Renick #3
Tenderly, I gather the lavender silk of her skirt in my hands, and as I look up at her, she nods her permission.
In a chorus of needy, desperate movements, I have her back pressed to the oak and her skirts pushed up her thighs.
I guide her leg over my shoulder, opening her up to me, and her fingers tighten in the strands of my hair.
A shiver travels through her body as I gingerly press heated kisses into the inside of her thigh, deliberately dragging the fabric of her undergarment aside, my own body wracking with shivers as her fingers tighten in my hair and the softest sound passes her lips.
Hunger burning in my veins, I press my mouth to her, moaning against her at my first, divine taste of her. Gods, help me—she will own me wholly from this point on. And I dutifully set about the holy work of making her forget every cruel touch from that bastard.
When her nails scrape my scalp, I lick a hard seam up the center of her. When her breath shudders out of her, I suck her into my hot mouth, flick my tongue, work her in tight circles until her hips are following my cadence in desperate rocks.
“I want to hear my name, Princess,” I all but growl against the slick, hot center of her, and her back arches from the rough vibration of it.
Then I take my time, each lick and taste reverent and ruinous.
I worship her the way the devout worship their gods, with my whole mouth and my whole heart.
And as she loses herself to the pleasure, riding my face with a wicked roll of her hips—gods-damn, I groan against her and thrust my hard, aching erection against her leg, my tongue delving deep into her soaking wet cunt as I come right in my trousers, my cock throbbing with the release.
“Fuck, you taste divine,” I growl, my hips still grinding.
It makes her lose herself, and when she breaks—when she comes apart with my name on her lips, her thigh trembling against my shoulder, her hands fisted in my hair—she is all mine.
I take every last sensuous drop of her, laving my tongue until her pleasure is spent.
Breath ragged and chest heaving, I don’t rise. I stay on my knees, my arms wrapped around her hips, my head resting against the softness of her belly, breathing her in. Her fingers stroke through my hair, slow and gentle, and I feel her heartbeat, fast and alive.
“Goddess,” she whispers. “How am I supposed to survive you.”
This brings a smug, satisfied smile to my face.
I swallow. “Let me say something.” I keep my eyes closed, my face against her, working up the courage.
Her hand stills in my hair.
“I will take whatever you give me,” I say.
“Any part, however small. Whatever piece of yourself you’re willing to give.
I’ll take it. I will make it enough. I’d rather have some of you than nothing at all.
” My arms tighten around her. “When I came here, I’d already lost everything.
I walked through those gates with nothing—no family, no home, no reason to see another dawn. ”
I open my eyes, tilt my head back to look up at her, this woman who reached into a grave and pulled me out of it without ever knowing. “To have you, Sera—even the smallest piece of your heart, is more than I ever thought I’d have again. Of hope. Of love. Of any reason to keep breathing.”
Tears are sliding down her face now, silver in the dim light.
“I can’t leave here without you,” I say.
“And I can’t live without you. There is no life for me without you beyond these palace walls.
None of it means a damned thing without you in it.
So if I must—if I have to reside in this cage, wear these bells and play the fool in this gilded prison for the rest of my days just to be near you, then that’s what I’ll do.
I will bear it gladly just to be close to you, to protect you.
” I press a kiss to the silk over her belly, soft as a prayer. “My queen.”
For a long moment, she doesn’t speak. She just looks down at me, her hands framing my face, the tears falling freely now, and in her dark eyes I see something break open—some last sealed door, some final wall she’s kept between us.
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” she whispers. “Vows are not taken lightly where I’m from.”
“Tell me what goddess I need to swear this vow to, and I will swear it now.”
I turn my face and press my lips to her palm. She sinks down then, folding herself onto her knees in front of me until we’re level. Her arms come around my neck, holding onto me like the world outside this dusty library doesn’t exist.
“Just trust me, Ren,” she breathes against my mouth, “and I swear to you on Morrishan and Nythera and every dark goddess of my blood—this will not end the way you fear.”
I don’t know how a princess and a fool walk out of a story like this together, alive.
But I trust her.
Gods help me, I trust her with everything I am.
“Three days,” I whisper back. “And in that time, and any time after, no matter what happens…come to me. Come here. I will wait for you every day here at this same time.”
She nods against me, and I kiss her—slow and deep and aching—and I try not to think about the fact that in just three days, I’ll stand in a crowd and watch her marry a monster. Knowing I can do nothing to stop it.
Even if it kills me.
Especially if it kills me.