Chapter 23 #2
“Stop me.” I answer with teeth—gentle, then sharper—marking the soft swell of her with invisible bruises she’ll feel for days. She bucks and whimpers, and the sound drives the dragon in me wilder.
“Sometimes, prospective queens had to endure trials to prove themselves worthy.”
I lick again, deeper, curling up to flick that tight pearl.
“First trial: endurance,” I murmur, gently sliding a single finger into her velvet heat.
“A sovereign must ride the storm she summons… and not break before sunrise celebrations.” I shift the pressure, finding the place that makes her spine bow tight as a drawn string.
“Dayn—gods—”
“Still nighttime, love. Plenty of hours left.” My mouth closes over her again, slow and wicked, matching the tremor of her thighs around my shoulders. She tastes dark and sweet—my favorite sin.
I pull back just enough to watch her squirm, her hips chasing my mouth.
“Second trial: generosity.” I kiss the inside of her knee, then bite the soft flesh of her thigh.
“The land gives to the crown… so the crown must give back.” I work my finger slow, curling, retreating, until she’s panting.
“Open wider, queen. Let your kingdom see how… responsive its ruler gets when she remembers who her crown answers to.”
Her glare is glassy, gorgeous defiance.
“Ancient law,” I say, licking a stripe up her center, tasting the new rush of her arousal. “I have to.” I seal my mouth over her again, tongue spelling our coronation vows: loyalty, reverence, unrelenting pleasure.
When she crests—hips rolling, breath shattering—I drink every pulse of her climax. Only then do I rise, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, eyes never leaving the flush spreading down her chest.
“Third trial,” I whisper. I lean down to gather her up, already tasting the lazy heat of her aftershocks, limbs loose and trembling. My palms skate beneath her knees to lift to settle her where I want her—open to me in new ways.
Her fingers find my jaw before I can raise her.
“No,” she breathes. “I decide the third trial.”
I lift my eyebrows. “You?”
She nods. Her breath is ragged still, cheeks flushed, but her eyes—gray gone to liquid steel—fix on mine with something fiercer than aftermath. “You’re still overdressed.”
She rises from the seat, slow, every inch of her luminous in the torchlight.
Her fingers find the hem of my shirt. She hesitates—just a breath—then lifts it.
I don’t help. I hear my pulse hammering in my ears as I let her explore the shape of me: the planes of my stomach, the sweep of ribs, the heat that flares under her palms as she peels the linen upward.
I raise my arms only when the fabric reaches my shoulders, letting her strip me bare to the waist.
Her eyes flick down, then up again, cheeks flushing. “Better,” she murmurs. “But still too much.”
Her fingers move to my belt, fumbling with the buckle. She hesitates again—this is the first time she remembers touching me like this, though her body knows mine with quiet, instinctive certainty. As far as I know, she’s never done this—here, awake—with anyone.
I stay motionless, letting her take the lead.
She unbuttons me with the same slow care she used on the belt, her knuckles brushing the heat beneath.
She hooks her thumbs under the waistband of my trousers and eases them down, inch by inch, until they pool at my boots.
I step out of them, naked now but for the last scrap of linen clinging to my hips.
She looks up at me, eyes wide, breath caught high in her chest. Her hand drifts to my waistband, lingers there as if asking permission, then gently slides beneath. The contact steals the breath from my lungs.
The first touch of her fingers is cautious, exploratory—just the pads of them brushing the length of me.
I inhale, gathering what control I can. She flushes darker, but doesn’t pull away.
Her grip firms, slow and curious, mapping me.
I feel her pulse racing through her fingertips, the tremor in her wrist.
“Gods,” I breathe, the word slipping out before I can stop it. “Esme.”
She lifts her gaze to mine, gray eyes gone storm-dark. “Tell me what you like.”
I brush her cheek, my thumb catching the heat there. “You. Just you.”
Her fingers tighten experimentally, and a ragged breath breaks from me, the sound carrying in the carved hall. The beast in me surges up hard, wrecked by the feel of her—craving more, now.
“Esme.” My voice is like gravel. “As much as I want your hand exactly where it is, if you keep moving I will lose the last thread of control I have.”
Her breath hitches; fractionally, she starts to withdraw. I catch her wrist, gentler this time, and draw her in until her breasts press against my chest, until every ragged breath she takes shudders through both of us. Skin to skin, fire to shadow, our bond humming like a struck bell.
I tip her chin and kiss her—slow, deep—letting the heat build in layers instead of explosions.
Her mouth opens under mine, soft, surprised, then hungry.
I taste the salt of the tears pleasure pulled from her and the sweet burn of her magic, and I kiss her until the throne room blurs, until the carved obsidian and the ancient banners fade and there is only the wet slide of her tongue, the small desperate sounds she makes when I suck on her lower lip.
“There’ll be time for this later, Esme,” I promise against her mouth. “When you’re whole, when you’re surer, when you can meet me without anything missing.” We’ll complete this.
I pour the vow into the kiss, into the way my hand cups the back of her head, into the tremor that rides through both of us when she bites my lip. We stay like that—foreheads touching, breath shared—until the blaze between us settles to a lower, steady heat.
When I pull back her lips are swollen, her eyes storm-dark and dazed. I linger a heartbeat longer, waiting for my body to remember how to stand without her mouth on mine.
“Come on,” I say, voice rough. “Let’s find what we came for before I decide waiting is overrated.”
She exhales a shaken laugh. “You’re… ridiculous.”
“And you’re mine,” I answer, and mean it in every language I know.