Page 52 of To Wake a Kingdom

“Yes. Oh.”

His face moved closer, our noses almost touching, as I despaired at the things my body wanted. The way he had me trapped between his arms sent tiny bursts of energy detonating in every nerve, heating me from the inside out.

“And,” he continued, his breath warm on me, “that woman at Valentus helped herself to my lap without my invitation. I was simply trying to find a polite way to tell her to get the hell off me, because I am a gentleman and not a brute, no matter what you may think of me.”

“What about your clothes? You were half dressed when you came to the alley.”

He growled softly, the sound tapping every secret, locked-up place in my heart. “Because I wasasleep. I went to my room after I’d knocked on your door, took my clothes off, and went to bed.”

My eyes dropped to his body while a vivid and remarkably detailed image of him lying in bed naked leaped to my mind. He smirked as if he could read the thoughts that must have been plain on my face. I shifted against the wall, suddenly feeling very stupid.

“Oh,” I said again, so quietly it came out as nothing more than a breath of humiliated air.

His gaze was intense and searing, like being dipped in liquid gold.

“Youwere the only one I wanted to be with that night.Youare the only one I’ve been able to think about since the moment I saw you.” Silk threads wrapped around my heart at his statement. “Say you want to be with me, too.” His voice was rough. I nodded slowly, my eyes never leaving his. “Say it, my ferocious Little Lion. Tell me you ache for me as desperately as I ache for you,” he whispered, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.

“I want to be with you, too.” They weren’t coherent words. They were ragged breaths and panting gasps and longing sighs sent into the night.

He pulled back, a cocky grin spreading over his face. “You’ve made quite the fool of yourself, haven’t you, Thorne?”

I made an indignant sound and his laughter, low and dark, skittered across my bones. He was right, though. In my desire to keep him at a distance, I’d jumped to a catalog of conclusions.

“You are so infuriating and so beautiful and so utterly intoxicating.” He dragged his top lip along the exposed line of my throat, and I gasped as my hands gripped the wall at my back. My head tipping to the side, I closed my eyes and lost myself in his touch.

“Do you have any idea how crazy you make me?” He continued, keeping an unhurried pace, as he dragged the tip of his nose in the other direction. Unable to stand it any longer, I grabbed his hips and he purred.

“How I can’t stop thinking about you?” His hips pressed into mine, and I whimpered softly as he ground his body against me, the thick length of his rigid cock pressing into my stomach.

My blood was surging, racing, pounding like a thousand horses loosed upon an open plain. An ache bloomed between my thighs as he swirled his hips, and I arched my back, trying to get closer.

“How I can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to peel off these clothes and drink in the sight of your naked body? How much I want to lick every last inch of you and make you moan until you’re such a quivering mess you have to beg me to stop?”

Every reservation I had was thinning like jam scraped over toast until nearly translucent. I wanted more. More of him and his hands and his mouth. I wanted them on me. I wanted him in a way I hadn’t been willing to admit, knowing this was only going to end in disappointment. But right now, I didn’t care. Right now, all I wanted was to forget about the threat at my back and the noose swinging over my head.

We both paused, our breath fusing into a helix of ardent desire and mindless want. Fraction by fraction, he lowered his head as I waited on the precipice of a leap I had fought to avoid. But right now, with Ronan in front of me, I realized how foolish that had been. That this moment had been inevitable from the very start.

“Oh my, isn’t this cozy?” A voice floated from the end of the hall.

Mare sauntered toward us, sinuous and viperous as a snake. She was a blaze of darkness, her slinky black dress falling in thick velvet waves while her sable hair haloed in a wild and untethered tangle. Her blood-red lips shone in the flicker of the sconces.

“Thorne, you have beenbusy.” A sneer marred her pale face while she swept her eyes over Ronan. As he looked between me and Mare, I could practically hear the clicking of the pieces as he fit them together. “Well done, my darling.Welldone.” With a flutter of her dark lashes, she simpered at Ronan, handing me another reason I would rip out her throat and feed it to a sty of hungry pigs.

“What do you want, Mare?” Ronan’s hand, clasped around mine, squeezed harder as I addressed the harbinger of my doom.

“I wanted to see how you were making out.” Her tone was flat and bored as she surveyed our surroundings and planted a hand on one jutted hip. “I see my sister’s magic is starting to fade. Tick tock, Thorne.”

For a moment, I was torn on whether I was more irritated by her pointless taunting or that she’d interrupted my kiss with Ronan. Either way, the hatred that burned in my gut was a blue-white flame.

“Get out. You aren’t welcome here.”

“You know what?” Mare asked, tapping her chin. “I don’t care. Whereismy idiot sister?”

“Gone. You won’t find her.”

“Oh, you are a terrible liar.”

I ground my teeth, willing myself to stillness. None of my weapons were on me, and Ronan was also unarmed. We’d let down our guard. A fatal mistake.

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