Page 41 of Taken By the Shadow Prince

“You’ll miss him, then.”

I nod. “Of course I will.”

He stares at me for a long moment before saying, “You can bring him with you, if you’d like. When I made that deal with you, I didn’t realize you had a twin brother. It seems cruel to ask you to leave him behind for so long.”

“Isn’t cruelty thepoint?”

Armin swallows and averts his gaze. “Well, yes. But... this was an unintended cruelty. You have been two halves of a whole since you were born. To break that bond would be...” He shakes his head. “That’s more Elix’s speed than it is mine.”

I think for a moment. To bring Ellis with me would change everything. It would be more bearable, less of a sacrifice. But even if Armin didn’t know what the bargain entailed for me,Idid. And I won’t drag Ellis with me, no matter how willing he might be, when being here, in Aligris, is the only place that he’ll be happy.

So I shake my head. “No. Thank you, but no. This is his home.”

“Youare his home. I’d guarantee it.”

“He will miss me,” I say to Armin. “But he will not be happy in Atheya. I won’t ask him to subject himself to it.

“Mavey, I—”

But I don’t want to hear it. Whatever it is, it won’t matter. It won’t change anything. So I cut him off with my lips, pressing them to his. We kiss until we’re out of breath, and then Armin pulls away and says, “Do you finally have time for my distractions, Mavey?” His words are heavy with his breaths as he trails his fingers down my waist, to the hem of my shirt.

I nod. “For now.”

My body tightens with desire as Armin’s fingers dance across my skin. “Come on, Mavey. You can do better than that.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Say you miss the way it feels when I’m inside you. Say you want me to make you come.”

His words have my core turning molten. “You’re such an ass.”

He chuckles and his thumbs sweep beneath my pants, just barely. “At the very least, Mavey, say please.”

“Please.”

Armin chuckles and slips the tips of his fingers out from my trousers and lifts my shirt over my head. “Very well,” he says, tossing the fabric to the floor. “Lift your hips, would you?”

I do. I help him get my pants off, my shoes and socks going with them in a tangle, and then my underwear. He assesses the dampness of them with a grin before flinging them over his shoulder. “Are you aware of how much of a tease you’ve been lately?” Before I can even answer, he shakes his head and starts slowly trailing his fingers from the outside of my calves upward. “I doubt it. You seem perfectly oblivious to the things you do to me.”

My heart pounds harder as his long, deft fingers rise higher.

“You gave me a taste, before. And I’ve been craving you ever since.”

And then it’s not his fingers that tease me.

It’s his tongue.

He’s ducked his face so quickly I can hardly process the movement, and the shock of his tongue flicking at my clit is enough to have me gasping, my hips bucking involuntarily.

I swear I can feel his smile against me. He likes when I come undone. When I can’t hold back my movements or my noises.

Armin’s mouth suctions to my clit and he sucks it, nibbles on it. I’m vaguely aware of one of his hands moving upward again, sliding to the inside of my thigh.

I moan when he works a finger at my entrance, circling it inside until he’s maybe a knuckle in, stretching me as those circles widen little by little with each loop he makes.

My fingers quickly unclasp my bra as my nipples harden with deep arousal, and I grip my breasts in my hands, palming them, heightening my pleasure.

Armin looks up at me from beneath his thick lashes, eyes flicking from the chest I grope to my eyes. Back and forth. He likes it, if the length of his dick that seems to harden even more against my leg is any indication.

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