoid packing and immediately head to the estate.
Perhaps the better question was—what had brought Brey to my tower?
Earlier, we’d parted ways without a word. I’d been too desperate to wash and drink a gallon of water to care about Brey’s silence, nor the way he’d looked back at me as he’d climbed the stairs to the second floor ahead of me.
But when he returned with another towel and began to dry me, I just gave him a lazy smile and mumbled, “Only a little while.”
He placed his palm on my leg and shot me a sour look. “Your skin is still cold.”
“Any excuse to touch me.”
Rather than say something mocking, he refocused on his task and murmured, “Any.”
I frowned, then bit my lip as I absorbed him.
His damp hair hinted at him bathing not long ago, uncharacteristically tousled as if he’d continuously swept his hands through it. A cream pair of linen pants hung precariously from his sharp hip bones. The towel ventured down my body, and I heard his feet press softly into the carpet, bare.
Breath began to burn, held as I waited. As I braced for him to tell me to open my legs—so that he could properly dry me, of course.
But he merely rubbed my feet until I squirmed, and when he chuckled, the sound careened into my chest like a stone.
I was leaving.
Maybe he also remembered, or maybe it was because I stilled, but he stopped. The towel protested, clenched in his hands. “Roll onto your stomach for me.”
I did so gladly, slightly giddy as the last vestiges of exhaustion were replaced by an anticipation that climbed through my body in a warm spiral.
My eyes closed when the rough fabric returned to my skin.
We both knew I didn’t need drying. Certainly not enough to warrant the thorough attention he gave to my legs, ass, and back. But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t speak at all while waiting—foolishly longing—for him to tell me why he’d found me sleeping in the bathing pool.
Brey’s movements slowed at my dried hips, as if he wasn’t quite ready to be done. As if he wished to speak.
He didn’t.
Not until the towel glided across my skin one final time and cold washed over me. “I’ll let you get some rest.”
I didn’t want rest, and I didn’t think.
I reached back to snatch his hand.
As I turned to stare up at him, his eyes drifted over my body to mine. The shadowed bedchamber seemed to blur at the edges of my vision. His chest rose and fell as if he’d just left that lagoon after repeatedly drowning.
Yet we stayed silent and expressionless.
Such effort was futile. It didn’t matter how skilled we were at pretending. Not when we knew each other too well to ever hide completely.
My husband had come to see me for a reason. One that tightened his jaw and darkened his eyes.
I couldn’t bring myself to dare ascertain what that reason was. Couldn’t dare hope that this stubborn king was here to say something that might change anything. Fix everything. Though, maybe, it was safe to at least hope for a little more time.
My fingers tugged at his, an invitation, before sliding free of them.
Inching away from the towel beneath me toward the middle of the bed, I returned to lying on my stomach. My left leg rose over the bedding, baring me ever so slightly. One tremulous breath, then another, and—
The mattress dipped.
His warmth was a caress that glossed my back. Then he brushed my damp hair aside for his mouth to do the same. His hands pressed into the bed on either side of me, moving as his lips whispered down the indent of my spine.
My heartbeat quietened, became a slow thud, as my exhales gained sound.
When he reached my ass, I tensed.
I lifted my leg higher to let him know he was welcome between my thighs. Only for his tongue to travel up the indent of my spine. He kissed one shoulder blade, then the other, and I had to stop myself from reaching for him. From rolling over and making him kiss my lips instead.
I was glad I succeeded when he kissed his way back down to my ass.
He licked it, smoothed his palm over it, then groaned as his fingers encountered my sex. His exhales created gooseflesh, warming my rear, as he slowly swept a lone finger through me.
My hips shifted to give him more access. My breaths became noisy. But only when I began to pant from the continuous stroking did he finally push his finger inside me. As he did, he groaned again and sank his teeth into my ass.
Though the bite wasn’t hard enough to draw blood, I still gasped and clenched the bedsheets.
His lips met my teeth-marked skin, but that finger didn’t move. I swallowed a plea and waited for him to fuck me with it. I was so aroused, I knew I wouldn’t need much.
He knew it too and refused to give me what I wanted.
Instead, he kept his finger deep inside me and began to stroke. Over and over, he curled it before pressing right where I needed it—then stopped whenever his lips lightly grazed my skin. As he kissed my rear, my lower back, and the inside of my thigh, that finger relaxed.
Each time his stroking resumed, pulsing heat swarmed me—a surge more violent than the last. Desperate, I rocked over his finger when it stilled.
Again, he bit my ass.
I moaned but ceased moving my hips. I surrendered to the torture and clawed and clutched at the bedding.
I knew the orgasm would hit hard. Almost painfully.
And when he finally let it tear through me, he turned me onto my back and licked me until it arched and a silent scream scraped my throat. I was then turned to my side, still trembling as he settled behind me on the bed.
Before I could recover, Brey lifted my thigh and pushed his cock into my body.
We both groaned as I clenched him. He sank and stayed deep while pressing his lips against my skin with such tender force, I could almost hear what he wouldn’t say.
My need for him to speak became increasingly hard to ignore.
But I refused to make him.
After everything he’d done and all I’d confessed, I couldn’t let myself stand on that precipice again. Not without knowing he was right there beside me. Not without knowing that, this time, I wouldn’t be left to fall into the abyss alone.
I needed him to say it—that he wanted me to stay. That he would never let me leave.
That he was fucking sorry.
He didn’t. He didn’t say anything.
His hand slid over my stomach to squeeze my breast. He withdrew from my body, then slowly plunged back in. Over and over. His breaths rumbled into purrs, warming my shoulder with his mouth, and neither of us said a word.
Not after he came, swift and trembling against my back.
Not when I climbed atop him and rode him until he was holding my chest against his, fingers scrunching my hair and ass while I came again. Not when he rolled me to my back and drove into me slow and deep, his eyes only leaving mine when his head tipped and he emptied inside me once more.
Not when he collapsed over top of me and nuzzled my neck while I trailed my fingers up and down his smooth back. Not when we kissed each other’s throats until we were no longer fucking, but merely using intercourse as an excuse to feed and touch and kiss.
As an excuse to stay.
His absence was felt before sleep released me from its foggy clutches.
Cool air now touched my exposed back, but there’d been a warm chest there. My fingers lay curled around nothing, but there’d been fingers within them. My legs were scissored over the rumpled bedding, but there’d been a hair-dusted leg wedged between them.
Unless I’d fallen asleep right after returning from the ward, and it had all been a dream.
I sat up and dragged a hand through my hair. Relief came when my fingers snagged on numerous tangles—Brey-made tangles—and when I saw the towel at the end of the bed. Stains and his scent marked the magenta sheets.
But that relief slowly gave way beneath a sorrow that sank so deep, it stole my breath.
Tears stung my eyes. Furiously, I blinked to clear them.
As I dressed and tried to do something with my poor hair, my eyes continuously burned. Growling, I pushed up from the dressing table and stormed into the dressing chamber. Without looking, I tore gown after gown free of their hangers.
I dumped them on the armchairs, then returned for the trunks that resided in the dark recesses of the chamber. When I flipped them open on the carpet, a rather plump insect with far too many legs scuttled out of one.
There were certainly some things I wouldn’t miss about this dilapidated palace.
The bathing room was next. I gathered combs, hairbrushes, soaps, lotions that belonged to Brey, and skin oil. Arms full, I marched back into the bedchamber and tossed the items carelessly into a trunk.
Maybe I hadn’t done enough. Perhaps I should have done more than tell him the truth after unraveling his own lies. I didn’t know. All I knew was that I’d made a deal for my freedom, and now I had no choice but to take it.
Staying when he hadn’t asked me to, when he’d barely said a rotting word to me since the last ward, would only make me feel like even more of a fool. Besides, I needed to ensure my mother wasn’t trapped in that woodland cellar and inform her that she wouldn’t see her husband again.
So I dragged my trunks down the stairs of the tower I’d never wanted in the first place, and out into the hall.
By the time I was done, a light layer of sweat misted my skin.
I blew some hair from my warm cheeks. Gripping my black velvet skirts far too tightly, I then searched the palace for Groth.
It soon became apparent that I wasn’t finding anyone.
Whirling in a circle at the bottom of the stairs, I held in a groan and stomped across the foyer to the palace doors. I opened them, stuck my head out into the dark, and pointed at the made vampire nearest me. “You.”
The guard stepped away from the palace exterior. Bowing, he asked, “Majesty?”
“Fetch me the carriage.” When he frowned, I said, “Please.”
His frown only intensified. “Uh, Majesty. I am not permitted to arrange—”
“I am the queen, and I grant you permission.”
I didn’t wait for him to straighten and give me his agreeance. I headed back upstairs to get my trunks. If the ghost and the cook were so intent on foiling my plans that they wouldn’t help me with the carriage or my belongings, then so be it.
If they didn’t even want to bid me farewell, then so be it.
And if their precious king didn’t want to so much as make an appearance while I made sure my trunks clanked against each step on my way down to the foyer, then so be it.
While the guards loaded my belongings into the waiting carriage, I opened my own door, climbed inside, and swiped a traitorous tear from my cheek.
So fucking be it.