Chapter Twenty-Eight #2
“Shh.” He beckoned for me to come closer, so I pushed away my chair and curled up in his lap.
“I adore this hidden face of yours. Your far side. Your cunning. For all Hal was, he did not understand our torments. We were taken from our families so young. You were—what? Six? Seven?” I lifted my head and nodded.
“Seven. We were taught by Prospero to serve others, to become their tools. And so you grew your claws and teeth to protect yourself from being hurt. How could you of all people be a tyrant? Your magic is empathy itself. To feel what others feel. Consider this: the king and Fulke do not walk in different bodies as you do. They are only concerned with themselves.”
“I used to wonder if you liked hurting people.”
He sighed. “If I hurt people in the past, it hurt me, too. I was careless. I was searching for meaning in others. I thought I loved plenty of them. Since then, that love has been … re-contextualized.”
“By what new information?”
“A girl.” He corrected himself. “A woman. At first, I didn’t understand her.
She was complex. A little hardened toward me, and the world.
And now understanding her has become the most important thing to me.
Before I saw her again, I would have said I had been in love a handful of times.
Now I know she has been the only one. I can love you completely because the piece of you that loved him is in me, too.
I think of Hal always, and I will think of him forever.
I would never tell you to be rid of him. ”
I often struggled with my words. So I poured all I felt into his mind, each emotion rich in texture and color, deepened and hardened by so many years—the anticipation of seeing him again, the excitement when he was near.
The agony when I’d learned he had been sent to the Tomb.
The terror of losing him, and the terror of loving him.
That rendered him silent for a while. Then he brushed his lips across my wet lashes. “What was it you said to Cecily?”
When my eyes opened, I saw his were full of fire. “That I’d enjoy your bed.”
“Why don’t you enjoy it, then?”
When I smiled, he scooped me up and settled on the edge of the bed, me in his lap.
My hair poured to my waist. He groaned to see it loose, running his fingers through the strands as they caught the light, murmuring, “Beautiful. So beautiful.” I pulled my shift over my head, and when I was bare and straddling his hips, his attention turned to my breasts.
He was held rapt by them for a long time, sucking and teasing my nipples, whispering how perfect they were.
As his hands guided the rolls of my hips against him, he felt me slick against his thigh and cursed into my shoulder. The sound tore something open between us, and he read my desire plainly.
With some maneuvering, his own clothes were discarded beside mine in a pile. I laughed at the pain in his eyes as he beheld the disorder. “Would you like me to fold it all on the chair?”
“No.” His lips were soft when they met mine. Our kisses deepened until I was left gasping.
He hoisted me over his shoulder, then lowered me gently onto the bed. His hands braced my knees apart, and he took his time teasing up my body, not breaking my gaze the entire way. His eyes dark, only a slight rim of pink. My knuckles skimmed his cheekbones as he hung over me.
“What is it?” I nudged his nose with mine. “You’re in disbelief.”
He shook his head. “It is only—you truly love me.”
I arched up, pressing my lips to his. I dared to look down after that. To between his thighs. He was so large; I worried he wouldn’t fit, but he told me he would if we did other things first.
When I asked, “Like what?” he only grinned, then said it would require a little adjustment.
Lying against the headboard, completely naked, he crooked a finger and said, “Come here, Bianca.”
I crawled over to him. Dragged myself over his strong thighs, his carved hips, as he stared, lips parted.
He gripped my waist and positioned me over his mouth, my palms and forehead resting against the headboard.
When his tongue flickered inside me, I moaned, my head falling back, the ends of my hair swaying against his chest. He knew where I yearned for him, and his mouth was there a moment later, just as before.
I panted as I rose and fell over him, my palms pressed to the wood. He was groaning into me, something muffled, something about how I tasted. I was about to cry out when he flipped me over. “You’re ready now.”
I nodded. I was.
“I should tell you my theory,” he said softly as he parted my legs.
“What theory?” All my thoughts were scattered.
“Exaltation.”
When he finally pressed inside of me, just a little, I thought, in my insanity, that I would never know such pleasure again, that this was the edge of all sensation: his teeth tugging on my lower lip, his lashes fluttering, his moans into my mouth when he sensed my needs and knew how best to satisfy them.
His eyes searched mine. I nodded yes, and he pushed in further. Lowered his tongue to the swell of my breast, whispered praise against it.
He knew I wanted it faster, harder, and so he dug his hands into my hair as his pace quickened.
Our emotions swirled together again. This time there was only a shared desperation between us.
The four-poster bed was groaning, shaking, slamming against the walls.
Our shouts and sighs resounded throughout the chamber.
His face slackened, entirely rapt, as I sucked on his thumb while he moved over me, and he had to stop himself for a moment, biting into the pillow behind my head. Then he curled my legs over his shoulders and slammed so deep inside me both of our eyes rolled back.
After that, he was slow, deliberate, his brow pressed to mine, whispering softly. In between sighs, I was his darling, his sweetheart, and he was so grateful he was alive to tell me.
“You are exalted,” he murmured into my neck, as he led me to my pleasure, knowing it would wreck me completely, “because I love you.”
All the stars in my mind died. The light was blinding. His own swear was muffled by my skin.
We fell asleep staring at each other as I drew patterns across his face. His finger was a spindle, twisting my hair. After midnight, we knew we might be woken with news of the king’s death. Instead, we slept through the night.
In the morning light, we were shy at first, then familiar. Dawn was Roland’s time—he was even more attuned to me than before. He had me roughly against his desk from behind, and then again in bed, slow in his lap. “Sweetheart,” he whispered. “I love you so much.”
I felt light and giddy, utterly strange to myself.
“In this light, your hair has some lilac in it,” I said, nodding toward the sky outside. He lifted his head from where it rested on my chest and smiled. I flexed my toes against his.
“And your hands are so small,” he said, slipping his signet ring on and off my finger. Then his face changed. “You want for nothing. There’s nothing in your head, no hunger, no need at all. I’ve completely sated you.”
I covered his mouth with my hand, grimacing when he licked my palm.
He was unbearable after that.
“And you’re very happy,” I said later, pushing the hair from his eyes and kissing him deeply. His lips were so warm.
“Yes,” he agreed. “I am. And I’d like to show you something, so you never doubt it.”
It was a memory. His memory of last night.
I stared down at myself, wide-eyed under him.
He was wringing out my gasps. He was going to come unless he reined himself in.
It was too good, far too good. He nearly lost all sense once he saw his thumb in my mouth.
It was too good, too good, too good—Perhaps the planets did carve two halves that fit together like this.
Perhaps he had been gifted with reading pleasure so he could read mine.
When I moaned into his ear, he could not believe he was the reason for it.
I wrapped my thighs tighter around him, and he was going to—
I hid under my arm, blushing furiously, my face hot.
He kissed my nape.
I was not sated anymore. I had a new aim: to give him what he gave to me. “You’ll have to tell me what you like, Lord Chancellor,” I murmured, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “As I cannot see it in your mind.”
I trailed my lips down his collarbone, his chest, along his tapered hips.
“No one has ever asked me that before,” he said.
“Truly?”
“I was attentive to—” His eyes widened, his head fell back. “—to their needs. Not my own.” He let out a low groan. “That’s good. That’s so good. Just like that.”
The sounds I drew from him made my blush deepen. I flicked my tongue against him. “Bianca,” he pleaded. “Do that again. A little faster.”
Another stroke of my tongue. I kissed down his length, used my hand and my mouth in tandem. I let him move as he wished to, then, and his gasps became more strained. When he filled my mouth, I swallowed and licked my lips, eyes locked on his.