Page 43 of The Royal Curse

His hand had dipped into the slick crease of my ass, the index finger sliding gently inside me, teasing the ring of muscle, little shocks of sensation sparking into my insides and up my spine.

“Oh,” I gasped, and squeezed around his finger. He shuddered and pushed it in all the way, and I moaned, and then we were kissing again.

Between kisses, he muttered, “It’s only a few minutes. We’ll start waiting however many hours, fuck, you feel—we’ll wait. After this.”

“Mmm,” I moaned, and tipped my head back, rocking on him, his cock growing again and pushing between my thighs. “We’ll—after this. We’ll test it.”

And then he thrust inside me, hard and fast, and I didn’t give a fuck about my potion anymore.

Chapter Sixteen

Bracing myself on the headboard, I bit my lip to keep in the moans that tried to burst out with every one of Andreas’s vigorous thrusts. The sun had barely crawled over the horizon, shooting a few actual golden rays through the clouds and the south-facing window of my room. Surely this wasn’t an appropriate time to be fucked, was it?

But I hadn’t had a chance, or the breath, to argue. Andreas had rolled me onto my stomach from where I’d been lying on my side cozily wrapped in his arms and put me on my hands and knees. Without warning, in fact, while I was still barely stirring after being roused by the servants moving about downstairs and in the yard.

I’d whimpered into my pillow as he spread my thighs and tugged my hips to put my ass in the air. My fingers clenched into the bedding as he pushed two of his own inside me, twisting and turning and opening me.

Not that I needed it much after last night.

“You’re still wet,” he said, and buried himself inside me.

Now he’d been fucking me for a few minutes, long enough that my cock had gotten half-hard and my lower torso had gone all hot and heavy, aching with arousal, desperate for him to finish us both and fill me before I lost my mind and started to beg him for it.

And then he stilled, the arms braced on either side of me corded with tensed muscles, and came inside me while I frantically shoved myself back on his cock and whined in frustration, so close, so fucking close, my back slick with sweat and my whole body quivering—

Andreas slid a hand under me and squeezed my cock and balls in one big hand, rocking his hips, and that pushed me over the edge.

I collapsed into the bed, a helpless lump of overwrought, half-awake, fucked-out twilight mage. Dawn had never been quite as good as this before. My opinion of it hadn’t completely changed, but a few more wakings like this and I might start to be reconciled to the idea of the very early morning, Ennolu’s curse notwithstanding.

Andreas leaned down and rested his forehead on my shoulder, his hoarse breaths cooling the sweat on my skin and making me shiver. I wasn’t cold, though. Not with him stretched out over me and my legs still partially under the blankets. Besides, I’d been toasty all night long, ever since Andreas had come back upstairs from his conference with the innkeeper and the village gossips, stripped his clothing—including his replacement trousers—and climbed into bed with me without a word. I’d been half asleep and had simply lain there and enjoyed watching him bare himself to me, broad shoulders and long legs, swinging cock, the paler skin around his hips where he never got any sun.

What he’d learned about the river, the pass, the bad information we’d gotten in the previous town…none of it had seemed urgent last night.

Now, with a little more brain function, it seemed…well, still not terribly urgent. The conclave had mattered so much to me only a couple of days ago. It still did matter, I knew, but I couldn’t seem to muster the urgency that it’d evoked before. If I’d been a poor scholar who’d spent every penny he could scrape together to make this journey, I’d have been devastated by the delay and the potential for being unable to get there at all. But I could afford to acquire notes on every presentation made at the conclave, to send messengers to anyone whose areas of study and research seemed most useful to me. So much of what I’d really wanted from attending it myself had been human contact. Speaking to people who understood me, who didn’t dislike or fear me in some varying degree or other. Companionship.

With Andreas still inside me, with his hand still under me, fingers gently stroking my come-streaked stomach, I couldn’t possibly feel alone.

Anyway, no matter how learned and dignified the men and women attending the conclave might be, none of them had Andreas’s deep commanding voice, or long, perfect cock, or wicked, mischievous smile. Or his loose-hipped way of walking, big hands that could hold me down and caress me at the same time, his loyalty and wit and curiosity and kindness. Presumably, none of them wanted to wake me at the crack of dawn to fuck me until I saw stars—and I certainly wouldn’t welcome it from anyone except—

Andreas. I opened my eyes, staring sightlessly at the rumpled pillows.

This wasn’t about my tainted magic anymore. If it had been, then I’d have told him no when he spread my legs a few minutes ago, because we were supposed to be waiting forty-two hours to see if my new potion worked.

And this wasn’t about the pleasure of having a cock inside me, either. The potential for that had never outweighed my concerns around putting my health and life and sanity in another man’s hands.

Andreas. I didn’t just want any man, or even any handsome and brave and intelligent man. I wantedhim.

With or without his cock in me. If he wanted to drink tea with me and talk about the bloody weather, I’d be happy with that too.

Oh, gods.

It was enough to make me pray, desperately, that those ridiculous harmonious priests were right, and that what was happening to me was simply some trick of my magic interacting with the natural energies of Andreas’s body and soul, overriding the potion’s power and making me go all off-kilter.

Simply. It wouldn’t be simple at all.

But at least it wouldn’t be…the other, much more dangerous thing it could be.

“Your Highness?” Andreas lifted his head enough to nuzzle my neck. “Have you gone back to sleep? That’s not a very flattering review of my performance. Or maybe it’s the most flattering review. I’d have to consider the matter.”

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