50. Debauchery Lessons
Lyra opened her eyes at the first whiff of salty air.
The carriage still bounced along the uneven path, and she felt Wilder’s arms tighten around her with the latest jostle.
His head rested against the coach wall, and his eyes were closed.
She had never slept so peacefully before, and she thought it might have something to do with him.
He relaxed further, slumping against the cushions when she eased herself out of his arms. Lyra looked out at the rocky shore as they drove parallel to it. She did not know where they were or how long they had been on the road.
The day had passed in a blur. From paddling through the swamp to lounging underneath the ancient willow. Or had it been two days already? She wasn’t quite sure.
They had stopped on the way for her to bathe in one of the hot springs and change her clothes. Daisy had outdone herself packing all manner of clothes, shoes, and books.
Lyra would forever be grateful to Daisy for packing a handful of novels between layers of gowns and nightclothes. It was a small kindness, but Lyra couldn’t stop smiling when thinking about the care Daisy had taken to ensure the books were safe.
Stretching her arms up over her head, the violet gown she had donned rippled against her skin. The dress itself reminded her of the water at night.
She leaned against the window and watched the sea smash against the rocks. Sprays of sea foam burst into the sky as she sighed.
Lyra had felt like a rock being pummeled by life. Now, she felt like the water being pulled along by the tide.
Wilder stirred in his sleep. Opening and closing his hand as if he were reaching for something. Lyra looked over her shoulder at him. Sensing his need, she placed her hand in his, and he drifted back off to sleep.
She traced small circles over the top of his hand. Long fingers and tan skin stretched taut over bulging veins. They were elegant and yet powerful. She had watched him kill humans with these hands. And had also watched him pluck a flower for her.
She didn’t want to think about what she was feeling for him. Although her intention had been to burrow under his skin, he had somehow managed to get under hers. And that kiss.
Her heart leapt at the memory of his lips on hers, his body against hers. Lyra ghosted her fingertips along her lips and felt the warmth pool low in her belly before she shook her head and reached for her book. She had to get him off her mind before it consumed her completely.
Lyra opened her book with one hand. But it took her a while to sink back into the story. It was another romance, like The Knight in Shining Armor had been, but different.
The romance had started from the very first page in this story, and she was having a hard time relating.
She thought of romance as something that needed to build and grow, not something that was instantaneous.
But these characters had fallen in love the moment they set eyes on each other, and their story was a happy one.
That was something else she was having a hard time relating to. There was no challenge, nothing to overcome. It didn’t feel authentic. Life was a struggle.
The man in the story was ravishing his new wife. Worshipping her with his tongue as she lay splayed wide open on their bed. Lyra shifted in her seat and brought the book up closer.
Her hand tightened its grip on Wilder’s, which in turn roused him. She was too engrossed in the book to realize he was watching her. She continued reading about how the husband brought his wife euphoric pleasure, her eyes darting across the page as she nibbled on her bottom lip.
It was intriguing, and she felt a heat pool in the bottom of her belly, but she couldn’t quite figure out the logistics of it. Was he actually eating her? And if he was, why did she like it?
“Good story?” Wilder asked.
Lyra squeaked and slammed the book shut. She tried ripping her hand out of his, but he clung to her.
He chuckled, raising a brow and looking from her to the book she tucked under her leg.
Lyra cleared her throat before addressing him. “You’re awake.”
Wilder patted his chest with his free hand and looked around quizzically.
“I am?”
Lyra rolled her eyes and huffed a breath.
“What were you reading?”
She pursed her lips and shook her head.
Wilder gazed across the flush of her cheeks and the fluttering pulse on her neck.
“Do you want to tell me? Or do you want me to find out on my own?”
“Wilder,” Lyra breathed, shaking her head. “Don’t.”
He moved so fast. She blinked, and he already had the book open in his hand and was holding her at bay with the other. Lyra clawed at his chest from across the bench, trying to reach the book.
“His tongue traveled over her bundle of nerves,” he read aloud. His eyes widened, and his cheeks blazed with color. “Oh, Legs. My, my, what have you been reading?”
Lyra’s face burned as hot as the sun that was rising in the pastel sky.
“Wilder Vale, you put that book back right now!” she hissed, still trying to rip the book out of his hands.
He continued reading the explicit scene, and Lyra howled with mortification, giving up on reaching for the book and opting to cover her ears to keep from hearing.
Only when she saw his lips stop moving did she uncover them.
The smile on his face didn’t budge as she glared. Wilder shook the book in her vicinity, and she snatched it out of his hands.
“The romance section?” he asked with a laugh.
“Yes,” she spat. “There is nothing wrong with what I like to read.”
He looked taken aback. “Of course, there isn’t. Why would you say that?”
“Because you’re being ridiculous,” she snapped.
“I am teasing you.”
“Exactly! You promised to be nice.”
Wilder laughed a full belly laugh and wiped at the tears that slipped over the rim of his eyes.
It infuriated her. How dare he? She moved to slap him, and he gripped her hand before reaching for her and cupping her face.
“Of course, I’m teasing you. That’s how we are with each other. This is our nice.”
It wiped the scowl right off his face. He could tease her, and she could give it right back without worrying about coming across as rude or abrasive.
Wilder understood her in a way few people did.
“Does it bother you when I tease you about your books?” He asked, trying to read her expression.
She nodded, and he tilted his head.
“We’re not allowed to read things like this where I’m from …”
Wilder’s head bobbed, and he heaved a sigh. “It makes sense you’re protective of it, then. It’s important to you, and you were worried it would be taken away.”
His words rang true even if she hadn’t realized that was why she felt so strongly about it.
“I will not take your books from you again, and I’m sorry I made you feel that way,” he murmured, tucking a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear.
She rested her head against his chest and relaxed into his embrace.
“Thank you. But you’re making it awfully difficult to hate you after our truce is over.”
Wilder smirked, but Lyra’s smile had fallen away. She knew what his lips felt like on hers and had enjoyed it. But Wilder had more experience than her in that regard and in others.
Which meant he very well might know the logistics of some other things.
“Do I need to apologize for something else?”
Lyra shook her head but toyed with the cover of the book in her lap. “No, it’s—never mind.”
He tilted his head, trying to figure out what she was so hesitant to tell him.
“Lyra, you can tell me. We are friends right now.”
“Friends who kiss?” Friends who had kissed. Friends who had held hands. How far did that title stretch before they entered dangerous territory?
He smirked at her, and it was so devilish she squirmed in her seat again.
“It’s just that I don’t understand the logistics of it.” Lyra looked down at the book in her hand.
His eyes widened, and he pursed his lips. “The logistics of that scene I read aloud?”
Lyra squeezed her eyes shut, trying to staunch the embarrassment that bloomed high on her cheeks. “It’s just that, well, that isn’t something that my mermaid form would have allowed for and, um, okay,” she inhaled sharply, squaring her shoulders, “can you show me how it works?”
Wilder had leaned forward as she was speaking, and now he stared at her with darkened eyes.
“Are you asking me to show you how that scene would play out?”
She nodded, biting her lip again.
“And this isn’t something you’ve ever done before?” His eyebrow arched high on his forehead.
“Not that particular thing, no,” she lied. “If you don’t want to, it’s fine. I assumed with the kiss that—” She couldn’t believe she had actually asked him. But the kiss they shared had been so natural—so perfect.
“I’ll do it,” he blurted out. “But the moment it’s too much or you want me to stop, you say so immediately. Do you understand?”
Lyra nodded with enthusiasm, but felt an explosion of butterflies in her stomach twining with the heat that was already there.
Wilder inhaled and ran his fingers through his hair.
“Are you sure you want it to be me?” She watched as his throat bobbed with a swallow.
Lyra let her gaze roam over him. From his thick, muscular thighs to the broad expanse of his chest to his blue eyes that were clouding with arousal.
“Yes. I’m assuming you have experience that would be beneficial.”
He chuckled, and it was so deliciously dark that Lyra squeezed her legs together.
“I do. Do you not?”
Lyra grimaced. “I do. Just not with this,” she lied again.
Wilder shifted in his seat. Leaning forward, he rested a large hand on her knee and gave it the slightest amount of pressure to get her to spread her legs.
He sank to his knees before her and gripped the hem of her gown.
Lyra leaned back against the seat and spread her legs farther to give him room. Her pulse pounded in her throat, and she found it difficult to breathe normally.
Wilder lifted her gown with a forced slowness.
“You tell me the moment you want me to stop.” He stared as he revealed more and more of her bare skin.
Lyra nodded, her breath caught in her throat when he pushed her gown up to her waist. There was only a thin layer of fabric between her sex and him.
Wilder hooked his thumbs beneath her undergarment, and Lyra lifted her hips. She closed her eyes as he slid it over her thighs and down her calves.
“Open your eyes,” he ordered.
She peeled her eyes open.
“I’m scared,” she whispered.
Wilder stopped at once. “We don’t have to do this.”
“I want to,” she breathed.
He nodded and grazed a hand up her calf and then over her thigh.
She was bared to him, splayed open like the character in her book.
Wilder brushed his thumb over the top of her entrance, and her hips bucked involuntarily. A gasp slipped through her clenched teeth.
“Easy,” he murmured. “That was the ‘bundle of nerves’ in that scene. Did you feel it?”
Lyra nodded, and her head thudded against the wall. Her breath came out in uneven staccato bursts.
Wilder leaned forward, and she could feel his warm breath against her skin. Her eyes slid closed, and he stopped with both hands on her legs.
“I want you to touch yourself.”
Her eyes flew open. “W-what?”
He gazed at her with heavy eyelids. The arousal must be coursing through him as much as it was through her.
Wilder grabbed her hand from where she gripped the bench and placed it on her sex. “Show me what you like.”
Lyra froze with her hand covering herself. “But I don’t know what I like.”
He put his hand over hers and moved it a fraction. The pressure was exquisite. “Just do what feels good.”
She moved her hand in languid strokes, her attention never leaving him. His tongue darted out and licked his lower lip. “That’s it—get yourself ready for me.”
Lyra glowed under his praise and picked up the pace. She hadn’t realized she could do this on her own. But as she watched him watch her, she craved his touch—his mouth.
“Wilder, please,” she moaned.
“Do you want me to take over?”
Lyra nodded, but that wasn’t good enough.
“Tell me what you want me to do.”
“Touch me,” she panted.
He leaned closer to her, and her eyes slid closed, expecting his touch.
“Watch me, Lyra. Watch what you want me to do.”
She watched as he kissed her sex and then slid his tongue over her. A moan slid past her lips, and it was an effort to keep her eyes from closing from the pleasure that coursed through her.
“This is your clit,” he murmured against her skin before licking her again. She rose to meet him, craving an increase in pressure. “How does it feel?”
He licked her again, and she gasped. “Good.”
“I’m going to do it faster now. Just relax and do what feels natural.”
Lyra bit her tongue to keep from crying out.
He lapped at her at the same time as he swirled his thumb around her most sensitive part.
She gripped him by the hair to steady herself as he sucked her clit into his mouth.
The heat and pressure were undoing her.
It was like a wave swelling and cresting before it crashed against the shore. Something was building within her, and she knew that at some point, she would explode.
“Oh, gods,” she cried out as he circled her with his tongue and thumb.
“Are you okay?” he asked, leaning away from her.
She still had hold of his head and tugged him back down to her. “Don’t stop,” she panted out.
Wilder’s grin was positively salacious as he lowered his mouth back to her.
The outside world faded away. She no longer felt the jostling of the carriage or heard the roaring of waves against the cliffs.
No, it was only her and him. And his mouth on her. Blood pounded in her ears, and pleasure roiled through her.
“Don’t stop,” she moaned again.
Wilder worshiped her body with debauched fervor.
She felt a tightness in her legs before her body went rigid against his mouth. Waves of euphoria rolled through her as she rode it out.
He lapped it up and didn’t stop until she went boneless against his mouth.
He pulled her undergarment back up and lowered her dress. But she was too focused on trying to breathe normally once more.
“Is it what you expected it to be?” he asked, sitting back against his bench and staring at her with an amused expression as he licked his lips.
Lyra hummed her agreement as she reached for him. “It was even better.”