Chapter Thirty-Four Ethan
Chapter Thirty-Four
Ethan
My eyes shoot open, my heart pounding in my chest. “Sunny.”
“Sunny is fine,” Jihun says. “She got both of you back to the Kingdom of Sky in one piece.”
My warrior saved both of us.
“But you need to recuperate, Your Majesty.” My royal adviser presses a hand against my shoulder when I try to sit up.
“Do not tell me what I need.” I push his hand away and struggle to a seat. I need Sunny. “Where is she?”
“She is resting at the Sunset Pavilion.” His nostrils flare as he fights for patience. “If you are well enough to sit up, then you need to meet with—”
“Later.” I cut him off and push to my feet. I’m already at the doors when I turn to ask, “Where am I?”
“You are at the Celestial Palace.” Jihun pinches his nose. “Go, Ethan. I will stall for you. It’s not like the fate of the realm is at stake.”
“Thank you,” I say, softening my tone. “I won’t be long. I just need to see with my own eyes that she’s okay.”
My royal adviser flaps his hand, shooing me away like an annoying gnat. I’ll take that. I flash him a grateful smile before dashing out the doors and into the sunlight. I squint up at the sky.
How long was I out?
Sunny must be dying with worry. Shit. I ignore the startled eyes of the people in the courtyard and run like hell to Jihun’s estate.
I stop at the steps to the Sunset Pavilion, huffing like an angry bull. I try to even out my breathing, but my heart ping-pongs in my chest at the thought of seeing Sunny, and my breaths only grow shorter.
“Your Majesty?” Miok, Sunny’s lady-in-waiting, starts when she sees me from the main hall but quickly regains her composure and bows low from her waist. “How may I assist you?”
“I want Sunny.” My voice comes out an impatient, possessive growl. I clear my throat and try again. “I am here to see Sunny.”
“She is not here, Your Majesty.”
“What?” I sound more like a gawky teenager than a formidable king. “Where is she?”
“She said she was going out for a walk,” Miok answers evenly.
“Out . . . for a walk?” Disappointment crushes down on me. “She could be anywhere.”
“True.” The lady-in-waiting lowers her gaze, but not before I see the amusement sparkling in them. “But she did mention a lovely garden she once had a picnic . . .”
I don’t hear the rest of her sentence as I sprint toward the gates. Sunny is at my mother’s garden. She is so close. Even as I run fast enough to make my lungs burn, a cheek-cramping grin spreads across my face.
I’ll see her soon. Not when she’s falling out of the sky, or being swallowed by the Amheuk. I stumble, clutching at my chest. She’s okay, I remind myself. She’s here. I take off again.
I’m finally going to see Sunny, on solid ground, in relative safety. I won’t have long with her—I haven’t forgotten my duties—but even a minute alone with her will be a gift from the heavens.
My mother’s garden lies ahead of me, and I push myself faster. I burst through a stand of trees and skid to a stop at the clearing.
Sunny.
She stands in the pavilion, as exquisite as a statue, and stares out at the pond with her hand on a pillar. She’s wearing a silk hanbok with a sky blue jeogori and a lush lavender chima, and her hair hangs in a sweet braid down her back.
Mine.
She looks like a Joseon maiden out of a historical K-drama, delicate and unapproachable. And I feel an irrepressible urge to dishevel her. I want to kiss her lips raw. I want to tease her until temper sparks in her eyes. I want to tug her hair free. I want her to come undone in my arms. I want her.
Mine.
I reach her in a heartbeat. Forgetting my strength, I grab her too fast, too hard, and crush my lips against hers with a rumbling groan.
I have waited for an eternity. I swallow her startled gasp and deepen my kiss, hanging on to my control by a thread.
She stumbles back half a step but holds her ground.
She is no delicate maiden. She is my beautiful, powerful Sunny.
I push her up against the pillar and growl against her lips, “Mine.”
“Yours,” she whispers, pushing up to her toes. “I’m yours, Ethan.”
My teetering control shatters. Tearing her shirt open, I bury my face in the soft mounds of her breasts, overflowing from the bodice of her chima, and breathe her scent, both sweet and crisp, into my lungs. I drag my lips over her silken skin, and she pushes her chest into my face.
With a rough tug, I pull the bodice down and reveal the dusky peaks of her breasts, and suck one tip none too gently into my mouth. I swirl my tongue around the areola and pull away, scraping my teeth along her pebbled nipple.
“Ethan,” she moans.
I’m famished, and I feel as though I will never get my fill. I lather her other breast with equal attention. I fall to my knees and bunch the hem of her skirt in my fist. I pause and look up through my lashes at her flushed face.
“I need to taste you.” I hardly recognize my own voice.
She nods without hesitation. Gods, she’s magnificent.
I push up her full, floor-length skirt, already cursing the layers of undergarments I’ll have to get through. But my breath seizes in my chest.
“Sunny?” I wheeze in a strangled voice.
“I told Miok life is too short for six layers of undergarments,” she says pertly, even though she is breathless. “The worlds as we know them might end in a matter of days.”
“You are as wise as you are beautiful.” I stare at the dark triangle between her legs.
“Did you just figure that—ahh.” Her head falls back on the wooden pillar as I push her folds open and . . . lick.
“Gods,” I moan against her clit, and her hips jerk against my mouth. “Hold still, baby. I’m trying to eat.”
And I feast. I worship her with my mouth and tongue, her pleasure my reward. My cock strains against my pants, and I’m afraid I’ll come just like this if that breathless whimper slips past her lips one more time.
“Ethan, please.” Her husky plea sets my body on fire.
“I’m right here. I got you.” I swirl the tip of my finger around her slick entrance and plunge in, deep and hard. “Gods, you’re wet.”
Her teeth sink into her bottom lip, and her head thrashes against the pillar. I add a second finger and work them in and out of her. My fingers squelch against her desire. It’s fucking obscene. And it is mind-blowingly hot.
I lap at her, pumping my hand faster, and when she’s close—so close—I suck her into my mouth.
“Ethan,” Sunny screams and clenches around my fingers.
“There’s my good girl.” I murmur against her mound, gradually slowing the movement of my hand—bringing her down gently.
“Don’t good girl me.” Her small, strong fingers fist in my hair, and she jerks my head back and looks down at me. “I want you to defile me, Ethan. Fuck me like you mean it.”
I surge to my feet and wrap her legs around my waist in one motion. I free myself with an impatient tug at my pants, and I tilt her hips and plunge inside her. We still for a second, reveling in the perfection of the moment—of coming home.
“Hold tight,” I growl, my entire body taut with feral desire.
When I feel her fingernails digging into my shoulders, I plant a palm on the pillar above her head, and I claim her. My hips piston as I plunge in and out of her, going faster, deeper, and harder with each thrust. Her cries catch and break in her throat as I drive into her again and again.
I need to get closer. I need to meld with her. Even as I take her, I already miss this closeness because I know it’s going to end. It will never be enough. I will want her—I will love her—for a thousand years. She is my obsession. She is my everything.
“E-Ethan,” she pants. “I’m close . . . I’m so close . . . Come . . . come with me.”
“Always.” I crush my lips against hers. “I am yours, Sunny. Take me any way you want.”
She buries her fingers in my hair and deepens our kiss, bruising and demanding. She is claiming me, and I am humbled, honored. I don’t know if I deserve her, but I am never letting her go. I thrust myself inside her, and our mingled shout fills the garden.
My body goes limp, and my weight presses her into the pillar. But I can’t make myself move away from her—pull out of her. We lean against the wooden pillar, still connected, and catch our breaths until our hearts beat in sync.
“Hi.” She wiggles her adorable bottom, asking to be put down.
I reluctantly pull out of her, feeling bereft, and she drops her legs from around my hips. I hold on to her waist until her feet touch the ground and her skirt falls between us. I hate her skirt. I hate everything that separates us. Even so, I close her shirt, then right my own clothes.
“Hi.” I tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear as my other hand roams up and down her back.
I love her so much, I can hardly stand it.
I feel like I’ll combust into flames and burn to ashes in my next breath.
I stare into her eyes, hoping to convey all my love and longing through my gaze.
And like the cool, suave male that I am, I croak, “Hi.”
A shadow passes over her expression. Sunny gently pushes on my chest, and I step back from her.
She walks over to the railing and looks out at the lily pond.
I stay back by the pillar, fighting the urge to crowd in on her.
She grips the wooden railing and worries her bottom lip raw, her throat working to swallow.
“There are . . . things I need to tell you,” she says in a flat voice, and my stomach lurches.
“You can tell me anything, Sunny.” As long as it isn’t to tell me we can’t be together.
“Before I killed Daeseong, h-he told me that he was my . . . father.” Her gaze stays on the pond.
I huff a relieved laugh. “That bastard was lying to mess with your head till the very end.”