Page 62 of Crowned By the Fae King

I started stroking my fingers through his dark waves. "Is there even anything out there better than a soulmate?"

Cass let out a sharp exhale; almost a laugh. "You deserve better than me." He rubbed his nose along my pulse, a caress that send heat skidding down my spine. "A better soulmate than the one you've been bound to."

"I like this one, though," I said in a pert tone. A smile started warming my face. "You're not about to start suggesting new and horrible ways to toss me back into the mortal world, are you?"

He breathed another laugh. "I wouldn't dare insult you like that." Cass gave me another little nuzzle. "For reasons that remain incomprehensible to me, you've chosen this, so here I am."

I ruffled his hair. "Maybe I'm trying to make up for my diminutive stature," I said, a smile warming my face. "Between the two of us, we've got all the body weight for two normal people. Balances out."

"That's not particularly comforting," he said, sounding wry. He shifted closer, lips brushing my throat in an accidental caress. A spike of desire shot through me—one that came from him as much as me. Cass went stiff, his fingers tightening in my hair. "Fuck," he said in a rough whisper. "I'd managed to forget you were half-naked."

My smile curled into a smirk. "Are you going to paint the walls with flowers again, splendor, or let yourself have a desire or two?"

"You're trying to help me, aren't you?" he said. "You—" He stopped, panting, his fingers digging into me. "You think it's because of my control?"

I nodded. Cass curled closer to me with a low groan. It put his hips up against my thigh, the line of his growing erection hot and his powerful body holding me down.

A sharp gasp escaped my throat, driven by the intensity of his want. Everything went swimmy, the world fading out in the face of Cass' aching need. His pulse beat in my chest and against my breasts and in the heavy throb of his cock where it was trapped between us. His ragged breathing warmed my skin and left my ribs aching with tension.

"Court's too big," I managed to say. "You can't be everywhere. Can't— Can't control everything." His cock twitched and my core closed down with a flash of bright pleasure.

He whined in protest, but he pressed closer. "I could try," he said, putting a lilt of humor on the words.

"Don't you fucking dare." I panted, fighting the overpowering urge to grind my thigh up against his erection. "I hate feeling you lock down your body. This is—way better. So just—" I let out another panting gasp. "Just feel it."

"Are you sure? I can't truly help—amplifying." Cass shuddered, the feathers of his wings chiming. "Feels too good—"

"Amplifying's not against the rules," I said. "It's—fair game." That sort of rules-lawyering made me feel like a teenager again, in a reckless, desperately horny sort of way. I wanted him under my skin—wanted to know where he was every second of every day—wanted to be able to rub myself against him and feel him turn into a panting wreck for me.

I did not writhe up against him, but only because I thought it would make him feel worse about the source of my attraction to him. It was a near thing, though.

Cass just nodded against my hair, breathing hard, and held me tighter.

We stayed like that for a while, breathing and feeling, my panties absolutely soaked and my soulmate all but engulfing me. His thumb slowly stroked across my bare shoulder, the two of us easing away from taut need. I let out a soft sigh, relaxing into my sense of his body and emotions. It was like sprawling into a hot bath at the end of a hard day. He was always there, solid and real, whether I was halfway across the continent or lying in his arms. I wasn't alone. I was never alone.

"Look at that. I'm still here," he said in low voice, relaxing with me. "The walls are even still white." Minute by minute, the heat of sexual desire burned down, leaving glowing embers behind, a banked-fire emotion that felt like coming home. The screaming need he'd kept chained had been heard, and it was changing into weary satisfaction, like finally sitting down on your couch at home after a double shift on your feet. The total relief of it.

I suspected the next feeling would be the throbbing pain of feet that hadn't been meant to stand for sixteen hours straight – that five hundred twenty-nine years of almost no affectionate platonic touch would make its agony known – but we could handle that when it came. Right now, Cass was melting against me like a popsicle in the summer sun, and I was happy to luxuriate in that.

I hummed my pleasure. "It's not so bad to be here, is it, splendor?"

Cass chuckled, the sound low and rich. He rolled onto his side, then tucked me back against his strong body, left arm across my chest and right arm across my belly and hips. "Why do you call me that?" he asked, nuzzling my hair with the affection of a cat. "You know I don't like it."

I opened my mouth to answer, then paused, considering. "You're important," I said, my brows pulling together. "Magical, too. Powerful. It's a sign of respect."

He made another low sound. "I don't want your first instinct towards me to be respect," he said softly. "You're my soulmate. Everything of mine is yours. The importance, the magic, the power. My Court and my throne are yours as much as my body and breath."

An anticipatory chill skimmed across my skin, one that was all mine, raising goosebumps on my arms and sharpening my attention. My body and breath. I wanted to put that to the test; to wrap my fingers around his throat and hold that breath in my hand, watching him surrender everything to me because I asked for it.

"What do you want from me, then?" I asked, my throat thick with desire.

"Would it frighten you off to hear that I want you to love me?" he asked, with the cadence of a joke and the adrenaline-edge anxiety of a man who couldn't bear to hear the answer if it was "yes."

I wasn't ready to love him—to commit to an eternity of loving him. I knew I could, and I thought that I probably would… but not today. Not when it was a struggle for him to touch me, and not while he felt guilty for the way his existence affected mine. But I still traced my fingers up along his forearm, and leaned my cheek against his warm skin, and said, "It doesn't scare me, Cass. You don't scare me at all."

He let out a panting breath, almost a sob, but he nodded against my hair, his fingers digging into me. The edges of his control clawed for purchase, my spine prickling from the need to hide, to keep from being vulnerable, to stop being so pitifully needy. The palace answered him, lights dimming and walls darkening.

I reached up and squeezed his forearm. "Do you need some space?"

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