Of Calliope.
Of the oath he pledged to his people.
And of Soraya, trying to fight against the curse’s blight.
He said he’d help me save her, but what am I dragging him into?
My father will kill him. My father will—
“Stop thinking,” he whispers in my ear as he curls his fingers up, just so. They rasp over something so sensitive I moan and arch into him. “There is nothing outside this room. Not tonight. Just you. Just me. Us.”
He’s right. I kiss him again, forcing my sister and her deadly illness out of my mind. Maybe, just maybe, if I give him this moment, he’ll understand.
Then he’s shoving my knees apart, diving between them.
His hands grip my thighs and pin them down as he plunges his tongue inside me. Dragging his tongue out of me slowly, he lets it flicker against that sensitive bundle of nerves there. Oh, fuck. Again and again. A brutal, furious fucking of his tongue, leaving me writhing and wretched on the sheets. And then his fingers join him, thrusting inside me the second his tongue darts around my clit, before he replaces it with his tongue again. A scream tears loose. He’s taking no prisoners tonight. There’s none of his usual control, his curiosity. Instead, he’s a marauding barbarian, driving me hard toward the edge, as if he intends to stake his claim.
I tumble over it with another jagged cry, my fingers sinking into his hair. Too hard. Too fast.
The entire room is whirling.
“Gods, Mira.” He kisses his way up my thigh, his mouth wet with my juices. “I could spend forever worshipping you like this.”
“Maybe it’s not worship I want.”
“Then what is it?”
Punishment.
He sees it in my eyes, and his own darken. His thumb drags over my mouth, his gaze following the teasing trace of it. “No. Not that either. Though I can make you beg for mercy. Is that what you want?” He thrusts his thumb inside my mouth, where I suck on it. Hard. “Do you want to beg me, Mira? Do you want pain? Will it make it easier for you to submit to me?” Those two fingers slide over my lips until I can taste the musk of my own body. “Because let me assure you, by the time the sun rises, you will submit. I’m done with this fucking game. Mine, Mira. Mine. I’m going to claim you so hard you’ll feel the bruises for weeks.”
My heart erupts like a flock of birds taking flight. Panic. I haul him toward me with a fistful of hair, our mouths clashing even as I lick the taste of myself off him. I want him inside me. Now.
I want him to still all the doubts.
Getting a hand around his cock, I urge him toward me, but he smiles against my mouth. The brutish head of his erection dips into me, then it’s gone again, like a tease.
“Are you ready for me?” he whispers.
“I’ve been ready forever,” I gasp.
There’s something savage and possessive about the look he gives me. “So be it.”
Flipping me onto my hands and knees, he drives inside me with one smooth thrust.
If I’d thought him a barbarian before, then I knew nothing. The savage way he takes me is wild and desperate. Teeth sink into my shoulder, even as he knots my hair around his fist. Harsh, sharp thrusts hammer into me. It’s an assault on all my senses, but it’s not until he pushes my face down into the pillow and slides those fingers over my clit that I realize I knew nothing of fucking until I met this prince.
Am you ready? he asked, and I didn’t understand what he meant until I was moaning into the pillow.
“Come, Mira,” he commands, his fingers doing their damage.
I cry out, fingers curling in the sheets as I shatter.
Body clenching around his, I ride him through each and every mind shattering thrust. “Mine.” His teeth sink into my neck. I’ll be painted with bruises on the morrow. “Forever, mine. Say it. Say it.”
“Yours. Oh, Gods,” I gasp. “Yours.”
And then his thrusts slow, his fingers digging into my hips as he grinds within me.
A roar escapes him, and then we’re both spilling onto the mattress, his body still sheathed in mine. I gasp and pant, every inch of me trembling with aftershock. I want to keep him inside me forever. He’s relentless, both in and out of bed, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Breathing hard, I try to seek some sort of equilibrium. It was just sex—just pleasure—and yet, in some ways, it was so much more than that.
Keir rolls to the side, drawing me into his arms as his cock slips from my body. His seed paints my thighs, leaving me milky-wet and aching. Every inch of me is tender and trembling. Maybe I’ll be able to walk on the morrow. Maybe not.
I can’t resist a laugh.
Good luck getting the horn out of here. I can barely move.
He’s ruined all my plans simply by fucking me into oblivion.
“What is it?” His brusque whisper stirs the sweat-formed curls at the base of my neck.
Oh gods. Instantly, the laughter dies, choked off and brittle. I grind the heels of my palms against my eyes. I have the stupid urge to cry again, and I never cry.
“What’s wrong?” he whispers.
Relentless.
I tear my face away and bury it against his throat. “Nothing.”
Keir arches back, forcing me to meet his eyes. “I will have all of you or I will have none of you.”
It bursts from me in a whisper. “Then you will have none of me.”
Frustration darkens his brow. He kisses my mouth, chasing after my lips as he draws me into another caress. He’s inside me with another smooth glide, hard already. I whimper and arch, still shattered by the throes of our last orgasm.
Keir laces his fingers through mine, pressing them to the bed as he rocks against me. There’s something heated about this long, slow kiss. His
