Page 35 of Bride to the Fiend Prince
“I thought you trusted me to tell the truth.”
“To a point, yes. You’ll tell as much truth as you’re able to with your words, and the rest you’ll tell me with your eyes… and with your body.” His light voice circled me, snared me, weaving a wordless spell.
I would rather have faced an opponent on the training mats than bare my mind to the Fiend Prince of Terelaus. But I wasn’t one to yield to fear. I lifted my chin, holding his gaze. “Ask your first question.”
“What do you think of me?”
My stomach flipped and my jaw dropped a little, but I managed to keep my composure. “I think you are well-meaning, intelligent, and humorous. I don’t think you are willfully cruel or murderous, but you’ve let yourself be led, when you should have been bolder in defense of what’s right. However, I recognize that if you’d rebelled against your father, you might be dead now—so I can’t fault you too harshly for that. You have admirable qualities, but your fear and your physical frailty are like veins in the rock, weakening it. Your physical limitations don’t have to hold you back, though. You can still do the right thing—defend your people and claim your kingdom. You can make repayment for some of the blood you’ve spilled. I will help you do it.”
“All right, all right.” He pressed my shoulder lightly, but I felt his touch like a brand. “Your answer turned into a motivational speech.”
“You wanted the truth.” I rose out of the chair, partly because I felt so strongly about what I was saying, and partly because I didn’t like lookingupat him. “You’re better than this. You’re better than a blade in your father’s hand. You don’t have to end any more innocent lives.”
We were nearly at eye level as he perched on the chair arm. I’d laid my hand on his knee during my impassioned speech, and I had leaned in—close, too close. Emotion quaked in the air between us.
“You really want to help me,” he said. A statement, not a question.
“I do,” I said. “You’re not the monster I thought you were. You’re human—strong and fragile—” My eyes flicked to his perfectly shaped lips, slightly parted as he listened. “You’re a killer, and I keep trying to remind myself of what you do on the battlefield, because when you’re here, you show me a side of you that’s so different…” My words trailed away, dissipated in the scintillating tension between his mouth and mine.
“Second question,” he breathed. “Honest answer.”
“Hmm,” I murmured.
“Do you want to kiss me?”
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Did I want to kiss him?
Honest answer… no lies…
“The kiss in the library passage was just for show,” I said.
“That’s not an answer, Princess.”
“Youkissedme. I didn’t—I don’t think—”
“Amarylla.” His lips curved in a smile as warm as the glowing fireplace behind him. In that moment, the world was sweet-hot cider and black velvet and quivering flame. “Do you want to kiss me?”
My heart took over, a swift yearning impulse propelling me forward. My fingers clasped his thin face, and I took possession of his perfect mouth, claimed it tenderly with my own lips. He responded with an eager hum in his throat.
There must be a cord tying the mouth to the sacral locus of the body, because with every sensuous slide of the Prince’s lips against mine, that cord carried waves of tingling pleasure all the way down to nestle and throb between my legs.
The Fiend Prince rose from his perch on the chair and wrapped an arm around me. His other hand worked its way deep into my hair, cupping my nape, while he sucked and tasted my mouth as if I held the sweetest honey on my lips and tongue.
We kept kissing, tasting, breathing into each other, until our lips were swollen and flushed. A thrumming heat glowed between my thighs, a sweet ache that yearned for him, for hardness and wholeness inside the soft slick places of my body.
“I want something,” I whispered.
“Anything,” he said hoarsely.
“I can’t stop thinking about how you touched me the other night.” The night when he came to me with that glorious, magically enhanced body, and we explored each other. I could barely believe I was asking, but, “Would you ever want to touch me like that again?”
“Gods’ bones, yes.” The words were a desperate moan. The Prince scrabbled at the buttons on my shirt, but his fingers trembled. With a swift jerk, I popped the buttons and tore my shirt off, letting it fall. I wore nothing underneath, and his eyes widened, glazing slightly at the view of my uncovered breasts.
“Your turn.” I seized his collar and tore his shirt open, too, baring his lean scarred torso.
“There’s not much to see here.” He grimaced as he pulled his arms out of the shirt and discarded it.
