Page 52 of Pawn of the Cruel Princess
He approaches again, and its tip bumps against my lower belly. I gasp as another surge of liquid arousal slicks my inner folds. Embarrassed, I pull my fingers out of my slit.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper frantically. “I can’t be the soft sweet thing who mews and squeals for you.”
“Then don’t be,” he breathes in my ear. “Be yourself. Crush me, bruise me, choke me, bite me. As long as they think I’m inside you, we can do anything we want.”
He’s right. Even now, behind the curtain of our hair, they probably think we’re kissing. They don’t know I’m struggling on the precipice, petrified of yielding even a little.
“We can leave,” he whispers.
“No.” I grip his arms. “No.”
“Then look at me.” Ducayne’s order is low and tense. I meet his heated gaze, inhaling sharply at the raw lust and rebellion I find there. “I’m your whore, Ruelle. Fake-fuck me like the knife-wielding bitch princess you are.”
Anger and determination spiral inside me, coiling together with all the restless pent-up passion in my soul. It’s a tornado, a burning geyser, and I crack with the force of it.
I shove Ducayne backward, and he half-stumbles on the rocky floor of the pool. Again I shove him, and his back hits a boulder at the end of the pool. I leap for him, my nails sinking into his shoulders, and he catches my thighs, moving me so my core is centered over his cock. His length is pinned between us, pressed to his belly.
I grip his face with all my strength, feeling the bones of his jaws through his flesh. His eyes blaze into mine, fiercely gleeful. “Bitch,” he whispers.
“Whore,” I hiss back, grinding my hips against his. He gasps, and his cock flexes between us. My clit pulses against the hard roll of flesh, sending keen thrills through my lower belly. I love the sensation, yet I hate that my body is betraying its weakness for him. The inner conflict fuels my desperate fire, and I lean in, catching Ducayne’s lower lip between my teeth and biting it viciously until I taste his blood.
When I pull back, fearing I went too far, he licks the crimson blood from his lip and grins. “Is that the worst you’ve got, Highness?”
I gasp out a laugh and sink my hand into his hair, wrenching his head back. I’m in a daze, a storm of beating hearts and blood and water—I set my lips to his bared throat and nip a pinch of his skin, sucking it hard. He tastes like the floating herbs and flowers, like heat and salt and smoke. When I let go, a red mark blooms on the skin of his neck.
Mine.
I move my mouth lower, sucking his skin again, leaving another mark. He’s panting, his cock jerking against my folds. Every solid pulse of that hard length makes me weaker, wetter, wilder. My insides feel hollow—they ache for fullness.
The image of myself reaching down, shifting my panties, tucking him inside me—it fills my brain, beating hectic in my blood. I vent a faint screech and move against him desperately. A thrill soars through my belly.
With a guttural moan Ducayne loses his last scrap of control. He seizes my hips, lifting my whole body, bucking against me, rubbing my core over his length under the water. The friction is cataclysmic.
“Gods-fucking-shit,” I gasp. The tingling, soaring sensation in my gut takes off, streaking into a stomach-dropping, nerve-searing burst of pleasure. The climax shatters through my limbs, rattling every organ, sending my fingernails deep, deep into Ducayne’s skin.
He’s shaking, rocking against me, whispering, “Coming—coming—gods—ah, fuck—” Heat spurts from him, pulsing against my stomach before dissipating into the water. His body hardens briefly against mine and then he relaxes, panting.
Dizzily I begin murmuring the prayer we’re supposed to say afterward, the plea for Beirgid’s blessing. “Repeat it,” I gasp to Ducayne, and he fumbles through the words after me.
And then I look away from his gorgeous, flushed face, away from the sinewy neck I marked with my lips, and I glance at the others in the pool.
Nearly every face is turned toward us. Hunger shines in their eyes, mingled with respect and interest.
When I meet my sister’s eyes, my stomach drops.
I have seen that look of deep, icy rage on her face many times before. And every time, someone has died.
16
Not everyone has finished the carnal rite, but the Princess and I don’t have to stay and watch, apparently. She draws me along with her to a spot between some frilly bushes, where we’re partly shielded as we leave the water. She doesn’t want anyone to notice that she left her panties on the whole time.
I retrieve my undershorts, but when I look up after putting them on, the Princess is nowhere to be seen.
Her bodyguards stand in the shadow of a tree, muttering worriedly. One of them is Penn, the man often assigned outside her room at the palace. I haven’t caught the name of the other guard—I never saw him at the palace, but he accompanied us on the trip to the coast. As I approach, he asks Penn, “Should we follow her anyway?”
“Where did she go?” I ask.
Penn points to a faint grassy track through the undergrowth, but the other guard knocks his hand down. “Don’t tellhim! He’s the enemy! He shouldn’t be alone with her!”
