Chapter 3
Treason
Idream that we’re floating out to sea on an inflatable mattress.
The waters are calm but as Rhys makes love to me, he rocks our precarious boat as he kisses his way down my body.
Then he nudges my thighs out of the way so that he can settle in between them and I feel his warm breath over my most sensitive skin.
“Rhys…” I whisper wanting to tell him not to stop, but also to beg him to be smart.
We’re going to drown. I should be thankful that no one is here to see us like this, but then again, there’s also no one here to save us.
I’m about to beg him to stop when he spreads me open with his thumbs and licks me up my center, making my back arch so that I can get closer to his dangerous mouth.
He punishes me with his tongue as he viciously licks my clit, holding my legs open to him. My hips are pinned to the floating mattress and I thrash about and cry out as he hurtles me toward my massive climax.
“Please,” I cry out. I’ll scream and beg and do whatever he wants, but this is too dangerous. “I’m going to fall.”
He stops what he’s doing to me only to say, “Fall then, hen, I’ll catch you.” And then he presses his tongue to my opening, spearing me with it, then he sucks on my clit, and I scream as I come.
My nipples are tight and my body feels hot as I blink my eyes open. I’m on the verge of an orgasm and I know why as I look down my body and see Rhys with his mouth on my pussy, eating me.
“Rhys,” I pant as I reach for him and run my fingers through his dark hair.
“Aye,” he replies, his rough voice rumbling over my sensitive flesh. “One more before we shower.”
And then he spears me with his thick fingers, stroking to life the spot deep inside of me as he rolls his tongue over me again and again until my fingers pull tight in his hair and I’m screaming his name.
“Rhys!”
He doesn’t stop as my orgasm begins, instead he gentles me through it. When it’s over, he places a kiss to my thigh and then climbs from the bed, tossing me over his shoulder and smacking my ass as he begins to move through the room toward the bathroom.
“Rhys!” I gasp.
“We’ve got shit to do, hen.”
“And what shit would that be?” I ask even though I’m afraid of the answer.
“It’s time to go home,” he says, breaking my heart. “Besides, we’ve got a coronation to plan.”
“I’m not ready,” I tell him honestly. This isn’t safe. It feels like it was only a week ago that Suzanne tried to kill me.
“Aye, you are,” is all he says as he sets me on my feet.
He turns the taps to heat up the stone and glass shower that some long-before king installed in the manor in an effort to modernize.
It’s no longer modern but it is big enough to shower with a friend and Rhys has made creative use of it more than once since we’ve been holed up here.
I turn and get a good look at myself in the mirror. My dark hair is every which way, and my skin is flushed, my cheeks bright and glowing from the orgasm, but that’s not what pulls a gasp from my lungs. It’s the blooming purple marks on my breast. That big bastard left a hickey on me.
“You marked me,” I say with not enough outrage to be believable. It’s not like anyone will ever see it but Rhys.
“Aye,” he says with a smug smile spread across his handsome face. “I did.”
Before I have a chance at a rebuttal, he grabs me and pulls me into the shower with him, closing us into the glass stall as steam fills the room.
Warm water washes over us as he leans down and presses his mouth to mine, licking inside.
I taste myself and him. He makes me forget how dangerous the outside world is as he worships me again, with his hands and mouth, and before I know it, he’s lifting me up in his arms, bracing my back on the stone wall as he drives himself up and inside of me. All I can do is hold onto him.
“I’m mad with wanting you,” he says as he thrusts into me over and over. “I’ve never needed a woman like I need you.”
“Rhys,” I pant as I run my hands over him, needing to touch him.
“Never tasted a pussy as sweet as yours,” he says, his hold on me tightening. “You’re going to come for me now, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I gasp.
“You’re going to come all over my cock like a good girl…”
“Yes,” I pant as I feel my core begin to flutter.
“And you’re going to keep coming as I fill you up with my cum, so full that it drips out of you,” he growls as he fucks me harder and faster against the wall.
“Yes.”
“Fill you so full that you can’t help but carry my babe, then everyone will know that you’re mine.”
“Rhys—” I start but he grabs my jaw, tipping it down. My mouth is slightly open so all I can do is whimper my complaint as he drives my body higher.
“Come for me, hen.”
And I do. I let go and feel my body pulse around his. He crashes his mouth to mine, drinking in my cries as his tongue thrusts into my mouth.
Then he tears it away to gasp and groan. “Fuck, fuck!” he shouts as he plants himself deep and comes.
I feel his heart race against mine and hear his breath rasp in and out of him as he holds me close.
When he sets me down, I feel the warm, wet of him spill out and he scoops it up in his fingers and thrusts it back inside of me.
My skin is too sensitive, and I try to pull away from him, but he holds me tight against him as he uses his hand to hold his cum inside me.
When he’s decided that he’s held me long enough he releases me only to turn me under the water spray so that he can begin to wash my hair and then my body. When he fucks me rough, he’s always extremely gentle after…
At least he is when it’s not a punishment.
When he’s done, he sets me on the stone bench of the shower in a steamy haze while he washes himself, then he turns off the taps and wraps us both in fluffy towels which thankfully, are modern.
Rhys pulls me into his arms again and traces a fingertip down the side of my face. I watch him track his own movements over me before he turns his eye to mine and I brace.
“As much as I hate to say it,” he begins in a gentle tone of voice. “Our time here is over.”
I nod.
“Can you get ready for travel?” he asks me.
“Yes. I think I have what I need here.”
“Maeve made sure you had the essentials,” he agrees. “I’ll get your clothes from the closet while you get ready.”
“Okay.”
I stay wrapped in my warm towel before exchanging it for a fluffy robe while I handle my skin care and dry my hair with a big round brush.
You’d be correct if you guessed that old country manor homes are cold and drafty.
When the loud hum of the dryer is no longer whirring, I hear a weird plopping and move back toward the shower and commode to see what’s dripping only to find Rhys popping my birth control pills into the toilet.
I hadn’t been on them long but after discovering that pregnancy before the wedding would end in my head no longer attached to my body, I had Maeve arrange for some as quickly as possible.
Why Rhys chooses to throw them out now, when everyone is trying to kill me—especially without discussing it with me—is an interesting decision.
One I’m going to question right now, well, after I lose my bloody fucking mind.
“What are you doing?” I ask as carefully as I can without screaming at the top of my lungs that he’s lost his fucking mind.
“Getting rid of these,” he says, eyeing me as if I’m a snake that might strike but also a complete idiot. “Why do you have them?”
“Uh, maybe because I like my head where it is,” I tell him like he’s the idiot. “Firmly attached to my body.”
“Huh?” he asks with a confused look on his face.
“Did you miss the life altering dinner where you declared we were getting married the same week and the Queen—”
“Dowager Queen,” he corrects. “You’re the bloody Queen now.”
“Where Saoirse casually announced to everyone that if I got pregnant before we were married that it would be treason and I’d be executed?”
“Aye, so?” he asks and I swear my head explodes.
When the red haze clears, I do my best to reply. “Well, you weren’t so keen on no sex.”
“Aye and I’m still no’.”
“You also weren’t doing anything to protect against pregnancy,” I remind him and he smiles a huge stupid smile.
“No, I wasn’t.”
“So, you weren’t protecting me,” I emphasize.
“Wrong,” he growls. “I will always protect you.”
“You weren’t then.”
“Wrong again, hen,” he says as he tosses the last of my pills in the toilet and flushes, throwing the blister pack in the trash before stalking toward me.
“I have never no’ protected you. I knew I was marrying you so quickly there was no way, even if you were carrying my babe, that they could prove it wasn’t a wedding night baby.
But the thought of you with your belly swollen with my child, your breasts heavy, I couldn’t bear the thought of not having it. I want it as much as I want you.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense,” I protest. “Besides, I would have chosen to be part of the conversation.”
“As I would have chosen to know about those,” he says as he tips his head in the direction of the discarded pills.
“That’s not the same,” I tell him. “You’re still not protecting me. You’re only thinking of what you want and it hurts to know that I’m no better than a brood mare.”
“One,” he says as he pulls the knot on my robe.
“You are no’ my brood mare, you’re my fucking wife.
Two, I am still protecting you. I do want to see you pregnant, heavy with my heir, but I also know the laws of our country and protecting against an heir after marriage is treason,” he says as he pushes the robe from my shoulder, exposing my breast, which he gently brushes with the back of his hand. “And three…”
“There’s a three after finding out there’s more treason?” I gasp as he flicks my nipple.
“Aye, hen,” he says as he knocks my robe to the floor, pulling me into his arms.
“Then what is it? Lay it on me.”
“Three,” he says, lifting me up onto the porcelain counter. “We’re going to be late.”