Chapter 21
Twenty-One
A good brownie never screams.
Ever. Ever. - Arienna
“What?” I stare at him, certain I’ve misheard.
As my fingers dig into my thin blue slip, I wish I was wearing something thicker, something that could guard me against the harsh cut of his words, the embarrassment piercing my soul.
I wish with all my being that I was at least wearing panties.
I took them off to be sexy, and now all I feel like is a fool.
“I won’t join you in your chambers.” He flips the page he’s reading, his violet eyes never once looking up. “I’m not interested in having sex with you.”
“But why?”
“Frankly?” He jots something down with one half of a pen. Ink stains his fingers. They are a bright red, the only colour on him. “You’re not my type.”
“What? Hot women aren’t your type?”
Another jot. “You’re sounding a bit desperate.”
No freaking duh, I want to say, I’m as horny as Zeus on a winter morning, and I just want my marriage to be better than my engagement. I glance over at Jace, hoping he’ll help me, but all he does is keep his eyes on the door behind me. And I thought he was the nice one.
Exhaling strongly, trying hard to ignore the pain of rejection from my own husband, I say, “I know you didn’t really want a wife, and I didn’t really want a husband.” I shake my head as I think about Karl. “Well, I did. But not you, and –”
He finally looks up.
Only it isn’t at me. And that hurts.
Staring at Jace, he says, “Escort my wife back to her chambers and imprison whoever brought her here.”
My mouth falls open in utter shock and horror. “You can’t do that.”
His eyes flicker to mine, holding me down as good as chains. “You’ll find, my queen,” he murmurs, “that I can do a great number of things.”
And just like that, he steals all my breath. All my fear. All my thoughts about not being good enough.
My throat dry, I’m acutely aware of the wetness pooling between my legs. It’s like he fucked me with his words, like he’s still fucking me with his eyes. I sway, unsure if I should move forward or back.
“Jace.”
That short command breaks the spell. The flippancy of it causes a fountain of anger to explode inside me.
It’s such a new feeling and so powerful that it leaves me momentarily shaken.
A good brownie is never angry. A good brownie never screams. But in this moment, I am tired of being a good frickin’ brownie.
I want him to look at me as if I’m more than a signature he needs on whatever it is he wants. Ignoring Jace as he approaches me, keeping my eyes solely on Richard, I reach up and yank a strap of my slip down.
Awareness instantly hits me. His eyes dip to my chest. Hot and burning, they scorch a path down to my nipple. I can feel his hands there, his lips, his tongue, and my breath starts to come out faster.
“Have sex with me.” I reach up, ready to pull down the other strap.
Crack.
Something snaps, and I wonder, briefly, if it is me. My sanity. But then I see the ink pooling across his desk.
“Leave us.”
Tears burn my eyes at the newest round of rejection. I yank my strap down in defiance.
“Jace,” he snaps.
I tense, waiting to be dragged out of here, but Jace simply walks past me. I think I catch a glimpse of a smile on his face, but I can’t move my eyes from Richard’s to check. He holds me captivated. Beholden. Enslaved.
The door clicks closed behind me. His eyes darken, like a predator latched on to prey, and my heart pounds wildly. A slash of fear slams into me.
Not of him. Because of him.
Despite what I told Fabia, Karl’s rejection of me hurt. Him sleeping with my sister and mother instead of me hurt. Him marrying my mum hurt. But I smiled and moved on because that’s what a good brownie does.
But here? In this kingdom where it’s not illegal to feel all these other things?
My heart screams in my throat. Run!
Because Karl might’ve hurt me.
But my king can ruin me.
Terrified, I yank one of my straps back up. What the heck was I thinking? He isn’t going to be a gentleman like Simon. He isn’t going to be predictable like Karl. He’s going to be –
My thoughts spasm as he unfolds himself from his chair, his eyes never leaving mine.
I take a step back. And another. “Ah. Yes. No. You did say no, and it would be rude of me to push. So I’ll go now.” I glance behind me at the closed door, my feet shuffling me back. Back. Back. When I turn around to excuse myself one last time, I suck in a sharp breath.
He’s there, right there in front of me. Barely a tongue’s length away. His eyes glued on mine.
Squeezing my thighs together, I’m acutely aware of my breast hanging free between us. I raise my hand to cover myself, but he grabs it before I can lift the strap.
His fingers like a cuff on my wrist, he walks me back against the door. One step. Two. Then the wood is hard against my back. And he’s hard against me. And the air is nowhere to be found.
He pins my arm to the wall. Staring into my eyes, he raises his other hand to the strap I put back in place. His fingers graze my shoulder, sending chills down to my very core. Ever so slowly, he tugs it down, letting the fabric slide across my skin. My tight little bud.
My thighs clench.
My lips part.
And his hand slides up my arm to cup my naked breast.
Leaning in, his breath hitting my neck, he asks, “And what did you have in mind for our wedding night, my queen?”
I swallow, unable to speak.
“Did you imagine my hands sliding across your body? Cupping your breasts before claiming your nipples as mine?” He rolls my bud between his fingers, causing me to arch in expectancy.
My lashes lower. A moan builds up in my throat.
“Did you imagine my lips here, licking and sucking as I trailed my hand lower?” His fingers glide down my stomach, pushing my slip to the floor. “Did you imagine me here?”
He cups me as if he owns me. I sag against the door, my breaths laboured. Is this how a mouse feels when it catches sight of an owl?
“You must have,” he murmurs, his lips across my neck, “because you’re already so wet.”
My head falls to the side as my moan finally escapes, but he grabs my chin and forces it back upright. His eyes bore into mine. “I asked you a question, my queen.”
My tongue becomes way too tied to speak.
His finger dips between the lips of my pussy.
I whimper –an actual bloody whimper– as I buck my hips against him. His hand leaves my centre and grabs my hip, pinning me to the wall.
“Don’t make me ask again.”
“Yes,” I gasp. “I imagined your lips on my breasts.” I lean forward to kiss him, to relieve some of the pressure inside of me, but he turns his head. Lowering it, he clasps his teeth around my nipple.
I jerk into his mouth, crying out in pleasure.
He releases me before the pressure can properly build. Turning me around, he pushes me flush against the door. He kicks my legs apart. His hand slips between my thighs. Then he pushes a finger inside my pussy.
I buck against the door. Closing my eyes, I moan in pleasure as his finger fucks me slow and deep.
His other hand wraps around my throat.
Lifting my ass, I silently beg him to go faster. Harder.
He presses his thumb against my butthole.
My eyes pop open.
My fingers grab his wrist, but he releases my neck to pull my hand away.
The pressure against my back hole feels too tight. Sharp and painful like a dozen little tears are popping up.
And then he’s pushing inside until he goes past this magical point, where all the pain disappears. Closing my eyes, I moan his name.
He slaps my ass. “I told you to call me ‘my king’.”
As he slams his hand into me, his fingers filling both holes, I struggle to stay standing.
He wraps his other arm around me as my moans intensify.
Pressing the fingers of that hand against my clit, he rubs it slowly, lovingly, in a powerful contrast to the hard thrust of his other hand.
My orgasm builds until I’m clawing at the door.
Banging on it. Twisting against it. Rubbing myself against the wood and his hands.
Chasing that specific outside stimulation that’ll send me over the edge.
Gasping, so close, I shamelessly whimper, “My king.”
And then I scream. And I don’t even care that a good brownie never screams.
My orgasm rips through me, stronger than it’s ever been.
Stronger than I ever knew they could be.
My pussy and ass clench around his fingers, squeezing them in erotic pulses that leave my legs trembling and my chest heaving.
I want to feel his cock inside me, rubbing against my inner walls as I ride out the end of this ecstasy.
But when he lifts his hands, it’s to grab my hair and pull me around. He forces me to my knees, and while I’m still struggling to breathe, he shoves his cock inside my mouth. Rough. Hard. All the way. So deep.
My pussy clenches under the show of his desire.
My lungs struggle, needing air.
I rear back, gagging and coughing, but he has such a strong grip on my hair. Holding me still, he rams his cock down the very back of my throat.
Again.
And again.
And again.
My eyes water. My hips buck. I want to reach down and touch myself, but my hands won’t leave his hips. My fingers dig into his skin. I want all of him. More.
He pummels into my mouth, fucking it like some dirty little hole. I think about biting him and causing him to jerk, making him mine while he’s making me his.
But I am struggling so much to breathe that I don’t have the chance. His hands tighten in my hair. My throat grips the end of his cock as I gag and choke. Saliva runs down my chin. My breasts. Tears stream down my cheeks.
I look up to peer into his eyes so I can know that I’m not just some thing for him to use, but he’s too blurry through my tears.
“Is he kind?”
“No.”
I squirm beneath his thrusts, heat building despite the pain in my mouth from the cut of his piercing.
“What if I don’t want him to do something?”
“Trust me. You’ll want him to do everything.”
And dear gods, the guard was right. Holding me still, he picks up the pace. My teeth scrape against his cock. Cold metal catches on my cheek every so often, but he doesn’t seem to care. And neither do I. Pummelling into me, he stays deep on the last thrust.
His balls feel so tight against my chin.
The underside of his cock pulses against my lips.
Pulling out, he comes all over my face, his cum mixing with my saliva and tears.
I pant for the air that I desperately need. I squeeze my thighs together as my pussy pulses in that same tempo, wanting him, needing him to fill me.
Placing two fingers under my chin, he lifts until I meet his gaze. “There’s your wedding night, wife,” he says. “Now get the fuck out of my study, and don’t bother me again.”
When I don’t move, too frozen with confusion, he bends down to yank up my slip. Not bothering to pull my arms through the straps, he opens the door.
And shoves me out.