Chapter 8 Desire’s Deadly Curse #4
He began to move then, withdrawing almost completely before sliding back in with intentional slowness. Each thrust was measured, controlled. It was lovemaking in its purest form—attentive, responsive, focused on mutual pleasure rather than selfish release.
Yet it wasn’t enough. The careful consideration, the gentle pace—they only stoked the fire within me rather than satisfying it. I didn’t want love making. I wanted more, needed the wildness I had glimpsed beneath his controlled exterior.
“Harder,” I demanded, my nails digging into his back, urging him closer, deeper. “I won’t break, Valen.”
Surprise, or perhaps appreciation for my boldness flashed through his eyes. “Are you certain of that?” he asked, his voice rough with restrained desire.
“I don’t want your gentleness,” I replied, lifting my hips to take him deeper, drawing a groan from his throat. “Fuck me, husband.”
The crude words, so at odds with my royal upbringing, seemed to snap the final thread of his control.
A sound that was half growl, half groan rumbled from his chest as his movements suddenly changed, becoming more forceful, more primal.
His hands gripped my hips with bruising intensity, holding me in place as he drove into me with newfound urgency.
“This is what you want?” he demanded, punctuating the question with a particularly deep thrust that had me gasping. “To be claimed? Completely?”
“Yes,” I moaned, my head falling back against the pillows as pleasure built within me, coiling tighter with each powerful thrust. “Gods, yes.”
Valen suddenly stilled inside me, pausing mid-motion as though he had been struck by an unearthly force. The abruptness of it drew a broken cry from my lips—a protest against this sudden loss of sensation. It felt as if the world had stopped spinning, hanging in a tenuous balance.
He leaned closer, his breath ghosting across my neck as he pressed his free hand against my throat with enough pressure to make the air catch in my lungs. There was an undeniable thrill in his grip. A dark reminder of who held dominion in this moment.
“Do not call for other gods while I am inside you,” he murmured, his voice low and commanding, sending a shiver racing down my spine. “Do you understand?”
I nodded instinctively, realizing that this was no idle request but a demand meant to bind us even further. Still, I would have done anything he wanted in this moment, and telling him I wouldn’t call out for the gods while he was inside of me was easy.
His thumb brushed along the line of my throat before squeezing slightly, just enough to remind me of the power he wielded over our connection. “Tell me who you want to fuck you,” he insisted, his gaze locking onto mine with an intensity that sent another wave of heat through my core.
“You,” I gasped, my voice trembling with a mix of uncertainty and desire.
He held my gaze, the intensity of his dark eyes deepening as he leaned closer, his breath fanning against my skin. “Good. Remember that.” With a growl, he resumed his pace, thrusting deeply into me with ferocity that stole my breath and sent shockwaves of pleasure spiraling through my body.
“You’re mine now,” Valen growled, his voice darker, rougher than I had ever heard it. “Say it, Mireille. Tell me who owns you.”
In any other circumstance, such a demand would have ignited furious resistance. But here, caught in the throes of pleasure so intense it bordered on transcendence, I found myself responding without hesitation.
“You do,” I gasped, the admission torn from me as his thrusts hit something deep inside that sent orbs of light exploding behind my eyelids. “I’m yours, Valen.”
His response was immediate and visceral—a sound of pure satisfaction as his movements became even more intense, more demanding. One hand slid from my hip to the junction of my thighs, fingers finding the sensitive nerves that had already brought me to climax twice tonight.
All of it, the relentless stimulation of his fingers and the deep, perfect angle of his thrusts, pushed me over the edge once more. My release hit with devastating strength, inner walls clenching around him as pleasure radiated outward from my core.
“That’s it,” he encouraged, his voice rough with approval as he continued to move within me, prolonging my release. “Let go, Mireille.”
Through the haze of my own pleasure, I felt him swell further inside me, his rhythm faltering as his own release approached. His hands gripped my hips once more, holding me firmly as his thrusts became erratic, powerful.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice tight with impending release. “I want to see your eyes when I come inside you.”
I forced my heavy lids open, meeting his gaze through the shimmering aftermath of my own climax.
What I saw there sent ice shooting through my veins.
His eyes had darkened further, the irises now ringed with an unmistakable crimson glow.
Instead of frightening me, it almost seemed…
right. Natural for this creature of conquest who claimed me so completely.
With a final, powerful thrust, Valen found his release, spilling hot and deep within me as a groan tore from his throat.
The sound was almost angry, almost pained, as though the pleasure was too intense to bear.
His face in that moment of absolute surrender was unforgettable, all sharp angles and raw emotion, stripped of the careful masks he typically wore, though his eyes returned to their normal midnight pools—the crimson a trick of the candlelight.
For several heartbeats, we remained locked together, bodies joined, breath mingling in the scant space between our faces. His expression shifted then, the triumph giving way to something more vulnerable than I had thought him capable of.
His thumbs brushed gently across my cheekbones. “You are extraordinary,” he murmured, the words simple yet weighted with sincerity that caught me off guard.
I didn’t know how to respond, didn’t know what to make of this man who could shift from ruthless conqueror to tender lover with such fluid ease. The political calculation that had governed my interactions with him seemed distant now, irrelevant in the face of this raw connection we had forged.
Instead of speaking, I lifted my head slightly, pressing my lips to his in a kiss that contained neither submission nor defiance—simply acknowledgment of something profound that had passed between us.
He returned the kiss with equal simplicity, his hands cradling my face as though I were something precious, something to be cherished rather than possessed.
When he finally withdrew from me, the sensation left me feeling strangely bereft, as though some essential connection had been severed.
He rolled to lie beside me, one arm draped across my waist in casual possession.
Neither of us spoke, the silence filled with the sounds of our gradually slowing breaths and the occasional pop of the candles that still burned around us.
We lay tangled together in the aftermath, Valen’s weight a strange comfort pressing me into the sheets.
My body hummed with a satisfaction I had never known before, a completeness I had never experienced in others’ eager but inexpert embraces.
Instead of untangling myself and putting on my usual mask as the distant princess, I sank into the strange peace of the moment, mind blissfully empty of the calculations and defenses that had governed my every interaction for as long as I could remember.
His arm still curved around my waist, keeping me close as though he feared I might try to escape.
The thought almost made me laugh. Where would I go, naked and thoroughly claimed, in a palace full of witnesses to our union?
More surprising was the realization that escape was the furthest thing from my mind.
His fingers traced idle patterns on my skin, following the curve of my hip, the dip of my waist, the outline of my shoulder blade.
The touch was possessive yet oddly tender, as though committing my form to memory through touch alone.
I wondered if he was always this attentive after, or if there was something particular about me that inspired such focus.
“You’re thinking too loudly,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble against my ear. “I can practically hear the wheels turning in that fascinating mind of yours.”
I shifted slightly, propping myself up on one elbow to look at him.
In the aftermath of passion, his features seemed softer somehow, the sharp edges of the fearsome Butcher blunted by satisfaction.
A thin sheen of sweat still clung to his skin, making it glow in the candlelight like burnished copper.
“Perhaps I’m composing poetry about your prowess,” I suggested, my tone deliberately light. “Odes to the legendary skills of the King of Nocthar.”
A smile curved his lips, transforming his face into something heartbreakingly beautiful. “And what would such an ode proclaim, I wonder?”
“That the rumors of your... abilities... are vastly understated.”
His laugh was unexpected—a genuine sound of amusement rather than the calculated chuckle I had heard before. It changed him, that laugh, made him seem younger, more human. For a fleeting moment, I caught a glimpse of the man beneath the rumors, the man beneath the crown.
“Rest now,” he said, though the word was clearly a command rather than a suggestion. His hand smoothed down my side in a gesture that was both soothing and subtly controlling. “Our marriage is young, and I am far from finished with you.”