Total pages in book: 148
Estimated words: 140412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 702(@200wpm)___ 562(@250wpm)___ 468(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 702(@200wpm)___ 562(@250wpm)___ 468(@300wpm)
He’s so hard and so big, I feel like I’m being bashed apart. I want more, I want it rougher, I want to fragment into the shards I see behind my eyelids as I come again, screaming. He drops into wing-backed chair in front of the fireplace, never pulling out of me. His hips surge up once, twice, and he grabs me, pulls me tighter to him and gives over to his own release with a roar. I feel him flooding my cunt with deep, jerking pulses, and it breaks new shivers out over my hypersensitive body. I dip my fingers down and rub my clit, undulating on his lap, milking every last drop from him with sharp squeezes of my inner muscles. The thick, wet sound of his cum leaking out with every thrust pushes me over the edge again, and it takes a moment for my head to clear.
I don’t realize I’ve tipped backward until he catches me with a gentle, “Careful.”
“Sorry,” I croak, my throat dry from shouting. “I’m sorry.”
He chuckles weakly. His softening cock slides from my body. My head begins to clear, and I realize how worn out I am, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. He tucks my head against his shoulder and smooths a palm down my hair. “It’s never been like that before.”
“Like what?” I yawn.
He goes still and says, uncertainly, “Didn’t you feel it?”
“Hmm?”
There’s something I’m not getting, and it seems like it’s making him uncomfortable. “The need. The hunger I felt for you, it was all-consuming. Violent, almost.”
“I know. And I did feel that.” I’ll probably feel it tomorrow, too, whenever I try to do anything that involves my adductors. “I just didn’t have anything to compare it to.”
He gently pushes me away, so we’re sitting face to face. “I think I’m misunderstanding something… are you—”
“Well, not anymore.” I can’t help my small giggle. “I was a virgin twenty minutes ago but not anymore.”
His expression falls in utter dismay. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I take his face in my hands and kiss him. I don’t know how I can feel this tenderness toward him, after everything that happened earlier tonight, but I do. “Because it didn’t matter.”
He opens his mouth to protest, but I kiss him into silence and he doesn’t argue. Despite the sweat covering us both and the fast thrum of his pulse in his throat, he has enough stamina to carry me to the bed and pull back the covers. It’s as soft as I would expect a princess’s bed in a tower to be, and I give a relaxed sigh as he lies down beside me.
“You’re all right?” he asks, far too concerned about the non-issue of my virginity.
“With what just happened?” I clarify. “Yes. With what happened in the throne room tonight? No. But we’ll talk about that when I’m not made out of overcooked pasta.”
He reaches over me to turn off the illuminated bedside lamp, then settles back on his own pillow. There’s still a restless energy about him, though, and it makes it difficult for me to fully surrender to sleep.
He rolls over to spoon up behind me and his lips brush my ear as he whispers, “Bailey…did you mean it when you said you hate me?”
“No.” I don’t have to hesitate to think about the answer. I don’t hate anyone. Not my father, for conspiring to kill Nathan; I understand the urge. Not Ashton: nothing he does affects me, now. Certainly, I don’t hate Nathan. Right now, he’s the most stable thing in my life. That’s entirely his fault.
But he’s all I’ve got.
CHAPTER 21
I wake to an unfamiliar voice.
“Your Majesties, a letter from the council.”
I can barely open my eyes, convinced I’ve only been asleep for a few minutes, but the sunlight that assaults me through the windows says otherwise. I mumble something, try to push myself up, but I’m too exhausted and my muscles are too sore to expend any real effort.
The blankets rustle as Nathan gets out of bed and I watch through the reluctant, narrow opening of my eyelids as he walks across the bedroom, totally nude, like there isn’t another person with us. He takes a scarlet envelope from the thrall’s silver tray and waves the man away.
I momentarily duck my head under the covers when Nathan turns back, a strange mix of horny and bashful forcing a giggle up my throat that I subdue when I emerge and see the frown on his face.
He’s standing by the bed, reading, a crease between his dark eyebrows growing deeper as his eyes flick across the page, and I have to sit up. Carefully. With the top sheet wrapped around me. Because in the light of day, without emotional turmoil and long delayed gratification between us, Nathan feels like the stranger that he is to me.