Page 70 of Her Cruel Empire
I trail kisses lower. Down her belly, her thighs. I bite the inside of her leg and she gasps, her fingers grabbing up the sheets. I spread her with both hands and just look at her for a moment, taking her in. Open. Flushed. Glorious.
And then I bend my head and taste her. She arches immediately, moaning like the sound is being torn from her lungs. I flatten my tongue and lick her from base to clit, then again, again. I don’t tease. I don’t pace myself. I devour.
Her thighs tremble. Her hips rock. I pin her down and keep going, sucking her clit into my mouth, then flicking it with the tip of my tongue until she’s babbling my name.
When I feel her getting close, I murmur, “Come for me.”
She does—so fast, so hard, it makes me dizzy just watching her fall apart. I move to climb up her body, to kiss her and hold her, but she stops me.
“Lie back,” she says, her voice low and wrecked. “Let me. Please?”
I freeze. That’s not how this goes. That’s not who I am. But something in her eyes—steady, reverent—cuts through all my armor.
So I do it.
I lie back. I open my legs. And I let her explore me, find me out.
Robin climbs over me, kissing her way down my neck, my chest. She sucks my nipple into her mouth and I moan aloud, the sound ripping out of me like it’s been waiting years to be set free.
Then she moves lower, between my thighs, and her fingers find me—wet, aching, raw. She slides two fingers inside me, slow and deep, and watches my face as she does it. I can’t look away.
She curls her fingers, and I buck. “Let go,” she whispers. “I’ve got you.”
I come with a cry, back arching, breath hitching, my pulse pounding in my ears. She kisses my thighs, then my belly, then slides back up to snuggle into me carefully.
This is more than I’ve ever allowed myself to feel before. This is what it means to be consumed by someone, to lose yourself so completely that you don’t know where you end and they begin.
We cuddle together, our heads resting on the same pillow and our arms around each other. I can feel her heartbeat slowly returning to normal, feel the way her breathing evens out. Mine does too.
So someone took a shot at me. It’s not the first time. I’ll find them and I’ll make them regret their actions. Make an example of them to everyone else. There’s no reason I can’t, after we obtain the footage—there were cameras everywhere?—
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
I almost ignore it. Almost let it go to voicemail. But years of training are hard to break, and I reach for it with my free hand, not bothering to check the caller ID. “Yes?”
“Eva.” The voice on the other end is Stefan’s, but I’ve never heard him sound like this—broken, hollow, barely holding together. “Eva,” he says again, and I know. Before he says another word, I know.
“No,” I say softly.
“I’m so sorry.”
“No.” The word comes out sharper, more desperate, and I sit straight up in bed. Robin sits too, her hand finding mine, eyes wide and worried.
And Stefan keeps talking, keeps pushing terrible reality into my ear. “He died half an hour ago, Eva. Zoltan is gone.”
I end the call and let my hand drop to my lap, the phone slipping from my fingers.
“Eva? What’s wrong?”
I stare at the wall. “My father,” I say mechanically.
Robin’s hand tightens on mine. “Eva?”
“He’s gone.”
This is my real world. The one filled with death and destruction, where hope is just another cruelty. That’s what hurts the most. Iletmyself hope. I let myself believe I could keep Robin, wake my father, keep everything together. But I was wrong.
I’m always wrong about the things that matter most.
