CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Alad
Before I match my lips to hers, I pause. Everything in me urges me to mount her like a lion mounts his mate: fast, sure, and forever.
Instead, I wait. I want us both to appreciate the first joining we’ll take together as betrotheds. It’s the start of our entire future. It’s a promise to be kept. Within the mist formed as we inhale each other’s breath is a shared intention to be everything to each other.
The emotion I’m feeling is so profound, my focus so great, it forces destiny to its heels. This is between us, not Fate. This is a creation we’ll make of our own devising, whether it is or isn’t meant to be. But I think it’s meant to be.
A gentle whisper of a cry leaves her lips to brush over mine, and I can’t wait any longer. When I kiss her, a spark ignites.
My tongue slips between her open lips. She tastes like the headiest wine. In my day, the beverage wasn’t so popular in Uruk, being expensive to import, but there were those who cultivated vines in the mountainous regions of Ararat that tasted like her: sweet, deep, profound.
I want her so badly, but I’m afraid to hurt her. But with the kiss, I know. With the kiss, I’m lost.
Because she kisses me back, her hands grabbing at my unnaturally cropped hair, pulling me in closer rather than pushing me away.
I’ve had hundreds of women in my bed, all kinds of women.
Most have wanted me, but only for my association with the gods or the king.
But the way Charlotte kisses me, I know she’s kissing me for me.
I taste it all: tenderness, longing, desire.
I inhale them into my secret heart. The heady brew drops me like a stone from a tower.
Irrevocable. Forever. Smashed into pieces.
If I can’t make her love me as I suddenly understand I love her, as if every breath she takes is sacred, as if the ground should sprout flowers because she walks upon it, and the stars should fall from the heavens to crown her gorgeous head, I’ll shatter.
No need to fight the curse. I don’t think I could survive knowing she wasn’t mine.
“Alad.” She speaks my name into my mouth. “Alad, please.” And draws me even closer as she rubs against me.
“Sshh, sweet one. I’m here. I’ll always be here.” But as if she’s lit the same fire inside me, I need more of her. I rip my mouth from hers, her tongue from mine, her wine from my lips. “Are you certain?”
“Yes. I-I’m certain.”
But I hear the brief hesitation. She needs gentleness. She requires seduction and the least pain I can inflict.
I cup her face between my paws, careful of my claws so I don’t ruin her delicate skin. “You’re my queen. I’m your grateful servant. All that I am, I give to you. Trust me, sweet one.”
At her nod, I press my lips again to hers. Sweetness. Light. And something golden, something so right, it exceeds the idea of physical union. I want to mesh our souls.
But my body has other ideas. Since I’m hampered by my form, I change my paws to hands, the better to slip over the buttons down her back. They’re tiny things, made to elude clumsy male fingers. When my feeble attempts fail, I simply rip the silk, exposing the hard contours of a corset beneath.
A growl slips from my throat. Foiled. I’m foiled by this period’s conventions.
When I pull my mouth away from hers, I look down to where her gown gapes away from her breasts.
The lace has slipped lower, so low, I can almost make out her nipples just hidden behind the boning. The need to see them overtakes me.
Paws again. Claws. I rip through the fabric and metal fasteners, ruining dress and undergarments. “I’ll buy you another.”
“I don’t care.” She arches toward me, pulling her breasts free so they no longer stand as peaked mountains but lie gently—undulous hills, waiting for my mouth.
“My queen.” I take a pink tip onto my tongue, suckling the pebbled nub. Gently. Slowly. Softly. I move between one and the other.
She cries out and clasps me to her, panting in her need.
By all the gods, she’s going to break me.
***** Charlotte *****
He touches me like I’m holy. I’m nothing, just a whore, a deceitful woman, not fit to lick his paws.
But his eyes, when he lifts them to mine while his lips pull at the hard buds of my nipples, send lightning flaring through my blood and repeat his promise.
And I believe him. I am his queen.
And in choosing to believe him, I feel as if a missing part of me has once again slotted into place. I feel… whole.
But still empty. I need him. I need him inside me. “Don’t stop.”
His golden eyes meet mine again. What he sees there, I don’t know, but he nods, his lips firming into a hard line before he goes to work divesting me of the scraps of my clothing.
The air cools on my naked flesh as I lie there, panting, so full of heat that it’s as if someone has lit an inferno within me.
“So beautiful,” he murmurs as he trails the back of his claws from my neck, down my stomach, and over my hip. “You’re fashioned like a goddess, sweet one.”
But he’s the one that’s beautiful. His eyes are pure gold, glowing as if lit from within.
All the angles of his face hollow further as he draws in a steadying breath.
The muscles under his light fur bunch and release as he leans towards me once more and moves his lips down my length, lighting more fires and sparkling like champagne in my veins.
Everywhere he touches, everywhere he licks, he brings magick.
A cry, part distress, part yearning, leaves my lips as his mouth grazes my thicket of hair. Covered by him, I spread my thighs even before his paws slip down the sensitive flesh on the inner side to part them.
A groan lights the room. “So sweet a fragrance, so delicious.” His head disappears before the scrape of his tongue swipes over my button and between my folds.
“Alad!”
He licks again, gathering my moisture onto his tongue and humming his appreciation. The vibrations sing through me. I don’t know whether a lady should be embarrassed, but I can’t be bothered. I’m too busy being lifted, churned, and stretched taut on his tongue.
I wrap my fingers into his hair once more and push him tighter into my quim.
I’m no longer a lady. Better to be a whore if this is what results. A decidedly unladylike moan escapes me.
“Tumble for me. I’ll catch you.” His words rumble against the flesh he spreads wide, giving him unfettered access.
I spread wider, push him closer, but he’s much stronger than I am, and he licks and tempts, suckles and nibbles where he wills.
“Please, Alad, please,” I beg before gritting my teeth against the acid sweetness.
But it’s already too late. As he tongues my button, the tightness winds so hard within me that it flings me up to the stars on an explosion of color and bliss.
Heaven’s pinpoints are sharp, but the dark sky catches me as I fall.