20. Killian
Briar’s rough yank on my hair causes a ripple of desire to cascade down my spine, pooling at the base of my rampant dick.
I can’t stop tasting her nectar. I’m a bee to her flower and her silk-clad thighs make excellent earmuffs, drowning out any sounds of the ball beyond this room. All I can hear are her helpless cries of pleasure.
This is bad. We’re going to get caught. They’re looking for us. It’s only a matter of time before they remember the storeroom. I locked the door coming in, but it’s flimsy enough to break with one solid kick.
What a way to go out, though. With my face buried in Briar’s dripping cunt.
Each rough dig of her heels into my back only tightens my cock more, until it feels like it might burst through the seam of my pants.
There’d be no hiding that catastrophe.
I rock back on my heels and withdraw fractionally, reveling in her needy little whimper. Another tug on my topknot. And here I was thinking of getting a haircut.
Maybe once I’m in my lonely castle on a mountaintop I’ll shave my head in penance for leaving Briar behind.
“Yank my hair all you want, Princess; it’s not going to make me go any faster.”
I dive back in. This time, I stroke her folds with one shaking fingertip, seeking her entrance and finding it blocked.
Fuck me. I don’t know why that tiny barrier is like a kick straight in the groin, but suddenly, I have to break it. Be her first. Claim that part of her forever. I bear down on her clit with the flat of my tongue and thrust two fingers inside her. The thin hymen breaks easily, but I feel her stiffen at the intrusion and soothe her—and myself—by stroking the outside of her thigh with my free hand.
My pulse thunders with the audacity of what I’ve just done. Holy fuck. Awestruck, I pull back and again test her blood by rubbing it between my thumb and forefinger.
Briar settles, shifting to get her legs a little wider. Briefly, I touch my forefinger to my tongue, tasting her mixed with a faint iron tang. Then lean forward, my cheeks scraping against her silken inner thighs, and suck that little button between my teeth. Her cries echo in my ears despite the way her legs clench around my head. Gods, she’s so wet and tight and perfect. I could devour her all night.
She comes on my fingers, her juices dripping down my hand. I should yank her off this box and bend her over it. Thrust into her from behind. But that’s no way to introduce a virgin to sex. Not that I have any experience with them as a general category. She’s my first.
She’ll likely be my last.
Even if I can only possess her for a day or two, and in secret, Briar owns my hardened, violent heart forever. No other woman ever breached my defenses the way she did with her innocent face and her dirty desires that match my own.
Briar was built for me. She fits my hands, my tongue, and I know when I slide into her sweet little cunt it’ll feel like coming home.
I’ve never had a true home. That cell where I’ve lived since being assigned to guard Prince Alistair being as close to one as I could ever have. I wanted the permanency of the castle, but this makes me think it means nothing without Briar.
Briar sits up with a gasp. I want to dive back in and make her come a third time, but she yanks my hair for real this time.
“Did you hear that?”
“No. Sit back.”
She gives me a look. “Your head was buried in my?—”
“Pussy,” I supply when she chokes on the word. “Where I want to be again.”
“Later, Killian.” She slides off the box and points at the transom. “Lift me up.”
I shrug and comply, placing my back against the door.
“Not like that.”
“I told you I want to taste your pussy again.” Tugging her close, I murmur in her ear, “You want to climb me like a tree. Admit it. Now’s your chance. Compromise.”
A smile ghosts over her lips, and she kisses me. I scoop her up, hands under her delectable bottom, and take my time hoisting her high enough to see out the window. I pause once her tits are in my face, holding her there while I suck my fill.
Briar groans, half-frustration, half-need.
“I can’t see out. There’s something bad happening out there.”
“Can you tell what it is?” I release her nipple just long enough to speak.
“No. People running, shouting. I think someone tried the door, looking for a hiding spot.”
Reluctantly, I set her on her feet, locking my arms around her waist.
“I should get dressed.”
She’s right, yet I’m reluctant to let her go. I want to stay in this stupid room and finish what we’ve started. My cock digs into her stomach, confused why we’re stopping when things were getting good.
“Oh.” Briar blinks up at me, her bluebell-hued eyes almost swallowed by the ring of her black pupils. “It would be rude not to take care of you, too.”
“I left you hanging last time,” I remind her. Promised retribution, too.
“Not the same,” she insists. Leather slaps. She extracts my dick the same way she did last time, as if it’s a precious gift. “I basically attacked you.”
“The one enemy I have no defenses against,” I murmur as she slides her soft hand up and down my shaft. I put mine on top of hers and show her the motion. Her teeth catch her lower lip in concentration.
I slip my free hand down her waist and find her center. She tilts her hips to give me better access.
“You’re my shelter from the storm,” she whispers. “You’ll always keep me safe. Won’t you?”
Briar blinks up at me. The trust shining in those blue depths fucking unmans me. I cover her hand with mine and come all over our clasped fingers. It feels like a covenant.
Tenderness is foreign to me. The moment soaks into my soul like rain on parched ground. I don’t know what to do with it. I want to grasp onto it but it slips away like raindrops through my fingers. Trying to hold it doesn’t work.
Right now, I mean every word I’m saying to her, despite the alarm ringing in the back of my mind that this is temporary.
“You’re mine to protect, Briar.” I brush a kiss to her forehead. For a while. The day after tomorrow, I’ll be out of her life forever.
Unless…
Twisting, I push her against the door and sink my fingers deep inside her sweet, tight passage, swallowing her moan with a hard kiss. Wet sounds fill my ears as I curl my fingers to hit that spot inside that makes women wild. Briar’s velvety walls pulse around me, her breath skimming across my neck in desperate pants.
Slowly, with a soft kiss to her temple, I straighten. It’s hot in here. The room reeks of sex.
Outside our hiding place, screams echo. She was right. Something bad is happening out there, and that’s got to be the reason no one has come looking for us.
Time for me to get out there and keep my word. Fucking words. I’ve made so many promises I hardly know which ones I can keep.
Silently, I buckle my belt, wipe her hand clean with a handkerchief and restore order to my clothing while she steps into her dress. I fasten the row of tiny buttons up her spine, deeply regretting that this encounter was so brief.
She’s sweet and addictive and completely off-limits. I can’t say no to her, but saying yes is going to get me killed.
I’m going to say yes. I just didn’t want to do it in a storeroom. This would be good enough for one of the palace ladies. Not for her.
“Shall we find out what all the fuss is about?” Briar asks, pausing with one hand on the knob. I stop her.
“We need to get our story straight first. You needed a moment of privacy, and I have been ordered to remain by your side. If anyone asks.”
Which they will. There’s no way our prolonged absence will have gone unnoticed.
But when we step out into the chaos of the ballroom, I quickly discover that my assumptions are completely and totally wrong.
No one is paying any attention to us, at all.