“Let him watch.” My words come out in a loud snarl, my fingers trailing up his thighs, brushing against his hardened length. “I want him to.”
It’s not quite a lie. I want Theron to watch more than I want another war.
Kai’s gaze darkens to a storm and I have an uncanny sensation that he sees right through me. “Ainesly?—”
I cut him off with a slide of my mouth over his cock, his heat and hardness a sharp contrast to the chilling water around us.
Kai’s body tenses as I swirl my tongue around him, my hands gripping his hips for balance and his coming down steadily onto my shoulders. Then I take a long breath, the last point of reassurance I can allow myself.
I know how to pleasure a man’s shaft. Collin wanted—demanded—it from me. So it takes me no time at all to brace myself for what I know is coming. The taste of salt and musk, a forceful hand guiding my head to go deeper and faster, fingers digging into my scalp with possessive insistence as I struggle for breath. Then his release would come and he'd push me away, offering helpful suggestions on how I can improve my technique, oblivious of how used and discarded his entitlement always left me.
I force myself to focus, to push the memories of Collin aside and concentrate on the here and now. I chose this after all. And at least keeping the peace—and keeping my hands firmly attached to my wrists is a better reason for the ordeal than living up to Collin’s expectations of love and duty.
“Ainsley.” The note of concern in Kai’s voice that I can’t bear to hear and I realize I’d froze despite myself. Before Kai can ruin the plan I get to it, I get on with the festivities, swirling my tongue around the sensitive head.
Kai's cock is velvet over steel, salty but sweet too. Primal. Powerful. And strangely… delicious. Each flick of my tongue evokes a reaction from the powerful male, his thighs twitching under my hands, his breath hitching in his chest. I take him deeper, my lips stretching to accommodate his girth, my throatrelaxing. I work my mouth over him, hollowing my cheeks, creating a suction that has him groaning, has hands tightening on my shoulders — not with force or dominance, but need.
The realization sends a thrill down my spine, pooling heat in my belly, and I realize with a shock that I want this. Not just to stave off disaster but because I crave the connection, the raw intimacy that Kai and I can create together. Which is impossible. But I seem to be saying that so much that it's losing its meaning.
The way Kai’s body responds to my touch, the barely suppressed growls vibrating through his chest, tells me that he feels it too. His hips twitch in a plea for more, but he makes no demands, giving me the reins. I drag my tongue along the underside of his shaft, savoring the way his muscles tighten, his breath hitching in his throat. It's a heady feeling, knowing I can bring this powerful male to the edge of control, and it sends a shiver of pleasure through me.
As I take him deeper, his hand climbs up to tangle in my hair, his control slipping. My name leaves his lips again, a low, broken whisper that sends a surge of triumph through me. I am not just a pawn in this deadly game; I am a force to be reckoned with. A woman who can make a shadow prince's knees buckle.
And it feels good, damn it.
I let my teeth graze lightly along the length of Kai's shaft, a deliberate tease that draws a harsh, strangled sound from deep in his chest. His fingers tighten in my hair, not forcing but holding—as if he needs an anchor against the sensation. The shadows around us pulse and writhe in rhythm with his quickening breath.
"Rowan," he growls as if one ragged syllable is all he’s capable of just now. Kai’s grip on my hair tightens, his body trembling with the effort to hold back. But it’s a losing battle. His hips jerk forward, his body betraying what his iron will triesto contain. I feel the tension building throughout his thighs, the coiled restraint that's about to snap, and I revel in it.
I feel the exact moment his control snaps, a guttural moan escaping his lips as he surrenders to the sensation. His entire body shudders, muscles going taut beneath my hands as his shadows flare outward in chaotic spirals. His release is sudden and overwhelming, hot and salty as it fills my mouth. I swallow reflexively, savoring the taste of him, taking all he has to give, my eyes locked with his.
His ice-blue gaze burns with something I can't—won't—name, something that makes my heart stutter in my chest even as I remind myself this is just survival. Just a show.
Kai's breath comes in harsh, ragged pants but his hands gentle in my hair, fingers uncurling to slide down to cup my cheek.
The tenderness feels more dangerous than his rage had been.
I rise slowly from the water, my knees aching from the stones, my body humming with a confusing mix of triumph, arousal, and something that feels dangerously close to connection.
The silence breaks with a slow, deliberate clap that echoes across the water.
Theron. Of course. I glance over to find him — with a limp shaft, and an expression of lewd lingering desire—clapping at us in earnest. Following their leader’s example, the other fae on the bathing beach join in with scattered applause and crude whistles.
The sounds pierce through me like physical blows and my bravado of moments earlier flips and surrenders. Ecstasy to humiliation in the time it took a fae to clap his hands together.
“No,” Kai says and it takes me a heartbeat to realize that the firm quiet order is meant for me.
“No, what?” I whisper.
“No, you don’t let them in. You are stronger than that. You are stronger than all of us.” Without so much as a snarl to acknowledge Theron, Kai lets out his shadows to whisper into a butterfly thin curtain of night that shrouds us in its wings. Then his hands find my body again, his fingers moving with deliberate care over my skin, scooping water to rinse away the slickness and lingering streaks of dirt from my body.
He says nothing. Which is good. Because my throat suddenly feels raw, my mind a storm of conflicting emotions. The water runs cool over my heated skin as Kai's hands work their way down my arms, my shoulders, my breasts. His touch is gentle but utterly controlled, all traces of passion carefully tucked away behind that mask of indifference he wears so well that I can no longer be sure that anything I thought was real actually had been.
Chapter 11
Rowan
Ihate how my hands still tremble hours after the stream. How my skin remembers every place Kai's fingers touched, every whisper of his shadows against my flesh. The worst part is I can't tell if it's fear or something far more dangerous that makes my pulse race whenever I think of what happened.
