Chapter 22
As those three small words left my mouth, I knew I’d tumbled over an edge. Because those three words were so much more than a request.
They were want. They were need. They were acceptance and desire and something else that seemed to squeeze my entire being and release me all at once. That bulb within me awoke, flooding my body with a heat that reflected the fever in Harthon’s eyes.
I thought he might still be feeding himself the deep-seated lie that he did not deserve this, because he had yet to move. But then his fingers, still covering mine on his jaw, peeled my hand away and brought my palm to his lips in a tender kiss.
It was the kind of kiss that could either be a heart-wrenching goodbye, or the first of a new chapter.
Fear and hope sucked the air from my lungs as he slowly retreated.
He cradled my elbow and guided me toward my bed, then past it.
“What are you doing?”
“Bringing you to bed, where I can show you how beyond worthy you are.”
With that statement, spoken with such surety and determination, something between us was sealed.
My elbow trembled in his grip as he led us through the interconnecting door between our rooms, the walls a blur of stone. And then we were in the quiet of his room, my back pressed against the door, my heart a heavy staccato in my ears.
He stood a step away, looking as he did when he first chased me down in the woods all those weeks ago.
Leather armor molded to his torso, tunic sleeves rolled up around corded forearms, capable hands hanging beside muscled thighs.
The top of his hair was pulled away from his face, highlighting every strong angle and plane, a reflection of all the power he’d made for himself.
Power he used to stop Matthias from battering that servant, power he used to punish those who harmed others, power he was going to use to save this world as best as he could.
He memorized the sight of me, unbridled hunger painting his rugged features. But he didn’t close the space between us.
“I’m going to ask you this once. And you must know there is no going back from this.” Knees wobbling, I waited with patience I didn’t have. “Are you certain?”
He asked the question with such raw vulnerability, as if saying no might ruin him—the indomitable Princeps Harthon.
Then and there, I may have been the most powerful woman in the Territories, capable of tearing down this fearsome man who could not be stopped by steel or sword. But the truth was he had just as much power over me.
“Yes,” I breathed.
A strangled sound caught in his throat. I expected him to launch forward and crash his lips into mine, but all he did was offer his hand.
I took it, and he led me across the room to the bed. He nudged me to a seat on the edge and knelt before me with measured movements.
“W-what are you doing?” I stuttered. Because I was being seared from the inside out, my breasts beginning to throb, the space between my thighs aching with every thundering pulse. Skies, even my skin seemed to hurt because it was not yet on his.
That quickly, I was past anticipation. I was at expectation, and he—he was just kneeling before me with all his damned clothing on.
His lips curled like he was aware of my torture. “You’ve already asked me this.”
I jumped when the back of his hand brushed my knee, trailing down to the top of my boot.
“Trust me, carella. I’m going to take very good care of you.”
I nodded, incapable of anything but choked sounds.
Harthon’s fingers found the laces of my right boot and methodically loosened them, removing it. He did the same with the other. One at a time, his fingers crawled up each of my calves, waking every nerve they skated over, until they hooked the tops of my socks and drew them down.
Then, thank the Domus, there was nothing left to occupy him at my feet.
His hands drew a path all the way up my thighs and hips to my leather vest, which shuddered with each shallow breath.
With excruciating slowness, he pulled the lacing free, the backs of his hands brushing my sensitive breasts as he worked his way down.
When it was undone, he pulled the article free from my shoulders and placed it aside, taking the damned time to fold it.
He’d said to trust him, and I did. But the man was determined to kill me—to wring out every one of my nerves through anticipation alone.
I knew this because it was with that same infuriating slowness that he reached behind my head and pulled my hair free.
He undid the braid, then massaged my scalp, every pass sending pleasure tingling down my neck.
My eyes fluttered shut, and he found my cheeks, tugging me forward gently as he finally—finally—brought his mouth to mine.
His lips molded to mine in a kiss that was both as leisurely as his movements, and more consuming than any before. He was tasting me, indulging in me, sealing us together as his tongue swept past my lips and his thumb stroked my cheek.
This man was wrecking me.
He pulled away, breathing as shallow as mine, and began to undress with a little haste. I fingered my tunic to pull it away.
“No.” A tapestry of muscles appeared as he shed his tunic. “That is mine to remove.”
Oh.
“And what if I want to remove your clothing?” I whispered.
He paused with his hands at the waist of his trousers, where a dark line of hair disappeared under the hem. My gaze kept going, down to the large bulge straining against the fabric.
It zipped back up when he spoke. “You will have that opportunity, and I look forward to it.” He undid the lacing of his pants and rasped, “But as I said, I am a selfish bastard. And right now, I want to savor every inch of you, while I teach you what it’s like to be worshipped.”
In a snap, he shoved down his trousers. And for the first time, I saw him.
I froze. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but he was both different and…
more. There was a constant power and strength to Harthon, a sense that he was invincible.
This part of him only amplified that, from his size and the veins straining against that hard skin to the dark curls nestled at its base.
Harthon broke me from my stupor. “I cannot tell if you’re afraid or intrigued,” he said with a teasing lilt.
I cleared my throat, blinking. “Not afraid. Just…”
Utterly enthralled and entirely aroused.
Rather than finishing that sentence, I reached out, curious to know this part of him. Harthon stood still as I made contact, shocked by the velvety feel. Instinct guided me to wrap my hand around him. A low, guttural sound escaped his throat, hinting at pleasure, or torture, or both.
I wanted more of those sounds.
Tight lines framing his eyes, he tucked a loose piece of hair behind my ear and brushed my jaw with his thumb. Then he closed his hand around mine and tugged it away.
Did he not like being touched there? Or was it my inexperience—
“You will have your turn, carella.” He stepped between my thighs, forcing them apart. Two fingers tipped my chin up as his intoxicating scent settled over me. “But as I said, this is about you.”
Between one moment and the next, I was on my back, and my trousers were peeled down my legs. He carelessly tossed them to the side and secured my legs over his shoulders, his mouth dangerously close to where my pulse pounded as he knelt on the floor.
“W-what are you doing?” I asked, bewildered. His fingers had touched me there before, but now his fingers were occupied with my thighs.
He couldn’t possibly mean to…to kiss me there.
“That is the third time you’ve asked me that question.” His lips lifted into a roguish grin. “Do you not trust me?”
I stared at him, lips parted. To the world, Harthon was not a man you trusted with this level of vulnerability. To me, he was the only one I ever would.
I not-so-eloquently uttered, “I don’t know how to…what to do.”
His expression softened. He pressed his mouth to the inside of my thigh. At the feeling of his lips and the brush of his whiskers, my entire body quaked. A strangled sound flew off my tongue.
“There is nothing for you to do but let me hear those sounds while I learn what you enjoy.”
Then he proceeded to do something I could never classify as a kiss.
Because a kiss couldn’t send starlight flaring behind your eyes.
A kiss didn’t involve fingers, and licks, and nips in such a mind-numbing combination.
A kiss couldn’t cause you to shatter, coax you into an eruption that left you floating and falling all at once.
Breath-stealing shocks still rattled my body as he shifted me back, like I was as weightless as a feather.
He roved up my body, talented lips glistening, his manhood nudging against my knee, my thigh.
Every inch of that hot, tanned skin came to rest over mine as he leaned on one arm and sent the other down my side.
His mouth captured mine again as he nestled between my hips, the hardest part of him resting against the softest part of me. The taste of myself on his lips was foreign and wicked and intoxicating. I moaned into his mouth, need winding me tighter again, despite the release I’d just had.
He broke away with a muttered curse. “You’re driving me mad.”
My brows furrowed. “I thought you wanted to hear me.”
“I still do.” His hot palm ran past my ribs to a stray hair, brushing it aside. “But I’m trying to savor you, and after the way you just came apart on my tongue, sounds like that will turn me into an animal.”
With trembling fingertips, I brushed his jawline. His eyes fluttered shut. “You’ll have many more opportunities to savor me, Harthon. Endless opportunities, if you want.”
His eyes snapped open, and I realized that, despite all this, part of him still feared I would leave him.
I knew he could be brutal. I knew I would learn more of his ugly childhood, hear of more horrid atrocities committed by those he was with. But none of that would change what I thought of him.