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“Mmm.” He contemplated. “Well, as much as I’d like to feast on your delectable cunt and fuck you as I did for nearly eight hours, I’ll make an allowance to postpone that treat for another ten minutes. It’s been too long since I had the privilege of tending to my sovereign, and I’m eager to pick up where I left off.” His incisors nipped my lower lip. “Hungry, Your Highness?”
Not until Poet posed the question did my stomach lurch. And hadn’t I just chastised myself about coming up for air? For mercy’s sake.
But how I luxuriated in this moment. The treehouse’s languid glow. The silence after the storm. Us, naked and depleted from lovemaking, and with our hair in disarray.
Sheepish, I grinned and nodded. “Famished.”
Poet slid from the bed. I twisted, rewarding myself with a view of his narrow buttocks flexing as he descended the stairs. After a minute, the jester returned with a bowl of sliced apples, bread, and cheese.
Dropping onto the bed with a contented grunt, he leaned into me and flipped an apple slice between his digits. Holding it up, he murmured in a raspy tone, “Open wide.”
Pinned to his gaze, I parted my lips and sealed them around the apple. Then I sucked the wedge into my mouth. Tartness burst onto my palate, and I moaned. No Seasonal flavors compared with Autumn’s ripest crops. Methodically I chewed, slowing my lips for good measure, the better to kindle Poet’s gaze.
Black pupils swallowed his irises as I gulped the fruit down my throat. Licking my lips, I said, “Another.”
The request earned me a voracious gaze. Poet tilted his head like a carnivore. “A dangerous request, Princess. But you already know that.”
Yes, I did. However, when he provided me with a second morsel, something occurred to me. No birdsong outside. No early hour shafts of light. Instead it was quiet and bright beyond the cabin. Which meant …
My eyes widened, and I seized Poet’s thigh. “Seasons. What time is it?”
The sexual gloss hadn’t drained from his gaze, yet a tinge of amusement lifted his features. Instead of feeding me, he set the apple on his tongue and whisked it into his mouth. Chewing, the jester slanted his head in contemplation. His expression became remote, as if concentrating on signals from outside, as though hearing movements I could not.
At length, he fully consumed the apple, the muscles of his throat working. Then a shrewd light banked in his orbs, which slid toward me. “Late enough for others to notice.”
Not a second after that prediction, a fist pounded on the front door. “Briar!” a female voice squawked. “Dammit, woman!”
My features went slack. Based on the angles of light outside, it must be well past noon. Eliot and Cadence had planned an early morning trip to an outlying village, to replenish supplies while I stayed behind and tended to the cleaning. We’d perfected this routine, so they wouldn’t have knocked before leaving, and the trip usually took a good portion of the day. They must have only recently returned and noticed my absence outside.
In any case, our friends didn’t know Poet was here. And I had been swept up in a thousand wondrous emotions, so that I hadn’t processed the hour.
I opened my mouth to call out, but Poet pressed a finger to his plush lips. Wiping his hands and rising, he leisurely stepped into a discarded pair of low-slung pants and sauntered downstairs.
I popped out of bed, unable to access my wardrobe quickly enough. Already, I heard the knob twisting under Poet’s hand. Wrapping one of the sheets around my body, I hastened halfway down the stairs.
“Briar, I swear!” Cadence quacked. “Are you unwell? Did you eat something rotten? Did a rabid creature bite you?” Another loud knock. “I know it’s not a ploy to get out of chores, because you never avoid chores, so you’d better open this door before I start to freak out and break down—”
Poet swung open the door.
And Cadence froze. She stood at the threshold in a dusty gingham dress and apron, with her tresses tethered in an unkempt ponytail. No rouge. No lip color. No jewelry. No finery. Quite possibly, the jester couldn’t have picked a less fashionable time to shock her.
Moreover, she’d been thumping on the door with the hilt of her knife. Her grip went lax, the weapon clattering to the deck. The lady’s mouth fell ajar, and her eyes ballooned from worry to mortification.
After a speechless minute, she glanced down at her rumpled self, then back at the jester. “Fuck my life,” she groaned.
“Afternoon, Cadence sweeting.” Leaning casually against the jamb, Poet twirled his finger toward the knife. “I favor that accessory. Much better on you than diamonds.”
The compliment achieved what he’d intended. Cadence’s embarrassment dissolved, her confidence restored and followed by an open-mouthed gasp of mirth. Yet instead of squealing and tackling the jester like Posy and Vale would do, the lady recovered her moxie. Crossing her arms and feigning a glare, she pursed her lips. “Well, well. It took you long enough, handsome.”
Her attention drifted over his shoulder. She found me hovering partway down the stairs, blushing furiously, and clad in nothing but the sheet. Likely, I looked as if I’d walked through a hurricane. Properly fucked, this lady must be thinking, and she would be correct.
Cadence relished my state. Her eyes twinkled with a mixture of relief and triumph, as though catching me in shambles had earned her a medal. “What I wouldn’t give to have this moment captured on canvas.”
“A large one, I hope,” Poet quipped.
“With you? Always a large one.”
Despite how my skin baked, I rolled my eyes at the flirtation. The lady simply couldn’t restrain herself. Yet something vivid brightened her gaze when she glimpsed me once more, reflecting a pleased sort of kinship that further boosted my spirits.
