8. KAEL
Eight
KAEL
This time happens against the wall because we don’t make it to the bed.
Rose has her legs wrapped around my waist, her back against the stone.
She’s pulling my hair, biting my neck, and rolling her hips in a way that makes me see fucking stars.
My hands grip her ass, her fucking perfect, full, incredible ass, and I hold her up like my body was built for exactly this purpose: fucking this woman against a wall and making her scream my name.
I knot her again and she comes so hard she goes completely silent, lips parted, body locked, eyes rolled back, and the feeling of it through the bond nearly makes me drop to my knees.
Then I take her in the bath, where her wet body against mine in a claw-foot tub is a trigger I have zero defense against. She laughs when I harden again, a bright, surprised laugh, asking, “Already?”
I reply, “Do you fucking know what you look like right now? How you fucking feel?”
She looks down at herself, naked and glistening, and fucking smirks before pulling me to her.
Then we’re back on the bed, slow this time, with her on top.
And my Princess is a devastatingly fast learner.
She figures out the angle that makes me lose control and uses it without any fucking mercy.
Rolling her lush hips in a slow grind that has me gripping the headboard so hard the wood splinters.
“You’re going to kill me,” I growl.
She winks. “You walked through cursed thorns for me. The least I can do is give you a good death.”
Between rounds, we talk.
“Favorite food?” She asks, lying on my chest, tracing the wolf tattoo over my heart. Her hair spilled across my skin.
“Lamb stew. My mother’s recipe. You?”
She props her chin on my sternum, staring into my eyes. “I was fed princess food for twenty-one years. Poached fish, steamed vegetables… things that were appropriate. I want to eat something wildly inappropriate.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never had street food…”
“I’ll take you.” She smiles. “When we leave this tower. Once your heat breaks. I’ll take you everywhere.”
She blinks rapidly and turns her face away, but I can feel the wave that crashes into her: gratitude, longing, joy so fierce it takes my breath away.
“You can’t just say things like that,” Rose mutters into my chest.
“Why not?”
“Because I’ll start to believe you.”
I tuck a wild curl behind her ear. “You should.”
“And then I’ll start to…” she stops, jaw tightening, and I feel a wall going up. I get it: my girl spent her whole life protecting herself from disappointment.
I tilt her chin up. “Hey. I don’t make promises I can’t keep, Rose.
I never have. So when I tell you I’m going to show you the world, every eatery, every sunset, every stupid game, I mean it.
When I tell you you’re mine, I mean that shit.
Not as a king claiming a princess, but as an alpha who walked into this tower expecting nothing and found everything. ”
“Don’t be sweet,” she whispers. “I can handle cocky and claiming. Sweet is going to ruin me.”
I smirk. “Sweetheart, I plan on ruining you in every way possible.”
“There he is.” She lets out a short laugh, even as her eyes are damp. “There’s the arrogant king.”
I return her smile, running my thumb over her cheek.
Then her heat surges back, and she pushes me flat on the bed, conversation forgotten.