Breaking his spell, I step away from his gravitational pull. I try to flush out the hot tingles racing rampant through my body. I swallow a couple times.
But I need to pull it together.
I refuse to end up another plaything for the prince, and it’s almost time for my shift. Charming may want to fuck around and have fun, but part of me can’t stand the idea of indulging him, perpetuating the idea that he can just stick it in anywhere, any time he wants.
Oh, but you would let him. You’d probably even enjoy it.
I bat away the thought.
If he’s let down by my resistance to fucking, he doesn’t let it show.
Confusion wrinkles his face as he reaches out to me. “How do you think you’ll manage to do that?”
I shoot a scathing look at his hand before it touches me, and it drops.
“The same way I got in,” I inform him coolly.
“You can’t leave.” His face darkens, and he steps closer as if he means to physically stop me.
I roll my eyes, ignoring the way goosebumps rise along my arms and the back of my neck. “I’ll be back. But I have to go home. I have work, rent, and?—”
His eyes, the deep hue of polished mahogany, narrow. “You can’t leave even if you want to. The guards are instructed to stop us by any means necessary.” His jaw ticks with anger and his eyes light up with the same intensity before it’s gone in an instant.
Something about that look jerks me back in time to his face as a boy when he told everyone I was too disgusting to drink from. A serious command that doesn’t fit with the man before me.
It takes effort to suppress a smug smile. “That won’t stop me.”
His face relaxes as he shoves his hands in his pockets. That insouciant grin has returned, and the slut muffins says something that utterly horrifies me.
“Well, wherever you are going, I’m coming with you.”
Chapter 13
Why Did I Just Get Hard
CHARMING
“I’m not putting on the shoe. I’m going to break it and it will slice my foot off,” I insist.
Cinder’s bow lips tilt up before she looks away, hiding her smirk.
She’s wearing the other shoe on her foot and trying to convince me to wear the matching piece. In one arm, she holds the dress she wore last night.
This feels like some kind of prank.
“It won’t break, and if you insist on being with me, you’ll have to come to the Common World, and this is how I do it. Though I’m not sure I should be sharing this with you,” she mutters the last bit more to herself.
“Don’t be like that, my little black cloud of cuddles. We are betrothed. We must share all our secrets.”
I earn a glare for the newest nickname. My pulse quickens every time she scowls at me.
Maybe I’m too used to the ‘yes sir’ treatment of servants and those who adore me. Maybe I’m discovering I’m a masochist. Imean there was that time I let that dominatrix pour hot wax on my balls.
Painful yet so pleasurable.
Just like the blue balls she’s given me.
Just like Cinder.
