“Is it?” I hold out my hand for another pitcher of warm water, focusing on rinsing her hair to buy us time. The way the water runs over her shoulders, tracing lines along her throat, undoes any benefit of having my cock submerged in cold water. Makes me wonder if the stream itself isn’t mocking me. Or just calling out my hypocrisy.
“Is that Prince Theron?” Rowan’s question catches me off guard. I curse myself for getting so lost in her that I’d stopped paying attention. Worse, she’s right. Theron is here, cock out and swinging as he wades into the stream and heads straight for us.
I curse. “Remember how I said this performance was going to get worse?”
Her reply is fast. Breathless. “Whatever you need to do. I like my hands attached.”
I nod quickly and Rowan sits more upright atop the slick boulder, her bright eyes fixed on mine—a challenge burning in their depths, daring me to see her as anything less than unbreakable.
Theron stops less than a pace away and collects his bathing supplies from the ever helpful attendant. “I hope I’m not interrupting."
“Not at all.” I brush a droplet of water trailing down Rowan’s cheek. “You’d have to matter to interrupt."
“You don’t believe a prince of Flurry matters?”
“Flurry princes aren’t a deficit in my life. This one on the other hand…” I slide my hands hungrily along her skin, dragging my fingers down her sides, thumbs tracing the sensitive dip between rib and hip. Then dipping down to her thighs. “She’s got a hold of all my senses right now.”
Theron snorts, the water lapping his waist failing to cover his cock, already half-hard and obvious. “Don’t hold back on my account." The smugness in his tone makes me want to rip said cock from him and stuff it down his throat. “I’ve always wondered if fae and humans were even compatible.”
I turn my back to him, which I don’t like but it blocks Rowan’s view. The scent of arousal I felt from her earlier now mixes with fear that makes my stomach turn. Does she think I’d force her?
One look into her eyes says yes.Worse. It says she’d understand. That she’d forgive me for it.
That would make one of us.
“Open your thighs,” I order instead.
She obeys, her chest rising and falling with shallow, ragged breaths.
“Good.” I kneel before her in the water, guiding one of her legs over my shoulder to bring her warm opening into view. “Now be a good girl, and don’t move.”
Chapter 9
Rowan
Holy bloody stars. I gasp as Kai’s face disappears between my thighs, his mouth moving with deliberate slowness that must be designed to drive me insane. With my one leg on Kai’s shoulder and his powerful hands holding me open, I can do nothing but feel as he licks his way up the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, igniting a trail of shivers that ricochet straight to my core. His breath is a hot contrast to the cold water swirling around us, and the dampness now slicking my folds has nothing to do with the stream.
“Don’t fight your pleasure,” Kai orders, his words tickling my skin.
I don’t know what I hate more, that he’s ordering me around even now… or that a part of me likes it.
I grip his shoulders, my nails digging into him harder than strictly necessary for balance. Or maybe it’s not hard enough because he just nuzzles in further and inhales. I can’t imagine I smell good between my thighs, but when Kai lifts his face for a moment, he wears a shimmering haze of water and want. Dark and starved and unguarded.
Then his head is down again, his tongue delving between the lips of my sex, tracing intricate, almost cruelly complex patterns, circling in closer to my swelling apex. Closer still.
I can’t help the humiliating whimper that rattles out of me, and I bite my lip to keep from moaning too loudly—but it’s pointless, really, given the way the fae watch us from the banks, their eyes gleaming, their lips parted in anticipation or jealousy or both. The way I know Theron is watching us.
Kai’s mouth finally beaches the last millimeter of distance to my need’s center and I gasp, my hips canting up in a traitorous, eager motion. I try to pull back but Kai growls a warning into me, the vibration a lightning bolt straight through my core. And then, just in case that wasn’t enough, follows it with a sharp nip.
“Don’t fight your pleasure,” Kai says again, readjusting my leg over his shoulder as he grips my backside with his free hand. “Especially if you would like to keep breathing on a regular basis.”
Breathing on a regular basis.It takes my desire drunk mind a heartbeat to process the words. Right. The act. Kai isn’t worshipping me, he is worshipping the pact we made. But stars take me—he is very good at it. His calloused hands are unyielding as he grounds me against the slick boulder, his canines scraping against my skin, trailing ever closer to my apex. The tiny prickles of pain ignite arousal I’ve no hope of controlling.
Suddenly Kai’s tongue flicks directly against that swollen, aching bud, and my entire body jolts. I cry out, unable to contain the sound as he does it again, and again, relentless now where before he'd been teasing.
"Kai—" I gasp, my fingers tangling in his hair, unsure if I'm trying to pull him closer or push him away.
He doesn't respond with words. Instead, his mouth seals around my clit and he sucks, gently at first, then with increasingpressure that has my thighs trembling against his ears. The dual sensation of his tongue flicking against me while his lips create that perfect suction is too much. Far too much.
