Chapter 40
ONCE THE CURTAIN flutters into place after me, I hold my breath, hoping he’ll follow. If I’ve misread…
But the curtain opens.
He’s briefly silhouetted—tall, broad-chested, narrow-hipped. Then he stalks past the curtain with easy confidence, leaving us shrouded in dim, crimson-tinged light.
He stands there. Close. Intent. I want to squirm, so I give a tight little laugh. “You’re looking at me like you want to eat me.”
“I’m starving, Annon.”
The laughter dies in my throat.
His gaze skims over the alcove. “Returning to the scene of the crime?” There’s a flash of long canine teeth as he stalks closer. “How were you lured in here, Annon? Alone. Vulnerable. It must’ve been something truly tempting.”
Mouth dry, I swallow. I consider deflecting, saying it was a plate of ginger biscuits, but I stop myself. I’ve been enjoying our open conversation and I want to continue in that vein, even if it feels like a risk. I might look foolish. I could very easily embarrass myself here. But…
“I thought it was you,” I mutter before courage deserts me. “But it was a changeling.”
“Phaedra.” He laughs softly, edged with danger. I wouldn’t want to be Phaedra next time he catches up with her. “Tell me, what did she do that made you so flustered?” He spears me in place with a look.
Lying seems pointless. Like he’d see through it. “She backed me against the wall.”
“Like this?” He stalks closer, and I back away until I bump into the window.
“Yes.” I nod, grateful for the cold glass.
“Then what?”
“She caged me against the wall like I might escape.”
“Hmm.” He plants one hand above my shoulder, then the other. His gaze trails to my mouth and stays there. “Tell me what she did once she had you here, Annon.”
“She—uh—I thought she was going to kiss me, but instead she teased my neck.” I have to pause to drag in a deep breath. “I can’t really remember what she said.”
“Good,” he says as he bends closer. “I want you to remember what I say,” he breathes in my ear. “What I do.” These words are hot against my throat, making my nerves catch light. “All of it.”
I arch against the window, giving him full access to my neck, to any part of me he wants.
His lips skim over me, lighter than Phaedra’s touch, little more than a breath.
A soft sound escapes me, caught between a whimper and a gasp.
“I’ve barely touched you.” There’s a teasing note in his voice.
“Then get on with it.”
“Headstrong, see?” He nips my collarbone, sending a streak of sensation through me. “You’ll have what I choose to give you, when I choose to give it.”
The note of command in his voice stills my tongue and sears my veins. I let my eyes sink shut, waiting for him to choose when, praying it will be soon.
“You have driven me to slow insanity, Annon. It’s only fair I repay you in kind.”
Then he kisses my throat. Lightly. So lightly.
I almost wonder if I’m imagining it, but he makes this quiet, pleased sound right after.
Another kiss follows and another. They overlap and blur together, the pressure of his touch building, his breathing growing heavier.
He sucks on my speeding pulse and tongues the hollow where my collarbones meet.
It’s like he wants to acquaint himself with every inch of my neck and make me burst with need. I swear the only thing stopping me from melting is the chilly glass of the window I’m pressed against.
He straightens, bringing his hips flush against mine, making my eyelids flutter open. Because damn him, but I want to see his face—the jaw you could cut yourself on, the slashes of his eyebrows, the molten glow of his eyes.
And he takes his time surveying me, too, like I’m part of his realm.
“What gave her away in the end?”
A deep breath presses my chest against him, teasing my nipples, making them furl, tight and achy. “She smiled.”
“And I never smile?” He cocks his head, smirking as if to illustrate that I’m wrong if I think that.
“When you smile and you mean it, you have dimples.”
It’s like I’ve broken him. Only in a small way, but it cracks the arrogant smirk from his face, leaving him somewhere between confusion and surprise.
“Here.” I graze the pad of my middle finger over his cheek for just an instant. “And here.” This time I’m braver, fingertips holding his jaw as my thumb strokes the telltale line where the other dimple forms.
He’s touched me much more thoroughly, but this feels intimate. Holding his face inches from mine. Sharing air with him. My body drinking the warmth from his as he crushes me against cold glass, the pressure increasing each time we make contact.
“And before that,” he says, voice roughened, “did you want her to kiss you?”
I’m a coward. I lower my head, gaze skipping to one side.
He finally releases the window and places his cold hand around my throat. Sliding it up, he forces me to meet his gaze. His is molten, matching the heat pooled inside me. “Answer me, Annon. Answer your king.”
It’s easy to give in when it’s an order. Not my responsibility. No bravery required. Not my answer to feel embarrassed about. “Yes.” My pulse peaks on that single syllable.
“Of course you did, needy little thing.”
My cheeks burn, but it’s worth it because he bends closer, so much closer. I brace, expecting his mouth to claim mine, feeling the promise of it. Right on the edge. The breath before the plunge.
But he doesn’t kiss me.
He stops. Squeezes. Tilts my chin higher, so close our mouths share the same air and I taste him—the sweet-sharp of fae wine. Just as intoxicating.
“So responsive. So eager.” It’s a tease. A taunt. But he says it with this edge of wonder.
His lips ghost over mine—a brush of heat, no contact.
A torment.
I bend, chase, but he only chuckles darkly and leans away.
“No, my desperate little mortal.” His mouth finds my jaw instead, then the sensitive spot beneath my ear.
His hot breath chases goosebumps over my skin, and he kisses that same spot again.
I feel his smile, like he enjoys watching my reaction.
Another kiss. Another. Down the line of my throat, across my shoulder, up the column of my neck.
If he was a different man, I might call it worship. But the King of Death worships no one, certainly no mortal.
It’s more like an intelligence-gathering mission. My strengths. My vulnerabilities. The places that make my pulse leap hardest.
I whimper without meaning to. As needy as he said.
Still, he never touches my lips.
I tip over. Beyond sanity or madness. I have nothing left.
I bring one leg around him, finding the thick muscles of his thigh. I can’t get the right angle to hit the exact spot I want, but feeling him between my legs sends pleasure surging through me.
I rub against him, I revel in the feel of his pulse under my palm as my hand skims up his neck.
Every part of him is solid. He is strong where I am weak. He’s powerful where I’m magicless. He’s a king where I’m nothing.
And yet I hold his pulse in my hand. I make it throb harder. I make his breath shake as I grind against his thigh.
A creature of want, I press into him, chasing the sensation of his broad, hard chest against mine.
There. I find it. Through the thin silk of my gown, the embroidery on his lapels rubs my nipples. Only fleetingly. But I’ve been denied long enough that it wrings a moan from me.
“And I thought you were such a sweet, innocent creature.” His dark laughter fills the airless space of our alcove as his arm bands around my waist and his hand plunges into my hair. He lifts me so my hips are level with his.
And then I’m lost.
He surges against me, the hard length of him rubbing right where I’m softest, where I’m most desperate, where all my heat and desire and rising pleasure is gathered so tightly.
“Annon,” he gasps against my neck. “Fuck, Annon.”
“Are you trying to form a sentence?” My teasing tone is somewhat ruined by my breathlessness. “Because I can tell you, you’re failing.”
“Fuck is a complete sentence. I look forward to teaching you that.”
My mouth goes dry. More words are impossible. I can barely nod.
With a slow, dangerous smile, he slides one hand up my bare leg. “Would you like that, Annon?”
I nod again.
His thumb approaches the crease at the top of my inner thigh. “Tell me.”
“I would like you…” I have to pause to catch my breath. “To teach me.”
He gives a lazy half smile, a dimple pressing shallowly into his cheek. “There. Was that so difficult?” He skims along my edges, making me arch and tremble in anticipation.
He stays there, watching as I stare at him with eyebrows peaked in silent plea.
Fingertips teasing, he kisses just below my jaw and somewhere between the kisses, I pull together enough self control to whisper in his ear. “Take me somewhere we can be alone.” There’s a shiver from him as my lips brush his earlobe.
“We are alone.” He edges the tiniest bit closer.
“I mean more alone than this. Somewhere we can get comfortable. Somewhere you can teach me.”
He pulls back and surveys me. There’s the thinnest ring of gold around his pupils. They’re blown so wide, I could fall into them and keep on falling.
Another slow smile before his thumb slides over my apex. Pleasure jolts through me just as raven blackness swallows us up.
I fold with him, into him, into the dark spaces between.