Sprawled on the bed in just his stockings, eyes wide, breathing coming fast, he was the purest beauty I had ever witnessed. I stepped back, and he cried out in dismay, his eyes locked on me as I undressed in a frantic rush that sent buttons flying.
“Aeldryc, please. Need you.”
This was part of the tease. I forced myself to slow as I slicked oil over my shaft, watching his hungry eyes, the way he bit his bottom lip and whimpered. I crawled onto the bed and then drizzled some oil over his hole, pressing my fingers inside him, coating him for my arrival. I placed him exactly where I neededhim and he went willingly, then dragged the head of my cock against his entrance before I sank into his tight heat.
I threw his legs over my shoulders, pounding into him with the force of three days of missed touches and unspoken need. I bent him in half, bracing myself above him as I drove into him with full, hard thrusts that made his hips roll back with each impact.
“Oh fuck,” he whined.
I held back my orgasm. I needed to fuck Pip good and hard, and I wouldn’t stop until he sobbed with need.
“Please, need to come. Ketchup, ketchup. Oh fuck.”
Getting him to use his safe word felt like a victory, and I smiled as I pressed my thumb to the cock ring and released him from restraint.
Pip came untouched, his spine arching off the bed. He screamed and his body locked and shuddered, his hole milking my cock as if his body wanted every ounce of me, while the iron sang around us like a struck bell.
I rolled him onto his side and lifted one leg, drilling deep between his thighs. He was soft and sated now, gasping with each thrust. His eyes fluttered shut. He gripped my hand, and I held on, not ready to come yet, not ready to end this.
I shoved him onto his stomach, covering his body with mine. Pinning his hands above his head, I hauled his ass against my hips and thrust deep. I sank my teeth into the flesh of his shoulder, marking him, and finally let my own control shatter, fucking him in long, rough strokes that drove him up the mattress until I’d emptied myself inside him.
“Holy shit,” Pip whimpered, a few moments later. “I’m wearing skirts more often.”
“Mmm. Stay still. I need to be in you for a while longer.”
“Missed you, too, baby,” he murmured, reaching back to grab my ass and hold me close. “So fucking much.”
I smiled against his skin, nuzzling him and breathing in his scent, deciding that I quite liked being missed.
Chapter 20
Pip
Aeldrychadbeeninmeetings since dawn, but that was fine, because I had a job now. Lyriel had sent word that the Queen’s gown was ready for its first fitting, and Lyriel had asked me to help her with it.
We’d stayed up so late working on it that a grumpy Aeldryc had stormed into Lyriel’s workshop, slung me over his shoulder like a sack of particularly loud flour, and hauled me back to his quarters. So I hadn’t seen the final product. I breezed through the doorway, surprised to find the workshop far less chaotic than usual. The central worktable had been swept clean, and laid across it, shimmering in the morning light, was the gown.
I stopped to stare.
“I know.” Lyriel was standing on the other side of the table with her hands on her hips, looking at the gown. “The draping on the left shoulder is a quarter inch too low.”
“It’s the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen.”
It truly was. The fabric was a deep twilight blue that shimmered violet whenever it caught the light. The bodice was a map of the night sky over Feravael, each constellation stitched in impossibly fine silver thread. While Lyriel had been charting the stars, I’d tackled the skirt, which fell in soft layers of gradually lighter fabric until the hem was nearly white—the color of the sky just before dawn.
“The left shoulder is perfect. Gorgeous.”
“It will haunt me.” She adjusted the draping, then stepped back. “Better. Come, let’s get this to the fitting room.”
She placed the gown on a wide, padded hanger of sorts, and lifted it high. I scooped up the skirt and made sure none of it dragged.
She paused at the door. “And Pip?”
“Yeah?”
“Try not to do anything that’s grounds for execution.”
“What?”
