36
Flare
Like a battle and a victory, the villain prince strode across the sand with his features twisted, all brutal beauty and violent surrender. Every intention cluttered his face, as though we were about to commit a hundred counts of treason.
Jeryn’s long limbs smashed through the waves. As he strode forward, his hand ripped out the scalpel knife and flicked open one of the blades.
Anticipation and triumph blasted through me. Butterflies broke from the cage of my stomach.
I could stand there and wait. Like captured prey, I could freeze up.
Instead, I whipped out my dagger and bolted toward him. Like adversaries racing into warfare, we shot toward one another, smashing through the high tide. I rammed into Jeryn at the same time he barreled into me.
With a snarl, the prince used his free hand to seize the back of my neck. “You fucking saboteur.”
Then he hauled my mouth to his. And my heart exploded like dynamite.
As our lips slammed together, a volcanic sound blasted from my throat. Jeryn’s mouth crushed against mine, his wet lips clamping, slanting us at a livid angle. A howl got stuck in my throat as I thrashed my mouth against his, the collision instinctive, as volatile as the waves.
Those ruthless lips wasted no time. Slicing his tongue across the seam of my mouth, Jeryn pried me open and drove inside with precision. I needed no coaxing. My own tongue dove for his, coldness and heat clashing.
The impact buckled my limbs and wracked his frame. Together, we shuddered into the kiss. Because oh fuck, we were kissing.
We were kissing .
Neither tender, nor exploratory, we threw ourselves into the tempest. With a destructive rhythm, Jeryn flexed his tongue into mine, whisking against every sensitive inch. I keened and rode that tongue, falling into cadence with him, the tempo ferocious.
Somewhere in this world, walls shattered, towers fell, and the rafters of a fortress collapsed. Someplace on this continent, hurricanes cracked mighty ships in half, sinking them to the bottom of an ocean. Somewhere, opposing forces raised weapons and unleashed bloodshed.
And nearby, the rainforest watched us. And around us, the water flailed.
This was how it felt to surrender and conquer. This was how it felt to kiss a villain.
Jeryn banded his arm around my middle, his digits choking the knife hilt. His unhampered palm rushed to my ass, spanned one cheek, and hoisted me into him. My feet left the ground, hovering inches off the ocean floor. The muscles of his arm bulged as he braced me, bearing my frame as though I weighed no more than a plume.
Still holding my dagger, I flung my free arm around the ramps of his shoulders. My fingers launched into his hair and groped the roots, pulling hard and harsh.
The prince seethed. His lips quaked against mine, and that greedy hand snatched my ass firmer, the reaction fueling me like timbers. He liked it rough.
Oh, but I knew rough, as I knew soft. I thrived off that jagged noise, as I thrived off gentler ones, and I could handle both.
We brandished weapons in one hand and clung with the other. With every thrust of our tongues, this kiss felt like fucking, and the fucking felt like fighting. Jeryn split my lips wide and pitched his tongue deeply, the force of it sizzling through my veins.
He groaned, the sound rippling through me and dropping between my thighs. He’d been right before. I’d grown wetter than the sea.
Our sodden clothes rustled together, thin and constrictive. I had loved this dress before, but now I hated it, as I hated Jeryn’s shirt and pants. And the feeling intensified when the long ridge of his cock pushed into my clit.
Uttering an irate sound, Jeryn’s fist surged to my scalp. Suffocating the knife hilt, he jammed his wrist against my head and fastened me to him, the better to lash his tongue with mine. He angled the blade’s edge away from my skull, his towering frame resistant against the waves. And although I trusted him not to nick my skin, the ever-present risk sent a buzz through my system.
Then I knew. Whatever happened next wouldn’t be safe or sweet. It had never been that way between us.
No, this would be daring and drastic. This would be beautifully feral. This wild night would be real and nowhere near a mistake.
Yet if we held tight, we’d make it through the tumult.
Jeryn kissed with every muscle, every bone in his body, and every ounce of blood. Trapping my head in place and locking his other hand to my ass, he ground his mouth into mine. As his kiss shoved into me, I shoved back. Each of us sought to dominate the other like a power play, all teeth and nails. The strong motions of his jaw loosened my own, and the deft whips of his tongue stoked my insides.
My body erupted. I pooled against him like candle wax and kissed him the fuck back.
Under the eventide sky and above the depths, I drowned in a new sort of darkness. One where the light shone clearer and brighter.
I wanted us stressed but determined. I wanted us to struggle and survive through it. I wanted us to deserve this, to revel in this, to steal this for all it was worth.
We inched back for an instant, merely long enough to swap positions, angling our heads in a different direction before raging back into the kiss. Fed up with everything we’d done and said, we shut one another up. With a deprived groan, Jeryn’s hot mouth seized mine as though he’d been holding out for years, as though his patience had finally been tested to its limit.
I nicked his lower lip and skated my teeth across the line of flesh. Jeryn hissed with satisfaction, then skewered his incisors into the crook of my mouth. Shivers plied me from head to toe, and a needy whine curled from my throat.
His lips were sharp but smooth, holding the flavors of dark wine and darker blood. At some point, I must have drawn crimson, and he’d done the same, because I tasted droplets of our combined blood, as though we’d been kissing with fangs.
The tide slapped against us, and stars chipped into the sky, and celestial rain doused the remains of our clothes. All the while, we kissed frantically, his bloody tongue swiping with mine.
Each fit and tug of our mouths slickened my pussy until I couldn’t tell the saltwater from my desire. The arm I’d slung over his shoulder quivered. How I managed to keep a hold of my dagger, I would never know. The rest of me had succumbed ages ago.
Yet it wasn’t enough. I told Jeryn as much by whimpering into the kiss. Or maybe it came out as a grunt.
The prince obliged. With his other arm, he locked my ass in place and hefted me fully off the floor. Waves belted against us, adding to the momentum as I hooked my legs around his waist.
Splayed against him, I linked my ankles above his ass. Using the leverage, I burrowed down on Jeryn and snatched his mouth. He growled, lancing his tongue past my open lips, the pace carnal.
My spine crackled like kindling. A splintered moan skittered up my throat and filled the hot cave of Jeryn’s mouth. He swallowed the sound without mercy, then strapped his lips around my tongue and sucked hard.
Chaos ensued. At the pressure of his mouth, my body liquified, and I turned into the ocean—a force of nature.
The moment he freed my tongue, I pleaded something dire. I had no idea what. Yet Jeryn responded with urgency, both of us vaulting backward and severing the kiss.
Heaving for air, we absorbed the effects from our swollen mouths, to the glaze in our eyes, to the disarray of our wet hair. This kiss hadn’t sought a reconciliation. Rather, it had waged a passionate war.
This happened. We’d never be able to take it back.
We watched each other for a second, only a second, just a cursed second. Then I moved first, racing my dagger up his torso and shearing the shirt open, the clasps popping. The panels flapped apart, the expanse of his torso consuming my view. Rainfall scraped down his pecs, raced between his sloped hipbones, and vanished into the waistband. A grid of muscles contorted across his abdomen, a hot flush tinting his ivory skin, mine for the taking.
My eyes burned, spurring Jeryn to action. The instant his shirt flared apart, another tearing sound hit my ears. My skirt already possessed a slit, but his knife did extra damage, slicing the ancient fabric up to my waist. Shredded like a curtain, the skirt parted and fell around my limbs, enabling me to move without hindrance.
Except this prince wasn’t done. Those eyes gripped mine, his pupils black and flashing with intent. With a fitful glare that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with that dainty barrier covering my pussy, Jeryn looped one digit around the gusset of my drawers. Fixing them in place, he flicked his fingers, the knife paring through the fabric.
I gasped as the material flopped apart. Mist hit my folds, the patch of hair glistening for his gaze.
Jeryn muttered under his breath, “Much better.”
Then he cut more. The knife cleaved through the sides until the drawers fluttered from my body and hit the ocean. Waves caught the material and flung it out to the celestial sea, where it disappeared.
With the skirt open and my cunt bared, that left my bodice. Not giving Jeryn time to destroy the rest of the dress, I grabbed the edge and whipped it over my head. My breasts heaved into the night air, my nipples dark and puckering, the points aching.
The prince’s irises glittered at the sight, then rose to my face. “You slay me.”
I felt that confession in every place that mattered. My head and heart and body blazed to life, so that I went up in flames.
Jamming my dagger into the sheath at my thigh, I clasped his face and hauled his mouth back to mine. Jeryn crooned, punching my tongue with his own. My nipples swept against his chest, and his cock stretched higher, and our drenched skin seared into one another.
How I wanted his mouth to travel, to lick every inch of me. How I longed to blow open those pants and seal my folds around his cock. How I yearned to ride him in the midst of this turbulent, starlit sea.
But first, my parched tongue had other cravings. I squirmed until Jeryn caught on. With a hoarse groan, he pried his mouth from mine.
Before he could react, I scrambled from his grasp, my feet hitting the sandy bottom. Stealing his knife with one hand and planting my free palm against his chest, I steered him farther into the deep. Pushing him back to a cliffside fringed in leaves, I gave a shove.
Jeryn’s back struck the stone, a masculine grunt skidding from his throat. Foliage shrouded the rough surface, offering him a cushion amid the chinks. As for the rest of it, this man could handle pain.
And good. Because he would need that perseverance for what came next. Holding his gaze, I pinned him against the rock and angled the weapon’s tip at his throat. With our open mouths grazing and my tits squashed into plates of his torso, I traced the bulge in his throat. As we panted, the knife skimmed down to the ravine in his collarbones, then between his pecs.
Jeryn’s eyes gleamed. He enjoyed the severity of it, the knowledge that I could make him bleed at any moment.
And truly, those orbs had never been clearer. Only this man could appear lucid, even while lost in a heady stupor.
My lips curled into a fiendish smile against his mouth. I leaned in, my bent elbow stabbing into the stone beside his head. Using the knife to caress his flesh, I ghosted around one perfect nipple, which hardened into a peek.
From there, I circled the crest, then dragged the knife’s point across his pounding heart. If I cut there, would I discover skin or cement? Months ago, my answer would have been different.
Jeryn peered hotly, intently. Pressing the blade’s tip into his flesh scoured him, a teardrop of crimson bloating to the surface. Lowering my head, I draped my tongue over the bead, lapping up the blood while a hum rumbled from his frame.
Instead of briny, the morsel tasted crisp. Swallowing, I coasted the weapon lower, to the bunched muscles of his abdomen. The descent was a bumpy one, the contours hard until smoothing out once more as I teased the weapon over the ledge of one hipbone—then pressed a little deeper. When a thin line of red appeared, Jeryn’s teeth flashed. His mouth sought my own, but I veered out of reach, relishing his frustrated growl.
To make matters worse, I flitted my tongue vertically over his lips. This incited another coarse noise, his reaction drawing more arousal in the rift of my limbs.
As my weapon slid past those hipbones, things got more invigorating. Slanting the knife, I paused over the waistband and gave him a scorching look of inquiry.
Jeryn’s inhales grew shallower. “Third switch on the hilt.”
My thumb pressed the handle. The blade retracted while another flicked upright. Polished and curved, it would sunder greater obstacles.
The prince’s exhales quickened. He expected me to stay upright and on my feet.
I pulverized those assumptions to smithereens. In one fluid motion, I flipped his weapon in my fingers and plummeted to my knees.
Jeryn’s face slackened. His intake of breath sliced through the air, the sound tickling my ears. Despite the fervor around us, that noise eclipsed every crash of the tide against the breakers.
He gazed down at me, his features bewitched. And maybe a bit daunted, fearing how much he could withstand. Also doubtful I’d be merciful. Yet he remained fastened to the cliffside, obeying my unspoken command.
Don’t move, Your Highness.
His eyelids hooded, irises glinting under a half-mast gaze. Ever the purposeful villain, he reached overhead and twined his wrists around a pair of vines, then grabbed the cords.
Good man. Disciplined man.
My stare praised him for that move. Power stoked my blood, because it also meant he couldn’t trust himself to stay composed without restraints. Winter expected me to smash through those defenses, aware that dealing with Summer required stamina.
With me, this man had high expectations. With me, his patience would be exhausted.
Jeryn could have insisted I didn’t have to do this. But he knew, and I knew. I’d never been subservient, never been fragile, and never did anything I didn’t want to. I wasn’t kneeling to pay him back for the medical chamber, nor was I doing this simply to please him.
I was doing it for me. Because I craved it.
This Royal went pliant, placing himself at my behest despite the risk of breaking down. That alone set my soul on fire.
Although the surf whipped about, this recess provided shelter from the ocean. The starlit eddies were calmer here, enabling me to stoop without getting slapped by waves. Water sloshed over my thighs, painting me in the constellations that swam on its surface, as though they’d landed there. The sand sank under my weight, and salt-spray misted the hulls of my breasts.
As I licked my lips, Jeryn’s cock lifted, the shape and size of him straining through the pants. His pupils expanded like bottomless wells, my reflection filling them, as though I were floating inside them.
Floating. Not sinking.
I liked being there. I longed to be everywhere on him, to imprint myself on his flesh so he would never forget this.
The slab of his chest hitched, the muscles contracting like marble. On display, this glorious monster belonged to me.
First, I sampled the blood from his hipbone, sweeping my tongue across the incline. His nostrils flared as he watched me lick the crimson from his skin. The saltwater must sting him, but he showed no sign of caring. Rather, a different kind of suffering consumed his expression.
My eager fingers burned as I raised the knife to the closures of his pants. Glimpsing Jeryn’s rapt features, I snipped open the clasps, the blade’s edge plucking at each one. More sharp intakes followed from above, each one stoking my confidence.
The flaps opened, and his cock sprang free, and my body burst into flames. My imagination had been generous. Yet nothing compared to this authentic vision.
That long, hard, wet cock thickened under my gaze. Tall and firm, its height was greater than I’d pictured, the column ruddy and the crown even darker. A tight slit cut across the peak, where a pearl of liquid rose. The whole gorgeous thing looked sinful, from the feverish hue, to the distended veins, to the heavy sac between his thighs.
Thirst overwhelmed my senses. His cock could fill me to the brim. Soon enough, it would. And it wouldn’t end until the tide ebbed. But first, I descended into a forbidden, real-life fantasy where an evil prince succumbed to my touch.
A delirious combination of fury and excitement whetted my appetite. If he wouldn’t admit there was more, I’d get him to shout it. I would get him to bellow this truth until it became so loud, it drowned out the ocean.
Jeryn clenched the vines, forcing himself to remain still. Those eyes clung to my features, absorbing my reaction. Pinned against the cliff, he drew oxygen into his lungs and waited for my appraisal.
Craning my neck and meeting his eyes, I fanned out my skirt to show him what I thought of his cock. Braced with my thighs wide, I exposed myself. From the intimate swatch of hair, my clit jutted forward, and the pleat of my body leaked.
A choked noise ripped from Jeryn’s throat, the vines pulling taut. He liked what he saw.
Pleased, I skated his blade over the head of his cock. While I drew the point faintly along the slit, the bridge of his length twitched, and more liquid beaded to the surface. Like this, I sketched his flesh, tracing him lightly from the roof to the base, the way I would draw a symbol in the sand.
Jeryn’s mouth opened. Even then, he didn’t move.
At last, I withdrew the weapon. Boosting myself, I wedged the hilt between his teeth and nodded my encouragement as he clamped on, trapping the knife between his ivories. This way, he would have something to bite down on.
Then I dipped my head and followed the weapon’s previous trail. Only this time, I did so with my lips.
After being denied his taste for too long, I hunkered to the shore and grabbed the taut muscles of his ass. Then I draped my tongue against the seat of his cock and gave him a single, unbroken lick.
Jeryn’s body tensed. A frayed noise shook from his chest.
“Oh fuck,” he grated around the handle.
From the sac to the crown, I drizzled the point of my tongue across his flesh. Then I passed over the slit, collecting his arousal, the essence dissolving on my palate.
Still, he did not move.
Never had I done this with a man. Yet with this Royal, the impulses came as naturally as breathing. As a wanderer, I knew how to search and find. I would locate every devastating sound he was capable of making.
With an eager sigh, I lapped back and forth over the head, each swipe pulling on his voice. Moans skewered from him, the baritone deeper and richer and harsher. Emboldened, I swirled my tongue around the pome and swabbed more cum from the line in his cock.
The length stiffened further, elevating to his hips. I dashed my tongue up and down the column, flicking his sac and gliding back to the top. Over and over, I did this, sampling every broad inch.
Until it wasn’t enough. And so I strapped my lips around the crown and sucked.
Despite the hilt jammed into his mouth, Jeryn’s hiss cut through the tempest. The vines snapped as he braced against them and watched me through a mess of slate blue hair.
Spurred on by his gaze, I sealed my mouth around the stem and bowed my head toward the base. His flesh filled my mouth, and I rolled my lips back up, then down again. Uninterested in pacing or prolonging the sensations, I bobbed into it, siphoning his bare cock.
Jeryn’s growls quickened. His joints shook, and his skin warmed against my tongue, pellets of arousal dripping down my tongue. He held fast while I pumped, tugging and dragging on him.
I sighed around the crown, the reverberation causing him to buck once, the vibration rushing across his flesh. All the while, my clit throbbed. By some miracle, I felt what he felt, the onslaught agonizing.
One free hand dove between my thighs. The instant it did, Jeryn hummed.
He gazed in rapture, his cock widening in my mouth. Cinched around him, I flexed my tongue repeatedly across his slit and continued rowing my head. Matching that rhythm, I spread my folds and pitched my fingers high, probing with slick motions.
Overwhelmed by the wet friction and the heat of his cock, I curled my toes into the sand. I yanked his ass closer and hauled him deeper, draining him of every noise in existence.
And finally, my teeth nicked his skin. And then he moved.
His spine arched into the cliff, he flung his head back, and another word launched from his chest. With the knife blocking his voice, only pieces of the word came out audibly.
Yet I heard him. And my heart leaped into the ether.
Withdrawing from my pussy, I clutched his backside and sucked him into me. My elated cry rushed across his skin, urging him to say it again.
Jeryn hollered in tempo to my mouth, but the word got lost. And although I wanted him to spill all that pleasure down my throat, I also longed to hear that word, and I yearned for even more. Always so much more.
Jeryn spit out the knife, setting the word loose. “Flare!” he bellowed into the sky.
Puckering my lips, I gave another healthy tug. And another. And another. The villain prince continued to shout as I yanked those violent sounds to the forefront.
And the world went wild. And we went wild alongside it.