Chapter 10 #2
Will we ever tire of each other? When all of my extremely limited life experiences have been recounted, all my stories told, will we grow bored?
Will he grow tired of me? Or will we only learn to love each other deeper every day, creating new memories and having a life that we never thought we would in Blackwood?
Only time will tell.
“I can hear you thinking,” Weston murmurs in my ear. “Tell me.”
His arms loosen from where they are wrapped around me, and his hands splay across my stomach as they start to roam over the curves of my hips.
“It’s nothing.” The breathless words tell him just how much his touch is affecting me. He doesn’t stop the torturous journey downward, getting even closer to where I want to feel him.
“The wrinkle in your forehead says otherwise.” The rumble in his chest against my back makes the worries evaporate, especially as his hand slides down my thigh, fingers trailing up the inside and only making me ache even more.
His legs nudge mine from behind, spreading them wider, but his hands never falter.
If it weren’t for the feel of his hard cock pressing against my backside, I would think none of this affected him. Not the magic, not the touch. He just continues to watch the rain fall over my shoulder, without a hitch in his breathing or a change in his expression.
His fingertips trail up the inside of my thigh, breaking past whatever barrier he had been avoiding to slowly stroke me with the barest of touches.
Throbbing pressure starts to build, and I squeeze my eyes shut as the warmth of the water and the tease of his fingers make everything else in the world dim.
“Tell me something from before.” I bite my lip as his fingers part me, then slowly trace circles around my entrance. A soft whimper escapes me, and I feel his body shift behind me, pressing into my back just a little more as his movements continue to torture me.
“What do you want to know?” I manage to get out before sucking in a harsh breath, as he presses just the tip of a finger inside.
“Anything. Everything. I want to know everything about you.” His voice drops lower as his lips brush the curve of my ear. “What would you tell me if I was a suitor?”
The thought of Weston courting me sends images flickering through my mind. Dancing at balls. Stealing looks across the room. Brushing up against each other when no one is looking.
Would he steal me away to one of the dark corners of the castle, as I’d seen and heard other castle staff do? Would he touch me like he is now? Would it be too forbidden?
Would he care?
The vision of Weston with his hand between my legs, hidden beneath layers of my skirts, away from the prying eyes of everyone at home, sends off a wave of flutters low in my abdomen.
I can’t stop myself. I need him closer. I reach up and wrap my hand around the back of his neck, gripping him firmly and pushing my body back into his.
“I don’t really know,” I say, my voice stuttering with the hitch of my breath as he starts slowly circling again. “I’ve never…never had one to talk to.”
“I’m sure you can come up with something,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss against my neck before settling his lips against my ear.
“You already know me better than any suitor would have.” His smile widens against my skin at the same time as he slides a finger inside of me.
“Oh,” I moan, and tighten my grip on the back of his neck. My head tilts back, eyes still closed as I soak up every sensation.
“I do, and more than just the feel of you clenching my hand,” he says, his voice grumbling against my ear, setting off a wave of full-body shivers with the searing warmth of his skin and the spring around us.
“I can’t think with you doing that,” I pant as he unhurriedly slides it in and out.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No.”
He chuckles softly but removes his hand, settling it firmly on my hip.
I let out a low whimper. “That is the opposite of don’t stop,” I grumble.
“Trust me, sweetheart, I’m not stopping. Put your hands on the wall.”
I follow his command and wrap my hands over the top of the smooth stone wall in front of us.
He grips my hips firmly before lifting me so my toes barely scrape the floor of the pool, scooting my ass back so my arms are locked against the wall in front of me.
The tip of his cock brushes against my already aching entrance just before he tilts my hips, arching my back to change the angle and pushes inside me.
My grip tightens, and my head falls back with a moan, feeling every inch of him as he slides in to the hilt, stretching and filling me at a dangerously slow pace.
I move my hips, begging for friction, but his hands squeeze, stilling the motion.
“Not yet. Just relax.”
“Please.”
“Trust me,” he says, and I nod, sucking in a deep breath and letting our bodies fit together.
The fullness turns the rising need into a steady throb, and I have to focus to keep my body from moving against his.
The front of his thighs press into the back of mine as he shifts my legs, lining them up with his before gripping the wall on either side of my hands.
He shifts, pulling himself forward, and nudging my body until I’m sitting in his lap.
The change in angle pushes him deeper, the fullness almost too much as he touches something deep inside.
One hand releases the wall and settles on my stomach, the light pressure making my head roll back onto his shoulder as I feel him so fully.
“Now tell me something,” he mumbles, and the vibration of his voice resonates in my back.
“I like to read,” I say as I try to slow my heaving breaths and get used to the pressure. If I stay perfectly still, the slow and steady pulse of excitement is manageable. He was right. I can focus a little more than I could before, as long as his fingers don’t decide to play with me again.
“I already know that. What’s your favorite book?”
“The Maiden’s Moonlight Venture. It was the one the island gave me the night you went on your first shift back.”
“Was that one of Tila’s books?”
I nod and immediately regret it. The movement jars my body, shifting me and making my core flutter around him.
I suck in a breath. “Yes.”
He chuckles in my ear. “When did you discover those?”
“When I was fifteen. It was around the time I learned about marriage alliances and needing heirs. Without a mother to have the more…intimate conversations with me, I think Tila made sure I found them.”
And I’m glad she did. I’m grateful Edmond never went farther than to explain the expectations of a queen, and the possibilities for using a marriage to benefit the kingdom. The thought of him trying to describe the…logistics…makes me want to die.
“They were educational, I’m sure.”
“They were enough. But you surprised me with some of the ways…” I trail off, feeling slightly embarrassed to even say it.
“I fucked you?” he fills in, and I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Yes,” I say and feel my shoulders curl in slightly. “None of the books had some of the things you have done, so at first I thought I did something wrong.”
A low grumble escapes his throat. “There will never be anything wrong with letting me put my tongue between your legs.” The press of his hand on my abdomen firms a hint more, and I fight not to wriggle my hips over his.
“Noted,” I say with a laugh, and he presses his lips into my hair.
“I distracted you from the books.”
“Right. The books. While those parts of the stories were…appreciated, I kept going back for more than just that. I loved the romance, too. Reading about love was important to me.”
“Why?”
I tilt my head back to look up at him. “Do you want the truth?”
“Always, princess.”
I shoot him a glare, but he just presses a quick kiss to my lips, and my eyes flutter again as he sends a wave of pleasure coursing through me.
“I never thought I’d have that—the love in the stories.
It always seems so pure and unconditional.
” My eyes break away from his and settle on my fingers gripping the wall.
“I’ve never had someone love me unconditionally, and surely never expected anything more than a loveless marriage alliance after being hidden behind the castle walls for my entire life. ”
“I love you,” he murmurs, and my head snaps up, finding his gaze searing into my face.
His hand leaves my abdomen and strokes the curve of my jaw with a knuckle as his eyes shimmer with uncertainty.
They scan mine, darting back and forth assessing, trying to read me like he’s usually great at, but this time, he questions what he sees.
“Even when you piss me off, and defy my orders, and put yourself in danger, and leave me.” My breath hitches at the last one, but he doesn’t stop; his voice just drops lower as his chin tilts to his chest. “I still love you.”
The vulnerability and uncertainty on his face makes my chest ache. How could he question my feelings? How could he think I wouldn’t return them? After everything that has happened, that he’s done for me, and the future we have ahead of us, could he really believe I don’t love him?
This declaration is different from before. When he swore his oath to me, he never explicitly said it. Not in this many words. Not in the way lovers do, not in the way all the stories I’ve read have.
The love I thought I’d never have is staring me in the face, waiting for me to say it back, and I realize that despite the overwhelming love that grew since I decided to keep him a secret, I never said it to him.
I longed for him when I snuck away. I begged for him to see me differently than the princess he couldn’t have, but I never told him.
He admitted he was falling in love with me, that he had started to the moment he looked into my eyes, but the only words that left my lips were that he was mine, and I was his.
That I chose him, but not that I loved him.
I won’t make him wait any longer.