Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
WENDY
It’s nearly one in the morning when I hear footsteps approaching my bathroom.
At this point, I’ve come to know the difference between James’s footsteps and Roc’s. They both move with purpose and confidence, but Roc’s gait is slower, a bit more self-assured, as if he’s in no hurry to get to where he’s going, as if he knows people will wait regardless of the hour.
Now as Duke of Maddred and the future King of Darkland, there is always someone waiting for him. I’ve tried to occupy myself so I’m not just one more person in a crowd hoping for his attention.
And yet I am always coiled up, eager for him to appear, his eyes only on me.
The door opens and I inhale.
Butterflies war in my stomach.
I’m no better than the lot of them.
The moment he is near me, I’m buzzing with anticipation.
“Wendy Darling,” he says and leans his shoulder into the door frame, crosses one foot over the other ankle. His gaze stretches over my naked body in the opaque water of my clawfoot tub. I added bubble bath, but that was over a half hour ago and the bubbles have popped.
“I missed you,” I tell him.
He comes over to the tub and fetches the wooden stool tucked beneath my vanity. He sits by my side, his back propped against the wall.
“I missed you, too.” He tips his head back and the crocodile mouth tattooed over his throat widens its jaws. “Where is our Captain?”
“Cleaning his guns.”
He tsks. “He hasn’t shot a man in months and yet every day…”
“I think it calms him.”
“I suppose it does.” He pulls out a cigarette and lights it. The smoke ribbons around his face.
He hasn’t touched me, hasn’t hinted at touching me, and yet I feel like he is all over me and I am pulsing with need.
Every time Roc enters a room, my veins sizzle and pop.
“He said yes,” I say.
“He said yes.” Roc exhales smoke. “How did he seem when he returned home?”
“Shocked.”
Roc sits forward, elbows on his knees and starts cuffing the sleeve of his white button-up shirt. “In what way?”
“I think we both sometimes worry you’ll run away.”
He doesn’t react to the confession. He curls his finger over the end of his cigarette and takes a long pull from it. The hot ember eats away at the rolled paper and the tobacco burns and burns as he watches me.
It’s no secret that James and I doubt ourselves.
That we question our luck. We have the infamous Devourer of Men in our bed.
Everyone wants him. Including those who hate him.
It’s not just that he’s handsome beyond measure.
There’s more to Roc than just his beautiful face and glorious body.
There is a magnetism that almost feels holy.
He’s about to rule one of the wealthiest, most powerful islands in the Seven Isles and yet he seems like he cares very little for the power.
Which makes him instantly ten times hotter for it.
A man who doesn’t need more power and yet somehow gains it, is a man who automatically commands respect.
Roc slides off the stool and crouches by the bathtub. He puts his cigarette between his lips and grabs the nearby washcloth hanging over the edge of the tub. He gets the cloth wet and runs it down the bend of my knee.
“Did he seem happy?”
As he leans forward, his hand slipping beneath the surface of the water to reach my calf, a lock of his black hair falls in front of his eyes.
“Yes.”
“And you?”
The cloth comes back up, passes my knee, then moves down my inner thigh.
A breath hitches in my throat.
“You make me happy, every day, every minute.”
The end of the washcloth trails between my legs, just the faint tickle of it on my clit sends my vision spinning.
“Even when I’m gone for hours and hours?”
“Even then.”
He moves to my other leg following the same pattern. Down to my calf, then up to my knee.
“Do I wish you were home more? Yes. But you are to be king. I know the life of a monarch. I know how to navigate it.”
He takes another hit from the cigarette dangling from his mouth and then passes the cloth over my belly, missing my pussy on purpose.
I almost groan with need.
“The Captain doesn’t,” he points out.
“I’m sure we can occupy ourselves in your absence.” I give him a coy smile but there is anguish in his gaze. “I’m sorry…I didn’t mean…”
“Shhh.” He trails the cloth over my exposed nipples and despite the warmth of the water, they bead beneath his attention. “I don’t want to talk about the things I miss.”
I nod, happy to take his commands as he slips the cloth beneath the water again and gently cleans my most sensitive area.
A gasp crawls out of me and I close my eyes and clutch at the sides of the tub.
Roc abandons the cloth and slips in further, the water past his elbow as he slides his fingers down my center, then two fingers inside of me.
I moan out, squirming for more, more, more.
The cigarette drops from Roc’s mouth and hits the water with a hiss.
He grabs me by the throat with one hand holding me in place, while the other stays below the water playing with my pussy.
He fucks me with several fingers while circling my clit with his thumb.
“Sometimes when I’m in my office all alone, I think about you and the moans you make when I’m inside of you.”
His grip on my throat tightens as my breathing quickens.
“Most days I’m stuck in the office, I spend half the hours hard just thinking about you writhing beneath me.”
His words send liquid heat cascading down my belly, swelling in my clit. Every brush of his thumb is like lightning striking the earth—everything below trembles for release.
“Roc,” I breathe out.
“Shhh,” he says again, and his hand leaves my throat, comes up to my mouth. His thumb pushes past my lips and slides over the pad of my tongue. “Shut the fuck up, Wendy, and come for me.”
I let all the tension melt from my bones until I am nothing but pliable flesh beneath Roc’s attention.
He’s doing his job beneath the water, sinking his fingers deeper, the pads of his fingertips hitting that hard ridge inside of me while his thumb circles my clit.
The pressure swells up, thumps against my rib cage, drums in my ears.
I want to please him more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
When he pops his thumb out of my mouth and uses the wet pad to rub at my exposed nipple, the pleasure escalates like a landslide.
The orgasm wrenches out of me in jittering waves.
The water sloshes against the edges of the tub as I jolt beneath the surface, and Roc rides through it with me, his arm locked between my legs. The press and release of his thumb is timed to the aftershocks that rock through me, squeezing out every last drop of the orgasm.
I twitch, breathe out.
When I finally open my eyes, Roc is just looking at me, taking in the sight of me, fucked and spent in the tub.
“Why would I ever run away from this?”
The question hangs between us.
He smiles, and it’s laced with pride, because he knows he just treated me like the queen I once was and am destined to become again.
I feel satiated and happy and for once, content.
“I love you,” I say, the words barely more than a whisper.
“I love you, too.” He bends down and kisses me, teasing me with a quick slide of his tongue. “I’m going to find the Captain and we’re all going to bed together for once.” He straightens, letting the water drip from his arm. “That’s an order.”
I demure. “Yes, Your Grace.”
He smiles, all teeth, and leaves me to get ready for bed.