26. The Mist Thief
Chapter 26
The clack of teeth and frenzy of lips caused a moan to break from my throat. Jonas speared his fingers through my hair and tilted my head. My lips parted, and his tongue slid against mine in slow, masterful strokes. He tasted like cool spice, mint, and fire.
This was never meant to draw out heat in the blood, aches in the belly, a need in my heart I’d buried so long ago. Jonas was a fiend, and I did not stand a chance against him. Those eyes, bright and playful, but under all that was something like pain. As though my husband had his own secrets.
His hands were kind, gentle, demanding. His words were brazen and sweet.
A formidable foe, but the way he kissed me like he might never have another chance felt like standing on a battlefield, watching my destruction come nearer and nearer, until I released my weapons and joined the enemy.
He leaned over the edge of the basin, the sleeves of his tunic already soaked. I snickered against his mouth when he slipped, one arm falling beneath the water to steady himself.
“I’m trying to figure out why you are out there and I am in here.”
The green of his eyes had gone dark, not only from his magic. With one hand, Jonas tugged his tunic over his head, tossing it in a heap to the side.
The Kryv motto was placed below his collar and other symbols were inked down his ribs. Too many to ask about now.
“You should never have been so beautiful.” I swiped my tongue over my lips. “It makes you rather difficult to resist.”
Jonas flashed his teeth. “Then you’ve discovered my greatest scheme—become irresistible to my wife.”
Without removing his trousers, as though he could not wait any longer to have his mouth on me again, Jonas stepped into the bath.
The prince knelt between my thighs, his bare chest warm against my breasts. Skin to skin, tightened my nipples. He groaned, and I took it on my tongue for myself.
Jonas held one hand on the back of my head, tilting my face to one side, and pressing kisses along my throat, my shoulder. He bit the ridge of my collar, licked the fragrant water off my skin. A choked breath slid between my teeth when his lips sealed around one nipple.
I whimpered, cradling his head against my chest, bucking my hips until water sloshed onto the stone floor.
Jonas took the peak between his teeth, grinning as he swiped his tongue back and forth, his hand covered the other side. I tugged at his hair, his shoulders.
No mistake, marks would mar his skin in the morning. His legs settled between my thighs, and the pressure of him pooled heat in my core. I groaned unashamed and let my knees fall open, thudding against the edges of the basin.
Jonas kissed the swell of my breast once more, then pulled back, voice low. “You need more, Fire. Will you let me touch you?”
Words turned to nonsense on my lips. In the end I simply nodded.
A deep rumble of a growl rolled from his chest.
Jonas shifted on his knees and nudged his thigh against my center, moving it enough the friction drew out a breathy whimper from my throat.
A beautiful fog clouded my thoughts when he kept one palm over my breast, pinching and rolling the peak between his fingers.
I arched my back, wanting more. I wasn’t certain I would ever get enough. Jonas lifted his eyes, dark and hungry, and I could not recall a time when anyone had looked at me with such need and desire. A look of fiction, the sort I read about in tales with fanciful romance and grand heroes.
Now, it belonged to me from a dark prince of nightmares.
Kisses speckled my chest and his other hand slipped beneath the water’s surface, gliding over my stomach, my hips, until the tips of his fingers teased the ache in my core. Gentle and slow, agonizingly so, Jonas circled his fingers over my slit.
He never looked away.
Breaths heavy, lips parted, we shared gasp after gasp as he kneaded my skin, claimed my body with his hands.
The callus of his thumb added friction and pressure to my core. I rocked my hips into his hand, unable to stop, as sensation built in the lower half of my belly. He was vicious. The touch drew out the ache, but he never soothed it, leaving me on the precipice.
Jonas tilted his head, his tongue running along the slope of my neck. “More, Fire?”
“Gods . . .” A sharp breath stole my words when he dipped one finger inside my core, then retreated. I gritted my teeth, fingers digging into his arms. “Yes. More, Jonas.”
He hummed. “That does it. You are the only one who may speak my name from now on. It is too intoxicating on your tongue to be said by anyone else.”
The prince returned one finger into my entrance, then another, filling me, stretching me. The sensation was a spark of heat that jolted up my spine.
With a sharp draw of air, I snapped up, my brow pressed against Jonas’s shoulder. He held the back of my head, and never stopped his destruction.
He pumped his fingers, curling them in the right moments, stretching them in the next. My head was lost in a fog of him—pine and leather—my body no longer was mine. I could not draw in a deep breath and let out rough gasps against his chest. Hands traveled, unable to stop moving over his chest, the edges of the basin, his shoulders, back, head.
Jonas’s wicked fingers brought me to the ledge. One more step and I would fall into pieces. His thumb pressed against the apex of my thighs.
I shattered. Heat rolled up from my toes, through my chest, to my skull. One wave after the other left me locked in a bit of madness I didn’t expect. Cries of his name—as he promised—tangled with the frenzy of water sloshing over stones and skin.
I writhed and gasped and tried to mute noises. Jonas took them as his own when his mouth covered mine, tongues and teeth, he held me through the fall.
When he pulled back, I finally breathed again. “So that’s what it feels like?”
“With you? Yes.”
I would never get enough of his touch.
The green of his eyes was clouded with passion and need. Every limb was heavy, as though my veins were filled with wet sand. Hazy from release, I traced the bottom edge of his lip.
His fingers still remained inside me. When I tried to shift back, Jonas curled a hand around my waist under the water. “Can you stand for a moment?”
I didn’t think I would ever be able to move again, but nodded.
His hand remained between my legs; I bit down onto my inner cheek, still throbbing from my own release. The sensation of his fingers was almost too much. Jonas kept his hand in place until I wobbled on my weak legs, water dripping down my naked skin.
Only when we were out of the water did he remove his hand. Jonas helped leverage me back into the warmth of the bath.
Hovered over me, Jonas’s mouth curved into a wicked smirk. My eyes widened in a delirious stun when he took those two fingers that touched so well and placed them in his mouth. He sucked the taste of me off the tips, then slammed his mouth to mine, kissing me deeper than before.
“Didn’t want the water to wash away a single drop of you.”
Gods, I was at risk with this man. Any more of him, and I might fall, heart outstretched like a supplicant, an offering for him to take.
I slumped back against the edge of the bath, still trembling from the shock of pleasure he drew out from my body. My fingers went to his soaked trousers, strained from his own desire. “Now you.”
Jonas gripped my wrist, and lifted my palm to his lips, shaking his head. “Let me give you this, Skadi. Just you.”
My brow arched. “Why?”
Jonas kissed the tip of my nose, dropping his forehead to mine. “You spoke once like you would always be a sort of transaction to me. You’re not.”
The tears were unnecessary, but the bastards came all the same.
My entire existence was a barter. Be it for what my title brought for a man regarding the claim on Natthaven, or what my affinity could offer those who claimed me as theirs. I was always a piece in another plan.
Grandfather loved me, but it did not diminish that there was purpose in his moves regarding my life.
Jonas kissed my forehead, whispering against my skin, “Tonight was simply me wanting to please my wife.”
“What if I want to touch you?”
His eyes flashed. “I hope there will be many more opportunities.”
He meant what he said. Jonas didn’t leave me, nor did he try to claim his own pleasure, as though mine was enough for him. Wet trousers and all, he remained, washing my skin, following sometimes with kisses.
Jonas settled on the ledge of the basin behind me. My elbows were propped on his knees while he rubbed cleansing oils in my hair, sometimes pausing simply to trace the point of my ear, or press a kiss to the top of my head.
We talked. We laughed.
He told me about ruins in the forest they called Jagged Grove, how he played there as a boy.
I told him of St?rnskott, a show of bursting stars over Natthaven each week. How there was a secret spot where I would watch the event.
The prince admitted he grew queasy watching the butchering of a kill after a hunt, but he never told anyone, convinced they would start slaughtering deer and foxes at his feet.
I admitted there was a savory cake Cara and my grandfather thought I loved, but actually couldn’t stomach.
“Why eat it?” He braided the ends of my damp hair.
“They spend time making something they think I love, and I don’t have the heart to tell them otherwise.”
Jonas chuckled and kissed the top of my head again. “You are all soft inside.”
“Not a monster?”
Jonas stilled for a breath, then leaned forward, drawing his cheek alongside mine. “Be kind, be gentle, and be monstrous. I will want you every way.”
Bleeding gods.
His presence was calming, a little too much for somewhere through our chatter, my eyes closed. The heat from the water, the stroke of his hands, lulled me off to nearly falling asleep. I startled when his knuckles touched my cheek.
“Skadi,” Jonas whispered. “Your skin is going to wrinkle away, and the water is getting cold.”
I jolted awake, mumbling slurred apologies. Somewhere in my haze, I took note that the prince was now in dry trousers. His top remained bare, and I was glad for it. His warmth cocooned me when I stepped out of the tub and leaned against his skin while he wrapped me up in the robe again.
Jonas lifted me, the way he’d done after the tavern.
I snickered. “I can walk.”
“You’re tired.”
I was. Seemed days with laughter and pleasure were as lively as running without pause.
“The moon isn’t full, but . . .” Jonas paused in his chamber. “Will you stay with me tonight?”
“I”—a yawn slipped out— “could muster energy for you.”
“Good to know, but I plan to let you sleep. I simply don’t want you anywhere else but beside me. Afraid I’m growing needy, Wife.”
It was new and a little wonderful to be needed.
I settled under the heavy furs and quilts of his wide bed (he placed me on the side away from the door) and rolled onto my shoulder, facing him.
A single lantern flickered dimly, casting a warm glow over his face. I rested a palm against the stubble on his chin, and draped my leg over his hip.
Jonas let an arm fall over my waist, drawing me close. It wasn’t long before the slow, steady hum of his heartbeat lulled me into safe, peaceful sleep.