37
Flare
Releasing his cock, I burdened him with another lick and spoke against the crown, “Even your pleasure tastes cruel.”
And he moved again. Ripping his arms from the vines, Jeryn vaulted off the facade, snatched his weapon from the sea, and rammed it into the sheath. Then he grabbed my arms and hoisted me off the ocean floor before I could finish him off.
I moved in sync, stringing my legs around his waist as he crushed me against him, my thighs flanking his cock. The rigid muscles of his body welded me to him, all that skin and sinew flush against my own. His pale complexion flexed in stark contrast to my olive one, a combination lovely to behold. Yet he was darkness, and I was lightness, and we balanced one another.
Despite his bulk, never once had I felt small while encased in his grasp. Whenever this man held me, he made me feel larger than life. And even more than the rainforest, I sensed our fate. We’d been destined for this moment.
You’re the fucking sun.
Yes. That was it.
I’m nothing but ice.
Except I’d grown to like ice.
Jeryn’s arm linked beneath my ass, while the other hand cupped the back of my head, securing me to his frame. Our mouths panted against one another. I splayed my fingers across the bracket of his jaw and rushed my lips over his.
“Let me feel what ice is like.” Tilting my head, I nipped his earlobe. “Smooth.” Then I licked the cleft of his chin. “Solid.” And I quested my mouth down the side of his throat, to where his vocal cords rested. “Sharp.”
The prince shuddered, his fingers digging into my scalp and backside. I dined on his neck, sucking on his pulse until it sped up.
Muttering a primitive sound, Jeryn clamped the sides of my face and jerked my face up to his. Our wet hair tangled, the strands plastering to our profiles. Those eyes froze on me, brilliant and stinging. He could pierce an enemy through with those orbs.
As a fiend, he used to glare for hateful reasons. Now that expression reflected different emotions, a blend of aggression and ardency. Glaring hotly at me, Jeryn’s pupils fattened, threatening to eclipse the crystal of his irises.
He took his turn, assaulting my ear and scraping his teeth over the rim. Blood rushed through my limbs and oozed from my core. Tucking his brutal mouth behind the shell, the prince dabbed his tongue into the crevice, ecstasy pouring through me like black silk.
Smooth.
But not tender. No, the swipe of his tongue was assertive.
Next, he drew my earlobe between those teeth and wrapped his mouth around the slender flesh. With a croon, Jeryn’s lips strapped on and sucked. An influx of shivers plunged down my spine, only these chills were dense.
Solid.
The prince released my lobe. He sliced his incisors down the center of my throat, then across my collarbones, then down the knob of my shoulder. The trail left flurries in its wake, bliss and frustration scattering to the edges of my being. Gasps tumbled from my mouth, and my fingernails bit into his skull, and my cunt gyrated against his cock.
Sharp.
Seething, Jeryn withdrew. His ravenous face leveled with mine, fixing on my features for a moment. Then he steered my head back, urging me into an arch. This pushed my breasts into his torso and my stomach into his ribs. As the tide whipped against the shore, I suspended myself above the tumult, my hair dangling like seaweed.
For leverage, my fingers latched onto the nape of his neck. Though, I wouldn’t slip or fall. Not with him there.
Even if I did, I knew how to swim. And I knew how to survive the drop.
With my body extended and on wet display, the prince paused. Hyperawareness sensed his eyes roving across every inch, his stare sinking to the marrow of my bones.
The moment lasted an instant before the prince’s mouth lowered. Heat enveloped my nipple as his lips closed around the bud, the peak of his tongue licking me raw. I reeled farther back, a cry launching from my lungs. My lips parted, hanging ajar as more whines dashed into the air.
Jeryn groaned around the nipple and seized it harder, toughening it into a rock. Then he unleashed, kissing my breast the way he’d kissed my mouth. Disjointed moans streamed from my throat, each one splintering into the night.
My pussy leaked onto his cock, which rose from the loose panels of his pants. The waistband slumped, his ass materializing from the fabric. I knew because my heels were digging into the tight swells, shoving the garment farther down.
Jeryn made an icy noise. As if drained of air, he abandoned the nipple, cupped the opposite breast, and husked into the other disk. The pleasure chipped me to pieces, my whimpers growing choppy.
This man laid siege to my body as though intending to hoard every inch. Such an entitled prince. Such a manipulative man. Yet if he stopped, I would declare war.
Finally, his mouth relaxed from around the nipple. Inching back, he muttered against the peak, “I’m going to fuck you until we break.”
His promise fired through my veins. I’d been prepared for that since this night began—and even before then, from the moment he reached for me in a panic. What’s more, the prince’s vow caused my stomach to flip, anticipation tingling my spine. That, and pride.
This ruler had the world at his feet, but no one had ever warmed his bed. His whole life, he hadn’t requested a lover, hadn’t summoned a courtesan to his suite, hadn’t taken a partner.
Yet of all the people who worshiped and feared him, Winter wanted me. He had knelt to taste me, then restrained himself to be tasted back, and now he gazed at my features as though his life depended on it. More than lust, passion stared back.
This, I understood. Sick with desire, fed up with waiting, he didn’t care to be patient any longer, and I didn’t want to deny what I needed, and we didn’t bother regretting this.
It wouldn’t be gentle or slow. It would be chaotic. It would deplete us.
I would let this villain fuck me in the darkness. And I would fuck him back until the rising sun blasted us with light.
I nodded and spread my legs around his hips. My ankles linked above his ass, the ovals fully visible over the waistline. I’d thrust the pants as far as they would go without sliding down, the better to admire the firm divots and profile of his backside. The silhouette was as taut as the rest of him, including the high column of his erection.
It stood firm and flushed. The cap was broad, the width so thick my hand would struggle to encase him.
Astride his waist, I wiggled closer. My damp thighs fanned outward, my pussy bracing against the hard stem. I lifted myself, ready to span around his cock, to capture the tip between my legs.
To help him.
But the villain prince uttered an offended noise. “I’m a virgin,” he hissed. “Not a saint.” He palmed my ass and jerked me into him, his heavy cock primed at my entrance. “I’m also a doctor.” His mouth sliced a path across mine. “I know where the fuck to go.”
In trying to assist, I may as well have called him an amateur. Nonetheless, I purred, “Prove it.”
At the challenge, Jeryn’s expression turned critical. The sight entrapped me, so that I didn’t notice his hips swing back until the last instant. Then his waist lashed upward. And in one fluid motion, the hot length of his cock thrust between my folds.
I died a thousand deaths. A cry broke from my lungs. On impact, my frame jolted and hunched into him.
A groan quaked from Jeryn’s throat, the seismic noise traveling across his body. From the crown to the sac, every inch of his cock filled me to the brink, slick yet hard as metal. Its girth opened my pussy, splaying my limbs farther, my knees hiking at a greater angle.
Hell. Fire.
Our slack mouths hung open, our exhalations dashing against one another. Shackled like this, we peered at each other, overwhelmed by the sensation of his cock poised inside me. This instant when fantasy became reality.
The prince’s shape alone caused my lashes to flutter, the barest motion, the briefest friction sending a quick lurch of heat to the cleft of my thighs. In reflex, my cunt gripped him tighter. And in response, an aggrieved noise churned from Jeryn’s mouth.
Suspended, we fought to recover ourselves, the last few seconds threatening to drain us. However, we’d never been a delicate pair. We knew agony, and even though this was unlike anything I’d felt before, it didn’t take long for me to adapt. Nor him.
Swapping one more dark look, we flung ourselves into one another. Jeryn trapped my ass and slung his cock wholly out of me, then pitched back into my slit.
Then again. And again. And hellfire, again.
The buildup over and done with, the prince swiped his hips, his ass jutting between my thighs and splitting them apart. Heat shot through my blood. Pained whines fled my tongue, each one in tempo to the lashes of his cock.
Keeping his gaze on me, Jeryn’s features narrowed, furious concentration stringing across his features. With precision, he fixated on my reactions, using them to guide him. He angled his crown and pistoned, his buttocks working into me, the strength of his cock inciting mayhem.
Helpless, I let my forehead drop against his own. This close, our pupils fastened, challenging one another, demanding to see who outlasted the other. As though we were still adversaries, we pressed into each other while his hips struck between my thighs.
Stunned noises rushed into the air between us. Quickly, the muscles of my body expanded to accommodate his width, sealing around his flesh and sucking him deeply. Repeatedly, tirelessly, I crushed his roots in my fingers and rode his waist.
Our gazes tipped downward. Together, we watched our drenched bodies slapping, my cunt astride his cock, his crown pumping into my crease, his sac hitting my skin, and how my arousal smeared him.
Driven by the sight, Jeryn accentuated his movements, slinging his cock harder, faster. My whimpers launched into the heavens. The world blackened at the edges, all but the pulse of the whipping waves. I became nothing but sound and sensation. Because of that, I became everything.
I’d only ever been taken in the dark. But tonight, constellations swam in the ocean, illuminating the eventide so that I saw everything. I beheld what it looked like when someone pleasured me, what the grind of his waist did to my own, and how a deep flush burned across my skin.
My breasts jostled, my hips linked with his, and my body vaulted upward. The rhythmic snatch of Jeryn’s waist soaked me anew, my pussy widening for him, gripping and releasing his erection. We viewed all of this.
Then we watched as I charged into motion with him. Invigorated, I hefted myself up and down, matching his cadence. Linking my calves firmer around his ass and hooking my fingers to his nape, I used the momentum to bounce atop his cock. I raised and lowered myself in succession, my folds cinching Jeryn to the seat.
His eyes flashed, those controlled features slipping as I exaggerated the motions. I wanted to see his breakdown, to cause his downfall, to breach the final barrier.
In tandem, Jeryn whisked his body into mine, possessive and punishing. I attacked in kind, synching my body with his, waists slamming, hips beating.
Time and space vanished. Summer and Winter ceased to exist.
Our groans grew heavier and hotter and harsher. As one, we turned into wild creatures living in a wild land, each of us competing to overcome the other, to claim the other. We fucked the same way we’d shouted and crossed blades—hard and rough and livid.
But no longer hateful. Not that. Never again.
Fire licked up my spine. My cries multiplied and grew sharper, while Jeryn’s growls became huskier, angrier.
An eternity passed, with neither of us lagging. Every second provoked us more and more and more. Like a drifter and a pursuer, we sought one another’s weak spots and our hidden spots.
Never mind how the prince managed to bolster my weight for this long. The stamina of his cock was nothing short of excruciating. With measured jabs, the brunt of Jeryn’s waist pitched me high.
I swiveled my hips, my pussy and his cock crashing together. With rivulets streaming down my skin, I galloped on him, rowing back and forth. The pleasure crested, nirvana approaching. I keened, racing after that crescendo, fearing its end.
I screamed into the sea, “More!”
“How much more?” Jeryn gritted, then flung his cock deeper. “This much?”
He siphoned higher, the tip of his cock striking a tight place that split me in half. My thighs flayed wider, and my cunt opened wider, and my mouth fell wider. “Oh!”
“Louder,” he hissed. “Louder, my little beast.”
That, I could do. With him, I could make noise that shot across continents.
I let loose in every way. Barreling forth, I bucked my hips into his, shoving his cock deeper and higher, my walls flooding Jeryn.
His head craned back, the better to see my expression while our hips smashed into one another. The prince’s growls overlapped with my moans. Seizing my waist, he bobbed me above his standing cock, the head parting my walls on each descent, inciting a flurry of prickles down my skin.
We could die from this. The pleasure was so intense, we might burst and scatter across the sea. Yet I didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop.
Don’t you dare stop.
Though, I couldn’t tell if I was warning myself or commanding him. Either way, it didn’t matter, because nothing else mattered right then. And maybe nothing else ever would outside this ocean or beyond this rainforest.
But to make sure, I thrust down on Jeryn’s cock and vented against his mouth, “Was it a mistake?”
He rasped, the response strangled.
I flexed my pussy, seizing around him. “Was it?”
Again Jeryn hissed, the reply getting lost in his throat.
Yearning to dislodge the answer, I rushed my waist into his. The bud of my clit slid against the stem of his erection as I wrapped myself around him, locking him down. Yet this man didn’t seek escape. Instead, he looped one palm over my shoulder and hauled his cock upward, plying my folds with quick jabs.
I shouted, my head tipping back. Then the rest of me tipped back from the onslaught, my fingers fisting the roots of his hair for balance. Anchored, I held on for fate’s sake.
Wave after wave drove across the shore. New stars floated before my eyes, these ones brighter and fiercer.
Bowing backward, I sprinted my hips with Jeryn’s. He braced me, both hands ensnaring my shoulders, the position granting him deeper access. Just so, he threw his waist forward, fucking deftly into me, each pass synching with my plaintive cries.
I clamped onto his length, my muscles contracting around him, the pleasure mounting. Our sodden hips surged into swifter motion, hammering together. My moans scattered across the cove, and Jeryn’s growls escalated into bellows, his baritone losing control along with the rest of him.
I could sink into that sound, plunge into the darkness. Based on the disorder coming from the prince’s mouth, he would plummet with me.
The intimate flesh of my cunt constricted. Pleasure coiled there, the pressure building as this prince fucked me so good, so long, so much. Any moment, I might pass out.
He’d been right. This man knew where the fuck to go.
I clung to him and shouted, my thighs shaking, my hips racing to that precipice. Jeryn met that vigor with his own. He put his entire frame into it, his cock lashing, prying me open, drenching me.
His muscles quaked with the effort, that toned body flexing. The moment his cock pulsated, I straightened and aligned myself with him, unwilling to look away, to miss the sight of him coming.
His features remained fixed on me. And I realized. He was holding back, urging me to climax first.
But no. We would do this as equals.
With a hectic moan, I framed his ass and circled my waist, my pussy cinching his cock in a vise grip. Jeryn understood. Then he whipped into me at a breakneck pace, hitting a rapturous spot, tormenting me at a brutal angle.
As we watched each other, the tension spiraled, spiraled, spiraled. Then we paused. Then we collided. The pleasure unraveled in furious waves, an influx of heat releasing through my blood, from the peak of my clit to my deepest core.
A long suffering cry tore from me. At the same time, Jeryn’s features twisted with agony as he roared. I crushed my open mouth against his, the better to feel the tremors of his mouth, the better to taste his breath as he came.
My pussy convulsed around Jeryn’s cock, which spasmed and released a stream of hot fluid. Our private muscles clenched one another, and our limbs fused, and our doused bodies shook. We came loudly and endlessly and primally.
The aftershocks went on until the rain stopped and the tide ebbed. Only then did I crumple into Jeryn’s arms, boneless and woozy. My lungs and heart struggled to calm down, warm eddies swimming through me.
His own pulse pounded like a fist. With his cock still hard and hot inside me, the prince anchored one arm under my backside and dove his free fingers into my hair, cradling me to him as we fought to calm ourselves.
At last, I lifted my gaze. A pair of black pupils stared back, their gleam intentional.
“Again,” he growled.
My insides somersaulted. Although this wasn’t my first time, I hadn’t been prepared. Divine Seasons, I would never have been prepared for anything like this.
I relished the shape and size of his cock pelting between my folds, his body fitting so well to my own. Tilting my head, I slid a lock of hair behind Jeryn’s ear and repeated, “Was it a mistake?”
Then and now. Was it?
Jeryn tightened his hold on me. Finally, the walls toppled. “No.”
I closed my eyes, storing the word in a crevice of my heart. “Then tell me how you feel about me.”
After a spell, I opened my eyes to find Jeryn shaking his head. “I do not know how.”
My heart winced. He didn’t know how to express anything like this, anything beyond his experience. Aside from familial affection, he’d only know cruelty and coldness. But no passion or desire.
Yet despite the angry sex, this had meant more.
My breathless lips parted. I opened my mouth to say as much when Jeryn stiffened. “What the fuck?”
With our clothes shredded and our bodies still attached, the prince tapered his gaze on something in the distance. Flummoxed, I twisted in that direction.
Through the mist, a small ship was moored to one of the adjoining coves, the quarter deck visible from here. But although cliffs and trees blocked the vessel’s figurehead, I spotted the most important part. Flapping from the mizzen mast was a bronze flag, the cloth lacking an emblem to identify itself.
Not that it needed to. This also explained why Jeryn hadn’t sounded alarmed, because he’d drawn the same conclusion.
The unmarked flag meant this ship had come in secret. And the brown color meant only one Season.
“Autumn,” I whispered.