31 #2
My back arches as Sin touches me, and the somber thought is quickly lost to the waves of tension and need flooding my core. “Don’t stop.” Please don’t stop.
And he doesn’t.
I wake up the next morning with a nervous twitch and a soft breath, my legs entangled with Sin’s, his six abdominal muscles tense beneath my head, and a raging hardness pressed against my wrist. His eyes pop open seconds after mine, and he startles as if he forgot he came here at all.
Actually, it’s more as if he flails. Rather ungraceful for the prince who’d kissed me deftly hours ago. I almost laugh, but he glares at me.
“I am not a morning person,” he declares.
His hands find purchase on my bed, and he sits up, hoisting me after him and nestling me in the crook of his arm.
He glances at my window, at the sun rising above two hissing snakes.
We have definitely missed breakfast. His brow furrows. “I also don’t sleep in. Ever.”
I lick my lips, thankful our werewolf genetics have rid us of morning breath, and sprawl a pale hand across his chest. It’s horribly unfair that he’s so beautiful.
His skin shimmers under the sunlight, as gilded as his hair.
Nerves flicker and zip through my belly like hundreds of fireflies.
I—I don’t know what to do with myself. Sit?
Stand? Pull the blanket up to my chin and hope he didn’t count the cellulite on my thighs?
Oh god. He may not have seen all of me naked, but he saw bits and pieces.
And we may not have done everything , but it was more than before. It was… it was…
“Your silence is disturbing,” he says. “Are you upset about last night or are you basking in it?” Then, lower, he mumbles, “I hate that I can’t tell.”
I chew on my lip until his thumb intervenes.
“Vanessa,” he traces my lips with a gentle touch, “I really need you to answer that question.”
“I’m… not upset,” I say finally, hazarding a glance at him. He watches me with narrow eyes, studying me so thoroughly that I may as well be completely naked. “I’m not,” I promise. “It’s just…”
“Yes?”
“I’ve never… done that with anyone, and I’ve never woken up with a boy before.”
He considers this for a moment, all the while my heart races as if I’m in a free fall. “Have you ever—”
“No.” God. I contemplate yanking the blanket over my entire flaming face.
I can imagine what Celeste would say: If you’re going to run to second base, you should at least be able to talk about it.
But talking about it with her is different than talking to Sin.
One, because she knew everything about me, good and bad.
Two, because she shared far more than even I wanted to hear ( Mark’s index finger is pretty small, but his speed at smashing the buttons on his PS5 controller definitely came in handy ).
And, three, because she wouldn’t have been the one kissing me.
Sin stares at me expectantly, waiting for me to elaborate. I twirl a purple strand of hair around my finger. “I’ve only gone all the way once, but Celeste… She said it didn’t count.” In her defense, Grant Austin barely managed to take off his pants before finishing.
“I see.” He still watches me closely, and his heart stutters nervously. “So—no complaints?”
A smile twitches on my lips, unbidden. “No. No complaints, Sinclair. And you?”
He hooks my chin with a finger and drags me in for a kiss that curls my toes. “You are perfect, Vanessa,” he says. Truth. The fireflies in my stomach multiply by a thousand.
“I guess all that’s left now is for someone to burst in and catch us,” he says—and just like that, the magical haze around us shatters.
It’s a sobering thought. I push away from him with a sigh, clutching the blanket around my body. “We’re lucky they haven’t.”
“It’s going to be okay.”
“I know you believe that, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually true.”
“Vanessa—”
“Evie stabbed me for hugging you,” I say. “She would kill me for this—or lock me in that fucking dungeon. What we did last night… It can’t happen again. It—it was an accident.”
“An accident,” he repeats numbly.
“Yes,” I say, though even to my ears I sound entirely unconvincing. “We got carried away. It was a bad night, and we were both sad, and it… it wasn’t our fault.”
Sin nods as if I’ve dumped a bucket of ice water on his head.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here.” He climbs off my bed and reaches for the shirt that we abandoned to the floor.
Tugging it on, smoothing it over his defined chest, he runs a quick hand through his silky hair and sets off for the door.
“Sin, stop.”
He halts at my words, his shoulders set with sudden tension. “I shouldn’t have come,” he says again.
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He glances back at me, and his burgundy gaze scorches once more. “Probably for the same reason I almost disemboweled Princess Evelyn Lee in the middle of the throne room.”
Oh. Right. I reach beneath the blanket and tug my nightgown sleeves back in place, pulling the lacy silk up over my chest. Once I’m decent, I release the blanket and stand. “We shouldn’t continue like this. One of us is going to get killed.”
He growls in frustration and drops his gaze. “I know.”
“And I…” I hesitate before the confession spills from me, but I need him to know. I need him to know that if there were any choice here, I’d pick him. “You’re good for this court. You will make a great king.”
“You don’t know that for certain.”
“I meant everything I said last night. You are good .”
He turns on his heel to face me, observing the sun’s rays as they dance along my body. “It would probably sound very petulant for me to admit that I’m tired of not getting what I want, wouldn’t it?”
I can’t help that my smile returns, if only for a second. “It would.”
He nods again. “Good thing I didn’t say it, then.”
“Good thing.”
He leans a hand against my wall, and his face withers into melancholy. Any light left in the room evaporates in an instant. “About the dungeon, I’ve been thinking.…”
“Me too,” I say. “The humans mentioned something—each of them was collected by a woman with black eyes. It has to be—”
“The queen,” he finishes for me.
“And if she collected them that quickly,” I continue, “then she had to have been informed about them early. About all of us.”
“Yeah,” Sin says. “We’re sharing the same train of thought. One rogue wolf couldn’t bite all these people. They’d be broken and soulless, if not outright dead. Logically, it doesn’t make sense.”
“So maybe a rogue pack?”
He shakes his head. “Werewolves cover enough of this planet that an entire pack shouldn’t go undiscovered. It’s probably someone in this court. Someone with influence and power, who could command a few werewolves to help them.”
“And you think—”
“I don’t want to say what I think yet,” he says honestly.
“And I’m not even convinced on the why .
But, if I’m right, you need to be careful.
Remain on your best behavior. Coming to your room was stupid, but I wanted to check on you.
” He looks at me, wielding his next statement like a weapon.
“I’m glad I did, you know. I shouldn’t have come, but I don’t regret a single second. ”
Truth.
My cheeks flame. In a rush, I recall the rough sounds he made, his whispers of adoration, the feel of his tongue and hands. “M-me neither.”
He grins, and the sight weakens my knees. “Do you remember the first time you shifted?” he asks abruptly. “When you exploded into the throne room and tried to attack the princess?”
“Yes.” As if I could forget it.
“That’s when I knew I liked you. No one has ever stood up to Evie before—no one has ever fought against the court.
You’re fiery and kind and stubborn as hell, and I admired that the moment I met you.
” He moves forward, and, between one blink and the next, he’s in front of me, touching my cheek.
His shadow swallows me in the daylight. He’s massive—everywhere—his hands hot and urgent once more.
“Vanessa, don’t go into that dungeon again.
I don’t think it’s safe for you to be there.
If this court is torturing those prisoners, you’ll be killed when they find you. ”
“Okay,” I promise. “I’ll stay away.”
For now.