Page 133 of Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel 3)
“This is hardly fair,” he rasps. “You can see me and I can’t see you.”
There’s no hesitation to me pulling off my own shirt. I ball it up and throw it next to his in the grass.
His eyes sear over my exposed skin so hotly I almost forget I am on top of him, that I’m the one in control. If looks alone could bind—if they could bite and bruise and fuck—then I’d be thoroughly used by now, I’d be transparently and indelibly his possession and belonging.
But as it is, looks can’t do that. And even so, he keeps his cravings confined to his stare and to the restless roll of his hips between my thighs. He doesn’t issue any orders, he doesn’t take control. And when I circle his wrists with my fingers and pin them on either side of his head, he lets me. He allows it, even though there’s a fierce tension thrumming through his body as he does.
I dip my face to his, close enough that we can feel each other’s breathing. “You’re being very obedient.”
“A Thorn King would be right now,” he whispers. But there’s a small line between his brows, a small frown on his lips—and I realize that there’s another reason he’s being so amenable.
He’s worried I’ll stop.
I think I’m worried I’ll stop too. Because I know we shouldn’t, I know I should get up, I know there’s only one way this can end . . .
I brush my lips over his.
We both freeze
at the feeling of it, at the dazzling, sizzling thrill. It’s been so long, it’s been forever—ten weeks of raw, undiluted hell—and I can feel the firm warmth of his mouth everywhere, not just my lips, but on the insides of my thighs and along the column of my throat and on the arches of my feet.
With one kiss, he’s kissed me everywhere, he’s owned me everywhere. Just as he did when we were teenagers in his garden. One kiss and I was forever his.
“St. Sebastian,” he whispers against my mouth, but I don’t let him finish, I can’t. He’ll try to be sensible. He’ll point out once again that I was the reason we haven’t kissed in ten weeks, he’ll tell me to stop and think about what we’re doing. He’ll tell me to remember what I said in that wheat and barley tomb, that I’d hate myself for loving him.
I don’t care. I don’t care right now.
It’s Lammas and the thunder is growling over the hills and Auden Guest is underneath me, his wrists in my hands, and I want it too much. I want him too much.
Everything else be damned, however literally that may be.
I slot my lips against his and then slowly, torturously drag my mouth along them, letting him feel the piercing running along his lower lip.
He is all quivering tension underneath me; all rolling hips and jerky breaths. Above the place where my fingers cuff his wrists, his hands clench and flex and clench, like a big cat sheathing and unsheathing its claws.
“They might have drugged him,” I say. When I speak, my lips graze and rub against his—the very act of speaking creating the kiss itself.
“Drugged whom?” Auden asks dazedly.
“The king. Sacrifices were often drugged.”
“And this . . . are you drugging me right now?”
I let my tongue flicker against the arched underside of his upper lip. He moans up into our kiss, his pelvis seeking friction against me.
“You tell me,” I whisper. And then I open my mouth to his.
It’s impossible to separate the parts from the whole—the heat, the silky wetness of it, the demanding strokes of his tongue, which is the one part of him that can’t pretend submission even for a game.
The taste of him, like mint and tea, and the feeling of his groans against my mouth.
His body arching up to meet mine, and the agonizingly carnal sensation of our bare chests and stomachs meeting, and the inevitable moment the angles all match up and our clothed erections slide against each other.
I can’t stop kissing him, I can’t ever stop. How have I ever stopped? How have I ever torn away from a mouth like this—commanding, sophisticated, filthy?
So filthy. This mouth that can speak Latin, that can discern the balance in a good Burgundy, can effortlessly rattle off the names of obscure philosophers, this same mouth is now predatory against mine. His tongue plunders every corner of me, his teeth catch on my piercing and pull, his lips seal over one of my lips and suck until I whimper.
He’s mating with my mouth, and my body responds like it’s being mounted. Like his cock is already pushing inside me and seeking out my tightest, hottest places. Like his fist is already shuttling up and down my dick. My testicles are pulled tight, and my erection throbs against my zipper.
