Chapter Twenty-One
Twenty-One
He tastes of spiced honey. His skin smells of wood shavings from our earlier work and of smoke from the fires that lit the square below. His hair tickles my face and cheeks, curtaining around us, protecting this moment from the cruel world that will collapse on us all too soon.
I brush my fingertips up his sides, run them over the expanse of his chest. The shirt he wore today is open almost to the navel.
It hangs invitingly and my fingers brush against his hot flesh.
A groan escapes me and he inhales sharply, as if trying to consume the pleasure his mere existence elicits in me.
Davien shifts his weight. One hand is beside my head, the other cups my cheek.
He guides me with light pressure against my jaw and probing from his tongue.
I’ve kissed before, once, but it was nothing like this.
It was the butler’s boy—back when we could afford a butler—and he was only a year older than I; we were both little more than curious adolescents.
But Davien kisses me as a man. It’s better than every teasing dream and indulgent fantasy I could ever concoct. I knew how a man and woman fit together conceptually…but nothing could’ve prepared me for the actual feeling of it.
His tongue slides against mine and I arch upward. I can feel his lips pull as he smirks once more. My brows knit. I hate that he’s getting amusement from my pleasure. I know I’m inexperienced and he has likely had hordes of women throwing themselves at his feet.
But I’m not frustrated enough to break away from his kiss either.
Maybe it’s because of fae magic they have yet to tell me about, but I’m an utterly willing captive under him.
My fingers slide underneath his shirt, follow his collarbone.
They wrap around his shoulders, holding him to me until we force ourselves to separate for air.
His hair continues to partition us from the world. His green eyes hold their own luminescence in the darkness. I trace the outline the sheen from the kiss leaves on his lips with my eyes.
“I’m sorry I’m—”
“What could you possibly have to apologize for?” he interrupts.
A scarlet flush burns my cheeks. “I’m not well versed in these sorts of matters.”
“What sorts?” There’s a wicked glint in his eye as he traces his fingers down my cheek and neck. He teases the silken collar of my blouse. I’ve never been more aware of exactly how much fabric is covering me and where.
“You know what sorts,” I manage.
“I want to hear you say it.” His eyes flick from my chest to my face.
“The sorts of things that a lady of my standing isn’t permitted to indulge in until she’s wed.”
“Until she’s wed,” he repeats thoughtfully.
“To think, I could’ve had you long ago and I never did.
” Davien leans toward me again. I tilt up my face but he shifts so his lips brush against the shell of my ear as he whispers huskily, “Would you have enjoyed that? Your mysterious husband whose first name you didn’t even know coming to you in the night?
Would you enjoy feeling my weight atop you in the darkness?
Would you keep your eyes open, roving over my silhouette for any hint of how I might look?
Or would you close them and submit to every caress of my hands and mouth? ”
Every inch of skin puckers into gooseflesh. My body responds to his words as if he were physically touching me and not merely describing the things he could do to me. Old gods help me, the things I think I want him to do to me.
“I thought of you then,” I admit. I didn’t ever expect to tell him so. But there’s nothing keeping me from him right now, not even my vault of secrets. “In the night, I would imagine you coming to me.”
“Oh?” He hums in the back of his throat. The sound rumbles though me, turning whatever bones I had left to molten heat. “Tell me what you would imagine.”
I suppress a groan. Why am I allowing him to do this to me?
I should push him off and walk away. At least, that’s what my better sense tells me I should do.
But my better sense is no longer in control.
All I can think of is heeding his every demand, and I find a dark sensuality to the notion of setting my mind aside and following my instinct instead.
“I imagined you at my door, waking me from sleep…asking if you could stay the night in my bed.”
“And in your fantasies, did you allow me to stay?”
“Every time.”
“And what did we do when I spent the night in your bed?”
I haven’t thought about these waking dreams since coming to Midscape.
How long has it been since I stepped foot in this strange world?
A week? Two? A month? It could be a year for all I know in this moment.
Time has become strange and distorted. I’m helpless underneath a fae and all I want is for him to kiss me again.
And if it takes my telling him my darkest fantasies, then so be it.
“I felt you,” I whisper.
“How did you feel me?”
“I felt you on me, touching me. I felt you lavish all your attention on me—for me solely, only, completely for me. Your lips on my skin, hot in the darkness. Leaving me breathless.”
“And did it feel good?” His fingertips lazily caress my chest on the arcs of my curves. I inhale sharply as his thumb grazes over my nipple, the fabric somehow both too thick and too thin at the same time.
“Yes.”
“Good.” He pulls away, licking his lips. I have never seen anything more sensual. “Because in my every fantasy, you felt nothing less than exceptional.”
“You…fantasized about me?” The thought of him awake and yearning for me, his large hands caressing every inch of what I now know is his firm body has my brain sputtering.
“Oh, yes.” He rocks his hips against me so I can feel the entire stretch of his hard length and he crashes his lips down on mine once more.
He kisses me in time to the music as it rises outside.
The band has started up once more and our moans make a harmony to the crescendo in the square below.
Davien holds my head in place, fingers tangled with my hair, tongue plundering my mouth.
He has me right where he wants me, pulling me further and further away from anything that resembles reason or sense.
When he breaks away, it’s only to get enough space to speak, lips moving over mine as he growls, “I imagined making you mine as a man should make his wife. I ached to take you to my bed and have you until you screamed my name and your throat was raw. Until my body was the only thing you knew or wanted.”
I initiate the kiss this time. His words have wound me up so tight that I’m going to break if I don’t have his mouth on mine again. I grab him, pulling myself toward him, abolishing the space between us—forsaking the cold night air for a primal heat.
We kiss for an obscene amount of time. When he finally breaks away, I pant softly through swollen lips, gazing up at what is easily the most handsome man in existence.
The crown still shines on his brow. King, ruler, and protector, my king.
Wordlessly, Davien shifts off me. Our eyes remain locked even if our bodies no longer are.
He crouches and scoops me up as though he’s going to carry us to the skies. But instead, he takes me to the bed. My soul is soaring as he lays me down. The mattress is firmer than mine, but it still sags under his weight. Davien’s fingers curl around the back of my head once more.
“We do only as we desire.” He looks me dead in the eye as he speaks. “Nothing more, nothing less. No expectations.”
“And no feelings.” I repeat our earlier promise.
He nods and kisses me again. Our hands and fingers explore till long after the music stops in the square below.
There are places on his body that I am still not brave or bold enough to explore yet, no matter how badly I want to.
He seems to take my lead, going only as far as I do.
It results in a tug-of-war between passion and sensibility.
Lust and reason and the hopeless space between where frustration makes its home.
Eventually, the kisses stop and we lie next to each other wordlessly, staring up at the ceiling framed by the top of the four-poster bed. I swallow thickly and brave a glance over at him, wondering if he will be upset we didn’t do more. There’s a slight smile to his lips; his eyelids are heavy.
“I should go,” I whisper.
“Must you?” He shifts onto his side, propping up his head with his knuckles.
“We did as we desired.” The night’s events have my cheeks pulling into a sly smile. Even if I want so much more…this was good. It was enough. “No reason for me to stay.”
“Unless you don’t want to sleep alone?”
I consider the suggestion. I’ve never thought about how sleeping with another person might feel.
Would it be too hot under the duvet with the two of us?
Would I kick him in the night? Or would his body curl around mine—a perfect fit?
He would make me feel protected, safe…wanted…
I shake my head and push away, sitting up.
“Sleeping alone is fine. It’s served me well thus far.”
“Has it?” He arches a single eyebrow and I stand so he doesn’t see the roll of my eyes.
“Besides, sleeping together? That’s something actual married couples do.”
“We were an actual married couple and didn’t sleep together.” He laces his fingers behind his head and lies back on the pillow, watching me as I adjust my clothes. They’re still on, for the most part. Just a bit askew thanks to his eager hands.
“We were hardly an actual married couple.” I shrug. “You married me for a book. And I resented you for it as much as I could.”
“How far did that resentment get you?”
I scrunch my nose at him. “I think I liked you better when I was kissing you. You were silent then.”
He’s a blur of movement, kneeling on the bed before me, taking my hands. “I could resume kissing you if it would encourage you to stay.”
“I’m tired.” I pull my hands away with a slight laugh.
“Then come back to me tomorrow.”