AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“She began as the jester’s target but ended up tricking him instead. That’s what makes her stunning, and that’s why I can’t stop myself from obsessing over her. Too bad for the world, she’d rather let people believe her as cold as a block of marble.”
“You lead two lives, yet you have the gall to accuse me of pretending. You have no right!”
“My excuse is three feet tall and has my eyes. What’s yours?”
My excuse had my eyes, too. But he was dead.
“I’m not trying to change you,” Poet bit out. “I’m trying to unearth what’s already there. You’re the tragedy who doesn’t realize it.”
“Do not patronize me.”
“Please,” he flouted. “’Tis my craft to patronize everybody.”
It had been a long three days. My father drew his final breath in this forest. My mother had no idea where I was or if I was safe. My best friend believed himself hopelessly in love with the … theassholeI had betrayed our friendship with. I’d been led astray, sliced open by a cat, stitched by a stranger, serenaded by a child whose freedom depended on my silence, and been kissed—dear Autumn, my first kiss—and criticized by a juggler.
With a battle cry, I launched at him.
We careened into the mud. Poet grunted in surprise as we smacked the ground, the carpet of grass and pockets of dirt sparing us from cracking our heads open. His height and dexterity would have overpowered my lack of both, were it not for my temper.
I growled and clamped my legs around him. Muck splattered our clothing as we rolled once, twice.
I landed on top of him, my thighs splitting around his waist and my fists ramming into his chest. “How’s that for reflexes! Not so nimble and quick anymore, are you?”
Poet seethed and wrested my hands from him, then locked my elbows behind my back. I writhed and squirmed, trying to break his hold.
“Fucking hell,” he spat. “Briar, your stitches.”
Clarity returned. I went still, my body snapping to attention. Though I didn’t feel pain or see blood, I’d neglected my injury.
Defeated, I collapsed and sagged on top of him. His chest inflated, hard and heaving beneath me. We lay there wheezing and smudged in dirt, with his heartbeat drumming into my cheek.
All at once, darkness fell. Deep blues and purples swarmed the thicket, and the quarter-moon iced the treetops.
My fingers came to rest on his neck, a pulse point that quickened the moment I touched him there. A defiant, ambitious, and frenzied sort of desire welled inside me. Without his concession, I thumbed the spot.
Poet stalled. His throat pumped, and he gripped my hips, causing them to buck.
Another lapse reared its fiendish head, worse this time. Him, worn out under me, with nowhere to go. My limbs splayed over his thighs and my soft body pinning his solid frame to the earth.
I knew nothing of giving physical pleasure, except for what I’d overheard spoken between courtiers and ladies-in-waiting. In certain, uncensored moments, I had wondered about all the things I was missing.
I craned my head and met Poet’s hooded gaze. Slowly, I crawled higher up his frame.
His mussed clothes burned against mine. His neckline slung off one shoulder, two round nipples tightened under the fabric, and palpitations rammed into his upper frame.
Our breathing grew shallow, rapid, and hectic. Yet I didn’t stop until I’d aligned myself with him, my legs broadening around his waist. My skirt fanned over us, so that my bare thighs spread across his pants, the abrasion against my flesh tantalizing.
Within seconds, a firm ridge distended between us, so near to my core. An electric current shot through me as my folds grazed the hard length of his erect phallus. Though, a less pious term immediately filtered through my frazzled mind.
I feel him.
I feel his cock.
Poet gnashed his teeth, trapping a hiss between them. “Briar.”
His eyes glinted—dark, turmoiled, and pent-up. And then clarity dawned. I wasn’t a mere flirtation, a target of mockery, or a meaningless conquest.
Not anymore.
