10. The Beauty in Begging
The confession settled between us, stealing the last of my breath.
And in the silence and stillness that followed, the rest of the world seemed impossibly far away.
Beyond the walls of the palace, beyond the mountains, and beyond the war against the darkness that had tried so hard to tear us apart. There was only this room.
Only his touch.
Only the way he looked at me as though I was something precious he still couldn’t quite believe he’d found again.
My fingers slid into his hair as I drew him closer, unable to bear even the smallest distance between us. Atlas made a low sound in his throat, one that sent heat spiraling through every part of me, before his forehead settled against mine.
“Alexandra.”
The way he said my name felt like a prayer.
Like a vow.
Like a man who had finally reached home.
Then his mouth found mine again, and the rest of the world, his and mine, ceased to exist. As if both had shattered and reformed into one of our own making.
One ruled by his hands, commanding my body, every touch igniting it.
Hands that one moment were framing my face, keeping my head tilted for the deepest kiss, and then lifting my breast in the next
breath for his awaiting mouth.
His teeth rolling around the aching bud, making me hiss as a beautiful pain morphed straight into gasping pleasure.
One moment, my back arched, begging for more, and the next, I was nearly squirming to get away from the intensity.
Something he didn’t allow, as he tugged me back, his strength leaving no room for argument.
It was like he commanded my body and knew it would submit.
And he was right.
Submit, I did.
Gladly.
Because for all my bravado and arguments, this was the only place I wanted to be. Writhing beneath him, always on the edge and ready to beg
for more. Beg for it all. Especially when his lips made the soft, teasing journey down my body, leaving my abused, bitten breasts in favor of another bounty.
My breath left me when his hands came to my hips, where the skirt of my dress remained. He tore it further, making my body jerk almost violently, making me gasp. A sound he clearly enjoyed, if the heat in his eyes was anything to go by.
“I will have nothing between us,” he growled, tugging it down and leaving me completely naked.
He stood before me, looking down at me, as if mapping out every line, curve, and mark.
As if reacquainting himself with my body before making it his once more.
Starting with the taste of me as he gripped my ankles and, without a word of warning, yanked me hard enough that I slid to the edge of the bed.
Then my eyes widened when he lowered down to one knee and spread me wide, tossing each leg over his shoulder as he positioned himself firmly beneath my thighs.
“Don’t move… Do you understand?”
I nodded, and he nipped at my thigh, making me yelp.
“I asked you a question, my queen.”
I swallowed hard. “Ye…yes. I understand,” I whispered, my voice hoarse.
He grinned up at me and kissed the sting he had made as he whispered, “Good girl.”
He wasted no more time before making a meal of me. Dipping his head and dragging his tongue up the length of me, making me cry out the second he made contact with the bundle of nerves that were ready to declare him their god.
My back arched off the bed, and one of his large hands reached up and pressed firmly on my stomach, holding me captive and exactly where he wanted me.
“Atlas… oh god… fuck!” I moaned as he bit, sucked, and kissed, driving me wild. All of it was a beautifully cruel way to keep me on the edge. A place where I knew he was waiting for me to beg to be released from.
“Please…please let me…”
“Let you what? Tell me,” he demanded, pausing long enough to look up at me, and the sight of him made my breath catch and held prisoner within my throat.
“Please, let me come… please!” I cried out, and his grin, I swear, was prime evil.
Which only made the thrill of it even stronger, as he finally gave me what I wanted.
This time, making me scream the second he added his fingers, thrusting them up inside me, the moment he sucked on my clit and practically blew my world apart.
I screamed incoherently as one long orgasm flowed right into the next, thanks to his relentless mouth and fingers.
Until the point I begged him to stop, making him chuckle against my inner thigh, nipping at the flushed skin playfully.
“Hmm, I must admit I could become quite addicted to the sound of you begging.”
I had to admit, right then, I didn’t even have it in me to respond in kind.
There was no scathing, sarcastic, or clever witty comment.
No, there was just the sound of me panting and trying to get my heartbeat back to a normal rate.
Back to the calm before he had tried to unravel me.
Of course, it didn’t help when I watched him open his mouth and suck on his two fingers he’d used to fuck me with.
He even closed his eyes and moaned around them.
“Speaking of addiction, you’re fucking delicious, girl.”
A whimper was apparently the only response I had left in me.
How charming.
Once upon a time, I prided myself on never running out of words, especially the sharp kind.
Yet there I lay, boneless, panting, and utterly ruined.
All the while, the King of The?kós licked the taste of me from his fingers as if I were the finest thing his immortal tongue had ever encountered.
It really wasn’t fair. He got to look like sin carved into a man, while I looked like someone who had lost a fight with his mouth.
Which, to be fair, I had.
Spectacularly.
He rose then, slow and unhurried, and the sight of him stole whatever breath I’d managed to claw back.
Firelight slid over every hard line of him, all that restrained power gathered into one impossibly patient man.
His eyes never left mine as he climbed back up the length of my body, caging me beneath him, and the heat radiating from his skin sank into mine.
“Atlas,” I breathed, reaching for him.
“I’m right here.” He caught my wrist, pressed a kiss to the marks etched there, and I felt the bond stir in answer, a soft pulse of warmth chasing up my arm. “I have you.”
His mouth found mine again, and I tasted myself on his lips.
I should probably have been embarrassed by that.
Instead, it only stoked the fire still burning low and insistent in my belly, the one he had coaxed back to life with infuriating ease.
My hips lifted of their own accord, seeking, and the groan he gave me in return was the most gratifying sound I had ever heard.
“Greedy little thing,” he murmured against my jaw, but there was no complaint in it. Only heat. Only hunger.
“Have I not given you enough?” he teased with a knowing grin.
“Not even close,” I managed, and felt his smile deepen.
“No,” he agreed, “I don’t suppose I have.”
Then he rose, and for one disorienting moment I thought he meant to come straight back to me.
Instead he stood. Unhurried. Utterly unbothered. His hands dropped to the waistband of his trousers, the last scrap of fabric still standing between us, and he worked the laces free with a slow, deliberate ease that bordered on cruelty.
He was watching me the entire time. Watching me watch him. And God help me, I watched! My gaze drinking in every inch of him as the fabric finally gave way and fell, leaving him gloriously, unashamedly bare.
Hard… Thick… Ready… His glorious length.
All of it ached for me as plainly as I was aching for him.
His hand wrapped around the thick length of himself, palming his erection in one slow, lazy stroke, and the low sound of approval he made when my breath caught was nothing short of obscene. Those dark, gold-flecked eyes never once left my face.
“You like what you see, little bird?” he murmured, and the sheer arrogance of it should have irritated me.
It absolutely, traitorously, did not.
“Get back here,” was the only answer I could manage, my voice embarrassingly breathless. “Before I start without you.”
His grin was pure sin.
Then he was moving, prowling up onto the bed and over me like a predator who had finally cornered his prey.
One arm hooked beneath me, shifting me higher up the mattress and deeper into the mountain of pillows.
At the same time, he crawled up the length of my body and caged me beneath him once again.
“Patience, beautiful girl,” he breathed against my mouth, settling himself between my thighs, the blunt heat of him pressing exactly where I needed him most. There was no complaint in it. Only heat. Only hunger.
And then, just like that, the wicked, unbearable man held himself there, poised on the edge of giving me everything, and waited.
I tried to lift my hips again, tried to take what he refused to surrender, but one large hand splayed across my belly and pinned me down with that same effortless strength that should have annoyed me far more than it apparently did.
“Atlas.” His name came out as a warning and a plea all at once.
“Eyes on me.” The command was low, but no less demanding.
“Keep them open, Alexandra. I want to watch every moment of what I do to you. I want to consume it.” His thumb stroked once across my hip, gentle where the rest of him was iron.
“And I want you to see me. To know exactly who it is that has you.”
As if I could have forgotten.
As if there were a single cell in my body that didn’t already know him.
But I held his gaze, because the truth was, I wanted to see him too.
Wanted to watch the great and mighty king come undone for me, the way I had so thoroughly come undone for him.
So, I forced my heavy eyes to stay open, locked on those dark depths shot through with molten gold, and whispered the only word that mattered.
“Then have me.”
And he did.