Chapter 26
Revna
When I knocked softly on S?ren’s bedroom door, night had fallen and the castle lay suspended in stillness.
In the few seconds of waiting, my heart thundered. It doesn’t have to go farther than you want, I reminded myself. But I was fully aware the true problem lay in how much I did want.
The door swung open. S?ren, backlit by the firelight, was swathed in shadow. He reminded me of the now-crumbled statues that had once stood in front of the temple, depicting the pantheon of gods. Men molded from stone, chiseled to perfection by careful artists’ hands.
He stepped back, and I crossed the threshold.
“The preparations for the festival look like they’re going well,” he said, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed.
Was he as nervous as I was? He was certainly thinking about the same things as me.
Standing in the center of the room, I wrapped my arms around myself.
“I can’t imagine them going better,” I said, pulled from my momentary uncertainty by the thought of all the dancing and food planned for tomorrow.
“As long as everything goes right and the treaty negotiations go smoothly…we’ll be on our way to seeing some actual change happen around here. ”
“All thanks to you,” he said softly. I looked up to see the corner of his mouth lift. “How’s your leg?”
“Stings a little if I stretch it too much, but it’s not bad.
The salve you put on it really helped.” I was glad he hadn’t mentioned Volkan.
The prince would have dropped everything to heal me.
But each time I’d thought of seeking him out, part of me had cradled a tiny hope that I might be able to return to S?ren tonight and ask him to tend my wound again.
“How is your head? Any lingering effects from your fall?”
“I’m fully healed. Want more salve?” He raised a brow and stretched his arm out to grab the jar where it rested on the windowsill.
His words from earlier ran through my head. A declaration of desire and a reminder that I was in charge. I controlled how far things went. He wouldn’t push me if I didn’t want him to.
And suddenly, the idea of having everything I wanted wasn’t so terrible. Not anymore.
Thoughts of the ointment gone, I stepped forward into the open space between his thighs. He inhaled sharply. With tentative fingers, I combed my hand through his hair.
“Revna.” S?ren’s voice was rough. “What do you want?”
“Does it matter?”
My hand slowed its path, and I stroked down his face to cup his jaw. Restraint warred with desire in his expression. “Yes,” he said vehemently. “Yes, it matters.”
“I’m…” Hesitantly, I pulled my hand back an inch. For a half second, he lurched as if to follow the movement before stopping himself and allowing the space to hover there. “I’m not entirely sure exactly what I want. If that’s not enough for you—”
“Princess.” His voice turned gentle. “Of course it’s enough. I ask because the things I want to do to you, with you, right now…I don’t want to cross a line. I don’t want to push you further than you want to go.”
Oh. I relaxed, the tension leaving my shoulders, and returned my hand to the slight stubble on his face. He groaned, a sound so faint I wasn’t sure he knew he’d made it, and nuzzled deeper into my palm until his lips grazed it.
“Can I worship you, love?” Firm hands wrapped around my waist, and his eyes opened to plead with me. “Can I show you every depraved thought I’ve had since the last time we fucked?”
I was hyperaware of his eyes on my flushed cheeks, the column of my throat. Of his grip tightening on my back, the warmth pooling in my stomach. Of the way my nipples, now hard, brushed against the fabric of my clothing, desperate for more, more, more.
And still, my mouth curved into a smirk as I said, “Say please.”
The gray of his irises shrank as his pupils dilated.
I waited for him to grin, but he grew more serious.
The fingers on my back crept around to my stomach, tracing dancing lines over the sensitive skin just above the waistline of my pants.
His voice was deeper than I’d ever heard it before, and I memorized the shape of his lips as he begged. “Please, Revna.”
We crashed into each other like an avalanche, the build finally too heavy to resist the pull of gravity.
As his tongue parted my lips, pushing into me, a high-pitched sound of desperation escaped.
It broke something in him. His arm banded around my waist, and he pulled me down onto the bed beside him before rolling overtop of me.
“S?ren.” His name was a fervent prayer, gasped between kisses. This was more divine, more holy, more ordained than any god. “S?ren, S?ren.”
“My princess.” Every word was carried on the edge of a growl, half feral with desire. “My queen.”
My hips bucked up into him, pelvis grazing against the hard length in his pants and eliciting a hiss. Gods, why was I so addicted to that? “Say it again.”
S?ren’s wicked mouth moved to my jaw, my throat, my shoulder. “My queen.”
I pushed at his shoulders and he rose onto his knees immediately, panting and flushed. I tugged at the hem of his shirt. “Take this off.”
No hesitation. A quick movement of arms and the clothing was discarded, leaving him bare from the waist up.
And while he lifted my own shirt, I studied him.
I wish I were an artist. The thought hit me suddenly as the ropy scar over his shoulder caught the flickering firelight and the stretch of his frame canted over me as he muttered, “Work with me, love,” until I sat up slightly and goose bumps danced across my now-bare skin that had nothing to do with the temperature.
He coaxed me up to sitting with gentle words and gentle touches and gentle presses of his lips against my collarbones, the bright fire of our first touches now simmering heat. I raised my arms and allowed him to carefully unwind the fabric around my breasts until I was bare before him.
S?ren kissed me, mouth roving over mine with a hunger I matched. His arms wrapped tight around my torso, pulling us chest to chest and skin to skin. He gasped and I shuddered against his mouth. “I missed you,” he muttered.
I pulled him back on top of me, lying on the bed again.
One of his arms remained banded around my torso; his other forearm braced next to me as he kissed down my throat, down my sternum, over the tops of my breasts.
When he pressed his teeth gently down over my nipple, I tightened my fingers in his hair and pulled.
He soothed the spot with a lave of his tongue before moving to the other side. By the time he paused to bury his face between my breasts, I was a lit fuse, desperate for release. My body clenched on nothing and I’d now turned beggar. “Please, S?ren. I need—I need—”
Moving back and pulling my pants and underwear down my legs, he murmured, “I know, sweetheart. Just let me love you for a little longer. You’re so beautiful, I can’t stand it.”
Reverent hands cascaded down my sides, and I opened my legs to him. Waited for him as he looked and looked, palming the bulge in his pants. The cool air on every oversensitive part of me made me throb. “S?ren.”
The finger he slid inside me in reply only keyed me up more, and I whined, reduced to a wanton thing at his hands.
“I haven’t even touched your clit yet, sweetheart,” he said, and I could hear the smirk through my closed eyes.
It was infuriating as always, and I wanted more of it.
He slid another finger in alongside the first, and the slight stretch was heavenly.
Lying down on his stomach, he used two fingers to pull my lower lips farther apart.
He muttered something unintelligible as his eyes turned predator again.
I opened my mouth to ask him what he was doing, why he wasn’t giving me what I needed, when warmth closed around me and I arched my back, the sensation overwhelming in the best way.
He had his mouth on me. His mouth.
Our one night together in the prison, he’d talked about wanting to do this—but we hadn’t ended up with time.
As the minutes dwindled away from us, I’d cared far more about whispering to him in the dark, feeling the warmth of him solid beside me.
Especially not knowing if I would see him again afterward.
Thoughts of that night disappeared beneath his touch. Fingers in his hair, feet scrabbling against the blankets. He opened his mouth to lick softly over my clit. “S?ren you don’t—you don’t need to—”
“Of course I don’t need to,” he scoffed in between caresses. “You’re my queen.” Laving tongue. “I worship you on my knees.” Teasing taps. “The way you deserve.”
Who was I to argue with that?
Not that it would have been possible. My thoughts were nothing but swirls of pleasure, the rush building and cresting after only a few more strokes of his torturous mouth against me as I lay spread open on the bed—his personal feast. He carried me through it, pulling away right when I became too sensitive to take any more, my breaths coming in heaving gasps, my mind sated and silent.
I tugged on his hair, a silent request for him to clamber over me once more. I wrapped my arms around him and rolled us onto our sides, intertwined so intimately it was a wonder we weren’t one.
“How was it?” he asked, his smile content.
Every inch of me still buzzed. I huffed a laugh and buried my face in his chest, the dusting of hair soft against my cheeks. “I think you know exactly how incredible that was. You really didn’t have to, you know.”
A finger tapped against the underside of my chin until I looked him in the eye once more. My face warmed thinking of how incredible the last several minutes had been. But his expression held no judgment. “Has no one ever done that for you before?”
I shook my head. “I never wanted to ask. And I wasn’t sure I’d enjoy it. You certainly proved me wrong on that front.”