Chapter 22 #2
I dig my nails into the flesh of his ass. Harder.
He does, and it’s glorious—the sharp pain in my scalp mixing with the taste of him on my tongue, the way he’s completely lost control now, his hips moving in small, helpless thrusts.
I can’t breathe, my jaw aches, but I’m sucking his cock like my life depends on it because if this is the last time, I want him to remember it. Remember my mouth. Remember me.
My hands shake against his thighs. Not enough. The words thud through me with each heartbeat. Not enough, not enough. I want his hands on me, in me, want everything he can give before it’s ripped away.
The realization smashes into me, drowning me, pinning me, dizzying me.
I want him inside me.
The thought surprises me—catches me completely off guard. I’ve never wanted that before, but suddenly it’s all I can think about. I want to feel the burn of Marco pushing in, claiming me. Want his cum filling me up, marking me from the inside out.
I push him off with a wet sound, and Marco makes this broken, desperate noise that goes straight to my cock. He’s breathing hard, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he stares down at me with dazed eyes.
My legs shake as I climb unsteadily to my feet. I place one hand on his hip, the other lifting his chin so he has to look at me.
“Will you…” My voice comes out hoarse from the assault of his cock down my throat. I swallow, trying again. “Will you fuck me?”
The words tumble out before I can change my mind, my heart pounding so hard I’m sure he can hear it.
Marco’s eyes widen in surprise. His hands come around to cup my ass, squeezing tightly through fabric.
He considers me. “Have you ever been fucked before?”
I almost lie. The part of me that still hates this beautiful bastard doesn’t want to let him know what I want to give him. Doesn’t want him to know how much I want him to do it.
But in the end, my head shakes.
Marco’s grip on my ass tightens. “Then… not… not here, birdie.”
My heart sinks, but it’s not quite a no, and my brain can’t help latching onto that, even though Marco just said this is the very last time. Even though we’re supposed to be pretending this never happened after tonight.
“Fine,” I hiss, something fierce surging through me. “Then I guess it’s still my turn to show you how it’s done.”
I twist him around with a violent shove, bending him over the railing so his forearms rest against the ornate metal. The position puts his ass at the perfect height, his glorious muscles rippling and tensing under the moonlight.
If he won’t fuck me, then I’ll give him something else to remember.
I yank up the back of his gown, exposing him completely. He’s already slick with a fine layer of sweat from the heat of the party, and I press myself against him, rutting between his ass cheeks while I bring my fingers to his mouth.
“Suck,” I command.
Marco opens his lips immediately, taking my fingers in and working them with his tongue. The wet warmth of his mouth makes me groan, and I grind harder against him, rejoicing in the delicious friction but wanting more, more, more.
My fingers are soon wet enough. I pull them from his mouth and force one inside him without warning.
Marco makes a noise—not of pain, but almost a sigh of relief. Like he’s been waiting for something for an eternity, and now he’s got it.
I work my finger deeper, not gentle, not careful. The way he pushes back against me tells me he doesn’t want gentle anyway.
“I wanted to kill him earlier,” I growl against his ear, adding a second finger and scissoring them roughly. “When you paraded out with him, in front of everyone. I wanted to gut his stomach, scream at him that you’re mine, that he can’t touch you.”
Marco’s breathing turns ragged as I finger him, his hands gripping the railing tightly.
“The lamp,” he gasps, voice strained. “Give me that lamp.”
“What?” I blink at him, confused. My brain is a foggy abyss, drunk on lust and the taste of him still lingering on my tongue.
Marco reaches over, stretching toward one of the oil lanterns hanging on the railing. His movement is awkward, desperate, and I watch in bewilderment as he struggles with the metal fixture.
The sound of shattering glass cuts through the night air like a gunshot.
“Shit!” My head whips toward the library doors, heart hammering. “Marco, what the fuck—”
“Oops,” he says with a smirk that’s pure sin, holding up the broken remains of the lamp. Oil drips from the shattered bottom, pooling on the stone balcony. “Clumsy me.”
Understanding crashes through me, and I yank my fingers from his ass. But before I can move, Marco’s scooping up the liquid himself, his oiled hand wrapping around my cock with vicious, demanding strokes.
The sensation nearly buckles my knees. “Fuck—”
I bat his hand away and spin him back around, pressing him against the railing. The oil makes everything slippery, perfect, and I line myself up against his entrance.
I slide in slowly. Inch by exquisite inch, savoring every second, every soft gasp that escapes his lips.
God, he’s so tight, so hot around me. My eyes want to roll back in my skull, but I force myself to watch his face instead—the way his mouth falls open, the way his dark lashes flutter against his cheekbones.
“Quicker, birdie,” he breathes.
I give his thigh a sharp slap that echoes in the night air.
“I gave you a chance to be in control,” I hiss in his ear, my voice pure gravel. “You should have taken it.”
Marco scoffs, even as his body trembles beneath me. “There’s no way you could have taken me.”
I reach around and squeeze his wet cock, hard enough to make him jerk against the railing. “Are you claiming your cock is bigger than mine, Marco? Because we both know that isn’t true.”
I push all the way in at that exact moment, and an obscene moan slips from his lips—raw and desperate and so fucking perfect.
I start fucking him with force, each thrust driving him against the ornate metal. God, it’s so good I can barely think straight. The tight heat of him, the way he pushes back to meet every movement, the breathless sounds he makes send me dizzy.
Marco’s face contorts with pleasure.
“Is this more to your liking, Your Highness?”
He doesn’t reply. Can’t reply. He’s lost somewhere beyond words, beyond thought, and when I angle my hips just right and hit that spot inside him, he cries out prettily.
The sound echoes off the palace walls, too loud, far, far too loud. My hand flies to his mouth, muffling him.
“Fuck, I almost forgot how noisy you are.”
Marco pulls my hand away, panting against my palm. “Only… only with you, birdie.”
Something cracks open inside me at those words. Like my ribs cracking apart. Like my heart tearing in half.
I wrench his face toward mine, crushing our mouths together. My teeth scrape his tongue, sink into his lip until I taste copper. It’s teeth on teeth, tongue against tongue, biting and sucking while I fuck into him with everything I have left.
White-hot pleasure racks through me in waves, and I’m trying to hold back the inevitable, desperate to make this last. Because if this really is the last time I get to be inside him, the last time I get to taste him on my tongue, the last time I get to hold him in my arms…
Only with you, birdie.
Writhing back into me, Marco moves my hand from his hip to his cock, and I stroke him mercilessly.
If this is all I can give him—these stolen moments, this borrowed pleasure—then I’ll give him everything I have.
His breath comes in raspy gasps against my ear as I work him with my slick palm, thumb circling the head of his cock the way I know makes him tremble.
He releases with a cry that he tries to muffle against his own forearm, hot ropes of cum coating my hand, his body clenching around me so my knees almost give out as I hurtle toward euphoria.
I can’t hold back. Pure bliss pulls me under, into her sweet tide. I push into him one final time, as deep as I can go, my free hand digging nails into his hip so hard I’ll leave marks. Good.
I hold us there, buried to the hilt inside him, as I empty myself with shuddering pulses.
“Don’t move,” he says on a breath, immediately, the last drops of me not even inside him yet. “Not… not yet.”
I happily remain nestled inside him, holding both his hips tightly, pulling him flush against my body.
We’re both breathing hard, hearts hammering against ribs, sweat cooling in the night air.
His head lolls back against my shoulder.
My teeth have left his lips bruised and tender, and I brush the back of my knuckles across them.
My eyes drift across the moonlit garden spread below us—the perfectly manicured hedges, the marble paths winding between beds of roses that probably cost more than most people see in a lifetime.
For a wild moment, I imagine the pair of us floating upwards, flying away from this palace and this Emperor and this city to somewhere else.
Somewhere we wouldn’t be stealing five desperate minutes on some tyrant’s balcony, but rolling together on soft grass under an open sky. Walking hand in hand along a shoreline where no one knows our names, where Marco isn’t a champion killer and I’m not scheduled to die for entertainment.
Where we could just be.
Marco leans further back into me, gazing up at the clear, starry night. The constellations spread above us, a shimmer of scattered diamonds on black silk, but they seem dimmer somehow. Less brilliant than I remember.
The stars aren’t as bright as Atrea’s.
It’s as if Marco can read my mind, because he says, “Doesn’t it seem impossible to you that these are the same stars as the ones above Atrea’s cliffs?”
For a moment, I don’t reply, just stare up at the familiar patterns—Orion’s belt cutting across the darkness, the Big Dipper hanging low on the horizon. The same constellations my father taught me to navigate by, the same ones Esme and I used to wish on from our roof.
“You’re wrong. These are not the same stars,” I say, putting conviction behind my words, as if I could convince him the sun isn’t yellow if only I tried hard enough. “But one day, Marco, you will see those stars again.”
His eyes drop, suddenly brimming with unshed tears.
Marco’s entire body goes rigid against me. He jerks forward, pulling away so abruptly that I lurch backward in shock. He doesn’t look at me as he slides open the balcony door. Not even a glance.
And then he’s gone, leaving me alone on the balcony with nothing but moonlight and the ghost of his warmth still clinging to my skin.