5. ROSE
Five
ROSE
I have been alive for twenty-one years, or more depending on how you count the ones I lost, and I had absolutely no fucking idea my body could do this.
Kael’s mouth is between my legs, and I just might fucking die. I’m nothing but pure sensation. And increasingly embarrassing sounds, that I would care about if I had any shame left, which I don’t, because his tongue is doing things that should be illegal in every kingdom ever.
“Oh my God…”
He growls against me, into me. A low, rough, animal sound that vibrates against my clit and sends a shockwave through my body that’s so intense that my spine arches off the bed, my hands fly to his head, I’m gripping his hair, and I don’t remember deciding to do that.
His huge hands are on my upper legs, holding me open, and they’re so big, so freaking big, that his fingers span from my inner thigh nearly to my knee. He devours me like I’m a fucking feast. It’s dizzying, filthy, fucking ruthless.
I’m going to come. I fucking know it. I’ve never done this, never been touched like this, never felt anything even remotely close to this, but an instinct deeper than experience recognizes the edge I’m running toward.
“Let go, Rose.” Kael’s voice against my core is rough with command. “I got you. Let fucking go.”
So I come. It hits me like a wall of white light.
Every muscle in my body seizes. My mouth opens on a sound I try to muffle against my forearm because even in the middle of the most amazing experience of my extremely limited life, some deeply ingrained princess training kicks in and tells me to be quiet…
Kael pulls my arm away from my mouth and pins my wrists to the mattress.
“Don’t you fucking dare hide from me. I want every fucking sound.”
At that moment, the second wave hits me, and I fucking scream. Full-throated, echoing off the walls, bouncing around the tower. Calling his name, God, and a string of words that would make my mother faint and my father reach for his sword.
But he doesn’t stop. My Alpha King works me through it relentlessly, with his mouth, tongue, and the scrape of his stubble against my inner thighs.
And when the aftershocks finally ease and I’m lying there trembling, wrecked and staring at the ceiling with unfocused eyes, he kisses his way back up my body.
Slow and thorough. Tasting every fucking inch of me.
Then he rises over me. Jaw clenched, eyes black with want, a muscle jumping in his cheek, his massive chest heaving… a picture I will remember for the rest of my life.
“More?” Kael asks.
I should say slow down. Let me think, let me process the fact that I’ve been asleep for fucking years, I just had my first orgasm, and I don’t even know your last name.
But I can only nod.
His forehead drops to mine. His breath, shaky. “Rose…”
“I swear to God, if you ask me if I’m sure…”
“I was going to say it might hurt.”
Oh. Oh. Right. Because I’m… because I’ve never…
“I know,” I whisper. “I don’t mind.”
“You say that now.”
“I’ll say it after, too.” I take his face in my hands.
His jaw is scratchy with a five-o’clock shadow, his skin hot.
His eyes, this close, are definitely hazel, gold and green with flecks of brown, and they’re looking at me like I’m something amazing.
“I’ve been asleep for decades, Kael. Fucking years.
I have an entire life I haven’t lived. And right now, in this moment, the only thing I want to do with my time is this. So stop being noble and fuck me.”
Something snaps behind his eyes. Whatever little was left of his kingly composure.
I watch it fucking shatter, and what’s left under is raw, unfiltered ALPHA.
His pupils swallow his irises; his scent surges, thicker, darker, heavier, fucking flooding the room.
His muscles bulge and tighten, his strong jaw sets, and the male looking down at me is no longer a man.
He’s a fucking predator. And I’m not even a little bit afraid.
The clink of his belt resonates, then the rustle of fabric, and he positions himself against me, hot, hard, impossibly thick, and I feel every nerve in my body zero in on our touching skins.
“Look at me, Rosalind.”
I do. I couldn’t look away if the tower collapsed.
And he fucking pushes in.
Slow. Agonizingly so. Inch by thick fucking inch, his mesmerizing eyes locked on mine, reading every flicker of sensation that crosses my face.
There’s a stretch, a burn, a fullness that rides the edge between too much and fucking perfect.
Tears sting my eyes, and they’re not from pain.
No, they’re from the fucking rightness of it all.
The overwhelming, bone-deep, terrifying rightness that floods through me as King Kael fills me, claiming my body that was always, always meant to be his.
There you are. My omega says. Not my brain. Something deeper, fucking ancient. I’ve been waiting for you.
When he bottoms out, fully, completely, impossibly inside me, he drops his face to my neck and makes a sound that’s something raw and reverent.
“Fuck, Rose.” He sounds fucking broken, wrecked.
I wrap my arms over his shoulders, my legs around his waist. Every inch of me clinging to every inch of him I can reach.
Then he starts moving.