AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I braced my hands on my hips, and a corner of my jaw ticked. She might have been right, except for one crucial fact that I’d already told her. The wild didn’t corrupt.
Nay, it intensified what was already there.
We withdrew to the cottage, where Nicu and Tumble were already asleep. Old Jinny kept quiet about our grimy state because she didn’t need to comment. She knew me. Therefore, sheknew.
Dignity in question—I read the princess’s mind—but chin held high, Briar weathered the unspoken judgment as though receiving it from a pack of monarchs. She knew that Jinny knew, and Jinny knew that Briar knew, and I knew that they both knew. And so fucking forth.
Jinny might have teased me last night, but she had dedicated years to the role of my harshest critic. From behind the princess’s back, my cherished keeper raised a solitary eyebrow at me.
I translated that look. It was the approximation of,I didn’t raise you to be a shithead.
Indeed, Jinny hadn’t. Doubtless, she would have verbally skinned my hide if she weren’t busy serving royalty a meal.
To the world, the princess masked herself well, but she could be impetuous when nature ran its course. And I happened to be irresistible. Jinny had a right to worry, so I put her at ease with a covert shake of my head.
Unlike at court, bathrooms in the countryside didn’t have water and heat pumping through the walls unless the residents were nobles, wealthy merchants, or magicians. Jinny and I had installed a system underground. It ran from the stream and connected to a lever in the cottage’s smallest chamber, which we’d turned into a bathroom.
Having access to perks in the castle, I’d been able to store a few amenities here. With several droplets of a brew derived from Winter, the water frothed from the tub and threw steam into the air.
As I finished adding the mixture, my shoulders pinched, detecting her presence behind me. Turning, I found Briar shuffling her feet on the threshold. Her hair looked like it had been through a typhoon, courtesy of my hands. Dirt caked the dress, stained her bare toes, and swept across her cheeks.
Mother of all Seasons.
My eyes clamped onto hers and stayed there. If I so much as glimpsed her mouth, which was still inflated from the kiss, I wouldn’t have a chance in hell of leaving this room in one piece. Neither would she.
As it was, I wanted to strip her, drag a sponge over her skin, and squeeze the material until it gushed soapy liquid down her naked body. I longed to watch the rivulets race across her figure, a tiny bead dangling off the pink tip of her breast. I yearned to wash her clean, my tongue following the sponge’s path until I made another wreck of her. The craving lurched from my tongue to my sac.
Briar’s eyes tripped over to the bronze tub pressed against the opposite wall beneath the lever, then crept back to me. “I did not mean to interrupt. Jinny said a bath had been prepared, and I thought—”
“She was right.” Somehow, I got my wooden legs to move. Unhooking a towel from the wall, I stopped inches from her and offered the cloth. “’Tis all yours.”
Absently, Briar accepted the towel. She wasn’t the type to fuss, so she merely clenched the textile whilst struggling to cool the flush creeping across her throat. Likely, she’d assumed Jinny had run the bath for her.
Moisture filled the room. I imagined steam rising from the water behind me.
Briar cleared that filthy throat. “Thank you.”
I inclined my head. “Be careful with your stitches. If you need help—”
“I’ll call Jinny.”
Aye. That should have been what I was going to suggest.
I nodded, sauntered past her, and got the fuck out of there. Whilst stalking through the house, I sliced my fingers through my hair. A frantic, foreign type of desire shredded through me. Not only did I wish to help bathe her, to coast my fingers over her bare, wet flesh. Nay, I wanted to wash the muck from her hair, to rinse her skin until she tingled with satisfaction.
I wanted to take care of her.
For the next twenty forsaken minutes, I didn’t think about the princess peeling those clothes from her body. I didn’t think about the soiled garments landing on the floor beside her feet. I didn’t think about the slosh of water as she dipped herself into the tub. I didn’t think about her watching out for that injured leg, making sure she propped it on the tub’s rim, and how the position would part her thighs. I didn’t think about the tub drenching her, foam rushing over her navel and between her legs. And I didn’t fucking think about her sigh of pleasure.
Instead of waiting for the mist to clear after her bath, then refilling the tub for my own needs, I charged outside to the stream. There, I ripped off my clothes and dunked myself into the icy flux.
That night, I slipped under the blanket with my son, resigning myself to sleep deprivation. It wasn’t that bad. It gave me six lucid hours to listen to the melody of his sleep-talk. The distraction kept me from reliving the memory of Briar’s moans as her tongue yielded beneath mine and the intoxicating heat of her cunt. If I were sleeping alone, those visions would ruin me and ensure hours of pumping my length to the brink, until my wrist broke.
As the sun hooked onto the sky, its rays yawned through the forest. Bleary-eyed, I hiked to a neighboring village. Jinny had a horse, but she needed it, so I purchased one to cart the royal bane of my existence home. The breed was worth more than the pair Briar and I had taken, which meant we could donate it to the stables afterward.
As usual, my looming departure caused an upheaval. I spent an hour trying to calm Nicu. He wept, his heart flooding the cottage and my own heart dangling from the end of a noose.
Nicu thought I spent my days earning coin at sunset carnivals and midnight festivals. Someday, I would tell him the truth, but I found no need for it now. He wouldn’t understand. Indeed, I couldn’t say whether he would later.
