Chapter 43
Forty-Three
- CYRUS -
Three years ago
It’s been agony waiting. Wondering with each day that passes if I’ve offended Marcella. That I’ve completely ruined what should have been a special moment.
It’s better this way.
I wave the thought away, staring at the fire in the hearth of my office with my chin propped up on a fist. I’m in one of the tufted armchairs, my feet propped on the ottoman.
I linger on the flames as they dance, the wood they engulf cracking and popping under the assault, showering embers up into the hearth.
A knock taps at the door.
I don’t even look at it. Only mumbling, “Come in, Devin.”
The door swings open.
A voice, light and hesitant, whispers, “Hi.”
I practically bolt up out of the seat as Marcella slips into the room, slowly closing the door behind her and leaning against it.
I stand, straightening my vest. “Marcella, hello.” I blink profusely, scanning the room and searching for something to offer her. “I-I sent out your letter last week. It should have arrived already, but I haven’t gotten anything back yet—”
“I’m not here about the letter,” she whispers.
I slowly slide my gaze to where she still leans. She’s not in her amour—she’s in a loose white nightgown that shows her shoulders. Her feet are bare. She pushes off the door, gliding her way to me. I freeze, allowing her to come to me at her own pace.
She stops a step away from me, tilting her head so she can look at me. “I was mad at you.”
“I offended you,” I whisper with a nod. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention—”
She presses a single finger to my lips, silencing me immediately. “No, I was upset because you kissed me and then…you stopped. Like in the moment you decided it was all a mistake.”
I swallow, mumbling against her finger. “It wasn’t a mistake for me.”
She blinks slowly, dropping her finger from my lips. “Nor I.”
“I’m your superior, and I didn’t want to take advantage of the situation—”
She rests a hand on my chest. Shaking her head as she looks into my eyes.
“You weren’t taking advantage of a situation, Cyrus.
You were finally initiating a situation that I’ve found myself fantasizing about the last year, even when I tried so hard not to.
But that’s not enough for me. Not anymore. ”
“Marcella,” I sigh as she leans up closer to me, her arms slipping up around my neck. “Do you know how much I’ve agonized over pushing you away?”
“How about you show me how sorry you are, instead?” she whispers against my lips.
My eyes flutter closed as she kisses me. My hands find her waist, all curves without her armor, and I’m lost in her once more. I won’t make the same mistake twice. I can’t. I’m not strong enough to push her away again.
Her hands roam from my chest down to my waist, tugging me into her. As if I can get any closer. Pulling until we stumble back and find ourselves against the bookshelf once again. Her hands pull my shirt out from my pants, then skim up my bare abdomen.
I break off our kiss with a gasp, my skin heating immediately as I flinch under her tantalizing touch.
“What?” she asks, staring up at me through half-lidded eyes. Her hands pause on my ribs, and she shakes her head as she looks at me. “Sorry, do you…not like this?”
She drops her hands away, and I work through panted breaths. “No…I just…” I clear my throat. “I want to take it slow, is all. I’m trying to be a gentlema—”
“Cyrus...” She smiles wide, her eyes crinkling as she cups my cheek.
“This doesn’t have to mean anything. You’re not committing to anything, and I’m not expecting something from you.
If this is what we both want, what’s to stop us?
You’re my King. And if you want a night with me…
Rules be damned. If you want to make this exception, then you shall have it. ”
But that’s not what I want. What I want from her is far more.
Tonight, and all the nights. Mornings and evenings.
Besides…I haven’t let myself bed a woman since Johanna.
It’s too risky. And yet…as she presses a soft kiss to my throat, creating a lazy trail of them up to the corner of my jaw, I find my willpower fading.
My eyes closing. My hands collecting her waist as I lean my cheek into her hand, exposing more of my throat to her mouth.
Willing to do whatever she desires.
She pulls me farther down to whisper in my ear, “Take me, Cyrus—don’t push me away again.
Take me in whatever way you will, for I’ve been thinking of you, too.
” Her hand leaves my cheek, and she slips down away from me.
Dropping to her knees. Her hands cautiously work my pants down as she looks up at me.
“I’ve thought of your touch, your kiss…”
When I don’t resist, she keeps her eyes locked on me as she pulls my hardening cock free. Her hand around it has my jaw going slack, my erection pulsing at her touch.
“Your taste…” she whispers as she drags a slow, sensual tongue up the underside of my shaft.
I lean hard against the bookshelf behind her with a groan, and she welcomes my reaction by kissing the tip and gently wrapping her soft mouth around it.
Gods above. Ashamedly, I’ve fisted myself before, but it’s been so long since I’ve felt something warm and wet like this.
The way she works me easily into a quivering mess of heat and pleasure that courses all the way down to my toes.
That I can’t think of anything else. With a mouth like hers, I’m not going to last long.
Especially as she commits herself to it fully, moaning, eyes hazy with lust as she looks up at me, eager to please.
“Marcella,” I sigh, bracing myself against the wall as she grabs my hips and begins to guide me deeper into her mouth.
Her cheeks hollow, sucking me harder and deeper.
Until her face is flush with my abdomen.
Her brown eyes look up at me, lustful and glistening with tears as I hit the back of her throat, making her gag.
But she doesn’t let up, doesn’t let it slow her.
Humming as she bobs up and down my length until my eyes roll into the back of my head.
An inexplicable heat burns within me, begging for release.
“Marcella,” I try again, groaning as I grab a gentle fistful of her hair, trying to guide her off as I pull back.
My cock slips out of her mouth with an audible pop, and a string of drool drips off her chin. I swipe it clean from her as she sighs, “Did you not like that?”
I chuckle and help her stand. “Of course I did. But if you’ll let me, I want to fuck more than just your mouth tonight. And if you kept going like that, you’d spend me before I can.”
“I was hoping you would say that,” she purrs. Grinning that vixen grin of hers, she grabs her off-the-shoulder nightgown, tugs it down to the floor, and stands. Naked before me. Wearing nothing else underneath that nightgown. She absolutely came here to seduce me.
Not that I’m complaining.
She steps out from the pool of her nightgown. “I’ve always wondered what a king’s cock would feel like.”
I almost lose all my thoughts just staring at her.
She’s so godsdamned beautiful. From the caramel color of her skin to the muscles sharpened by her skills.
And yet, at odds with the gentle curves of her hips, her breasts.
I’d etch it into my mind if I could. She’s the kind of woman they immortalize in marble fountains.
The soft glow of the firelight warms her hair to a dark brown, just like it is when the sunlight catches it.
“You are…” I shake my head trying to find a word to justify the woman before me. “Exquisite.”
She leans up and kisses me, slipping her tongue against mine.
I shrug out of my shirt as she removes my pants, and we both stand bared to each other. My voice dips with hunger, “You came here to seduce your king, didn’t you?”
She smiles and leans in to grab my chin and pull me into a kiss. Murmuring onto my lips, “Is it so bad for a woman to have her own desires?”
Sweeping her off her feet, I carry her to my desk, my mouth frantic and firm on hers as she threads her fingers through my hair. As my legs bump the desk frame, I hold onto her with one arm and use the other to sweep everything else off. As papers flutter to the ground, I lay her down carefully.
“This doesn’t feel proper.” I motion to the desk, wishing it were something more comfortable for her. Like a bed.
She snickers with a hint of mischief in her eyes. “Cyrus, what you’re about to do to me will be anything but proper.” She spreads her legs for me.
My heart skips a beat at how brazenly vulnerable she is to me. Revealing every part of herself to me, glistening with need. I grab her ankle and lift it, taking my time to kiss my way down her leg. Her fingers find my hair again, tangling into the locks.
As I kneel on the floor between her thighs, I look up at her face.
I lick slowly at first and watch her expressions.
Drinking in her taste and the way her skin glides beneath my tongue.
Once she moans, tilting her hips up to me, I know I’ve found the right pressure and rhythm.
I lock in on it, lapping up her pleasure as if it were my own.
Digging my face deeper between her legs, I lavish her clit and cunt over and over again, my eagerness fueled by my own insatiable hunger.
All that’s between us is her panting breaths and the sound of my wet licks.
Her legs eventually begin to shake around my head.
As I moan into her pussy, swirling my tongue over her clit, she gasps my name.
Fingers gripping my head as she bucks into me and explodes into violent shakes.
I just made the Marcella Briarstone come on my mouth.
As her body settles down from the spasms, I slow my licks and plant a kiss on her pretty cunt.
“Doesn’t seem fair you didn’t let me finish you,” she pants. “While you just made an absolute mess of me.”