Page 75 of A House of Cloaks & Daggers

Each part of the kiss was prolonged, giving us both time to change our minds or commit the taste to memory. Lucais’s tongue lazily caressed the edge of my teeth, the roof of my mouth, twirling around mine in the steps of a perfectly rehearsed dance. Every stroke had me weakening, heating up, and dripping.

Tentatively, I explored the sharp point of his elongated canines with my tongue, and a shudder came over me as he angled his head to allow me deeper into his mouth.

Hands fisting in my hair, he pulled me in tighter until I was straddling his lap, and the arm he wrapped around my waist brushed against my bare skin as the silk slipped and slid over my body. My breasts felt heavy and full, and when he bit my lower lip and dragged his teeth across it with a soft and breathless moan, a stab of impatient pleasure tightened my nipples.

I braced my hands against the flat surface of the wooden chair so I wouldn’t totally collapse onto him and rocked my hips against his lap, against the part of his body that had hardened like stone and began pulsing underneath me.

Lucais pulled back, panting, and gazed at me with heavy, half-lidded eyes. “Aura,” he crooned, the slightest hint of warning in his voice. For both of us.

This is not supposed to happen.

The High King had commanded the others to leave the room in order to give me space to clear my head, not for whatever I was on the brink of doing now that we were alone.

Nerves throbbing, my mind one thought away from madness, I rested my hands on his shoulders as I arched my back and tilted my face up towards the ceiling, taking a gasp of fresh air from above. I just needed tobreathe…

Lucais groaned as if he was in pain, and I looked down to find his eyes locked on my breasts again, the peaks of my nipples at eye level. “You’re going to have to slap me in a minute,” he said roughly, without moving his gaze.

“I’m not going to slap you,” I whispered, because it was true.

His eyes darkened until they were nearly black as he tested my word, holding my gaze a prisoner of his own as his hands trailed up my thighs and over my hips. The silk between us felt like sandpaper as his fingers moved over my stomach, every touch a little more than the last until they were curved beneath my breasts.

He finally glanced down, his admiration like a physical caress, and I gasped quietly as Lucais brushed his thumbs over my nipples, watching my reaction with intense interest. A small moan reverberated in the back of my throat as my hips moved again, grinding the overstimulated bundle of nerves at my centre against his erection. The sensation spread like wildfire throughout my body, and the low ache between my legs demandedmore.

Lucais released a breath that sounded like a growl and plucked the first button on my shirt open with a single hand, and then the next, until my upper body was completely exposed to him, the shirt hanging loosely at my sides. Eyes glazing over with heated desire, he rubbed his jaw and swore under his breath, and then threw his head back, hard, into the high-backed chair.

God, I was sweating. I couldn’t feel it, couldn’t smell it, but I was so sure that I was sweating. It was so hot; I was burning up from the inside out.

The High King watched me, taking the view of my body in like an ocean sunset from a famed tourist vantage point, his eyes devouring me, his pulse quickening. I was so exposed, so vulnerable, but I felt so, so…

Safe.

Looking up at me from beneath dark lashes, his eyes sought my permission, which he was unequivocally granted.

Gently, he took one of my exposed nipples between his thumb and forefinger and pinched it, causing me to drive my hips against him in response. His fingers tightened, pulling and twisting harder each time, and then he bent his head forward, capturing my other side between his teeth, his breath scalding against my breast.

I gripped the back of his head with one hand, holding his face to my chest as he indulgently nipped and licked at me, threading my fingers through his dark curls. His tongue was so hot that it nearly burned as he stroked me with it, until his hand and mouth fell into a greedy rhythm that dragged shallow, sharp moans from the depths of my lungs.

Heat bloomed in my core, a tense and expectant desire tightening my lower belly, and I began to move against him in earnest, trying to ease the build up of pressure between my legs.

Lucais dropped his hand from my breast and wrapped it around my waist, rising from the chair in one fluid motion and pinning me down on the long table, his other hand laid flat against the wood beside my head. His mouth released me with one final, sharp tug of his teeth, accompanied by what could only be described as a hollow growl. He pulled back far enough to gauge my expression as his hand explored my body, travelling lower and lower until I could feel the heat of his palm right over my throbbing centre.

I trembled beneath him, breathing unsteadily as he cocked his head to the side and asked, “How would you feel if I touched you down here, Aura? Do you want me to?”

I couldn’t speak. I could only nod.

Lucais didn’t wait a second longer before he slid his hand beneath the waistband of my pants. His fingertips immediatelyslipped against my skin, hot and wet, and found their way to my clit, which he began to explore with demanding circular movements that sent pulses of pure bliss out across my body.

He bent his forehead to mine and groaned, the sound deep and raspy. “Fuck.You’re this wet for me?” He sounded like he couldn’t believe it.

“You would have realised sooner—” I gasped, writhing against the table as his fingers dipped further down into the arousal pooling at my entrance. “If you’d stayed a little longer after kissing me these last few weeks.”

“Hmm,” he murmured, trailing his lips and tongue down the column of my throat and back. “Let me make it up to you.” He kissed me deeply while his hand gradually moved lower. “Do you want me inside of you, Aura?” he asked against the corner of my mouth. “Be a good girl and saypleasefor me.”

I could feel his fingertips barely there, almost within reach, and a flare of pleasure shot out to meet them. “Yes,” I breathed, bucking my hips against his hand. “Please.”

Lucais slipped two fingers inside of me, an expectant and ecstatic smile on his face, and I gasped in shock at the sudden fullness, rising from the table until I was halfway to sitting. His mouth found mine, and I held onto him with my arms around the back of his neck as he moved his fingers in and out, finding the perfect spot to touch, repeatedly, so deep inside me that his palm massaged my swollen ball of nerves. Each stroke of his hand and brush of his tongue felt like he was adding kindling to a fire that would eventually cause an explosion within me.

He moved his lips to my ear. “I want to taste you,” he said. “I love the way you smell right now, all hot and bothered and soaking with need, and I am fuckingdyingto know how you taste. Will you let me?”

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