Page 92 of Pawn of the Cruel Princess
And then I can’t hold back. My balls tighten, and I’m coming inside her, my dick flexing and pumping, sharp ecstasy streaking through my belly. It’s so intense I’m shaking, sweating.
Ruelle shoves herself back again, deep, deep, and as I twitch inside her channel she comes, pulsing around me. Her thighs are quaking, fingers tucked between her legs. She’s squealing my name in a whispered shriek— “Ducayne, Ducayne!”
“I’m here,” I manage, while her body milks me dry.
She tips forward, loose-limbed, with her rear in the air. My cock slips out of her, and I get to see her sex dripping with my release. I want to touch her so badly I can hardly stand it. She needs to be curled up in my arms right now, nurtured and soothed as she settles again. Not that she would let me cuddle her. But I’d try to do it, even if she stabbed me.
“I want you.” The words leak out of me, raw and shaking.
She picks herself up, half-smiling quizzically at me, holding her tunic in front of herself. “You just had me.”
I shake my head, but I can’t explain. I’m afraid to explain. Afraid I’ll scare her away. Afraid she’ll give me to someone else, or sell me. Terrified of pushing my luck too far.
“Ducayne.” She steps closer. “What is it?”
Slowly, heavily I get to my feet. “Could you pull these up for me first?”
Sighing, she tugs my shorts back into place. “Now, tell me.”
The words hover on my tongue. If she would kiss me, maybe she would taste them. Maybe I wouldn’t have to say it.
I open my mouth. And as usual, dumb words tumble out instead of what I meant to say.
“So what happened to your mother?”
29
Is he insane?
Why is he asking about my mother after what we just did? My legs are still weak after I fucked myself on him in a stinking jail cell, and he has the nerve to ask about my mother?
“You are an idiot,” I hiss.
“I’m sorry.” He winces. “That wasn’t—what I meant to say. I—”
I slide my tunic over my head and shake it into place around my body. “Stop pussyfooting around and just say it.”
A hint of a smile, because the words are so similar to the first ones he spoke to me. But his smile fades instantly. “I was going to say—um—that you—you still haven’t told me the story of Arawn.”
Fine. If he won’t tell me the truth, I’m done playing games. “You’re an asshole.” I head for the cell door.
“And you’re a beautiful mess.”
Something desperate in his tone makes me pause, with my back to him and the door halfway open.
“You’re a mess,” he repeats, hoarse and unsteady. “And I love you.”
The words rattle my world. They upend everything, a cataclysm of mountains crashing into ravines, oceans raining down upon volcanoes, reefs rising to form brutal, sharp cliffs.
I whirl and I stride back to him, every fiber of my heart singing with aggrieved pain, because he doesn’t mean that—he can’t.
“How dare you.” I slap him, hard, and then I clutch his throat, while my own throat tightens. Tears burn at the backs of my eyes. “How dare you say that to me. You’re a thrall. A slave. We’ve known each other for a mere handful of days, and you have the nerve to—gods, you make me so angry!”
“I see who you are, Ruelle. I understand—”
“No! No. This is what I feared—gods!” I stalk away from him, slamming my fist against the stone wall. “You let someone inside, and they think they own you.”
“That’s not what this is, Ruelle.”
