Page 90 of The Nightmare Bride
“You’re being ridiculous,” I said, but I sounded breathier than a maiden being laced into her first corset.
“Maybe.” Scorching promise lit his eyes. “That doesn’t mean you wouldn’t enjoy yourself.”
My thighs ground together. Zephyrine, Iwouldenjoy myself, of that I had no doubt. But...
The truth, deep down, in a place too clandestine to see the light of day, was that I craved more than just pleasure. I didn’t want the inch, but the mile. I wanted...shit, the same thing he did. To map him from the inside until I could draw him in the dark. To bury myself inside him.
What Ididn’twant was to give it all back in a handful of days. To have it wrested from me.
To be left. Again.
But I would, because he would make Amryssa a princess and disappear. Just as I’d asked him to. So I disentangled myself and turned my back.
Ky groaned. “My cruel, wicked wife. You have no idea what you do to me.”
“Of course I do. Why else do you think I do it?”
“Mmm.” He nuzzled against me, one arm still beneath my head. “Probably because you hate me.”
“I really, really do.” A feverish sound escaped when he nestled my hips into the crook of his. “I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anyone, anywhere, in all the world, throughout the entire history of time.”
He laughed, his breath tickling my nape. “Lucky for you, that doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”
“It should.”
“It doesn’t. I’ll still worship you all night, when you finally let me.”
A full-body, molten shiver claimed me. “IfI let you.”
“No,” he purred in my ear. “When.”
I lay there, humming inside, quietly exploding, torn between turning over so I could beg him to do exactly that, and thanking him for distracting me from the horrors of the diary.
“And lioness?” he murmured.
“Yes?” I sounded squeaky. Like a shrunken mouse.
“I can’t wait. I really, truly cannotwait.”
I wasn’t sure I could, either. Volcanic need laced my veins, a thousand fiery rivers all leading to him. But before I could gather the resolve to turn over, his breathing lengthened.
I laughed, a silent hitch I kept buried in my chest. Was this damnable prince serious? He’d just threatened to fuck me stupid, then promptly fallen asleep, draped around me like a scorching, muscled blanket.
Ass. Infuriating, tantalizing, exasperating man.
I lay there, unable to imagine spending a night glued together like this, not in this heat. But I didn’t want to wake him, so I closed my eyes and tried to drift off.
To my surprise, sleep came on like a lullaby. And it lasted, a rest more restorative than any I’d had in weeks.
22.
Of course, tranquility didn’t last beyond the point at which I opened my eyes.
I rolled from bed while Ky still slept, then spent the day mired in dread. The idea of telling Amryssa the truth tied me in knots, because what if she left me?
But I couldn’t bear to lie to her.
I dropped the brush while combing her hair. Twice. Then misaligned her corset and had to re-lace the entire thing. At breakfast, I overfilled her cupandthe saucer that caught the runoff, then took her back upstairs to exchange her dress for one that didn’t have tea dribbled all over the skirts.
