Page 113 of A Pact of Blood

All I can do is pant and sway with the impact and the surges of delight sweeping through my body.

Somehow, Bastien still has the capacity to speak, though it’s in a raw murmur. “You know why I love this position, Empress?”

He slams into me with even more force, and all I can answer with is a desperate mewling.

Bastien groans in return and leans even closer to my bent frame. The hand on my hip slides around to finger my clit. “When I fuck you like this, I can hit so much deeper. And at the same time, it’s so easy to play with you. Here.” He swivels his finger over that tender spot just above where we’re joined, provoking a hotter spike of pleasure. “And here.”

His other hand glides farther up to tease over my breast beneath my clothes. The flick of his thumb over my nipple makes me jerk against him.

I don’t know what woman he discovered this delightful technique with, but I can’t be anything but grateful that he’s ready to offer it up to me. With every drive of his cock, his hands pulse against my clit and fondle my breast.

My whole body is on fire with sensation. I cry out, grinding back into him as if I can drive him even deeper.

He pinches my clit, and the whirl of pleasure explodes through me in a blaze of ecstasy.

My fingernails scrape against the stones of the wall. My limbs quiver with the giddy rush.

Through it all, Bastien keeps pounding into me. His touch on my clit lightens until I’ve caught my breath, and then he swivels a fingertip over it in just the right way.

I’m wrung out, but another surge of pleasure is already building. I whimper and press into him as well as I can, chasing the second release he’s promising.

As my sex starts to clench around Bastien again, he makes a strangled noise and jerks backward. I don’t have time to protest before he’s spun me around and pinned my back against the wall, his cock driving home again as our chests align.

Heedless of the rasp that’s crept into his breath, his mouth collides with mine. He bucks into me even faster, and another flood of bliss sweeps through my nerves.

I cling to him, giving myself over to my climax. As Icareen over the edge, Bastien pants a curse onto my hair and tumbles with me.

He nestles his head next to mine, our breaths shuddering as we drift into the afterglow together. Just for that moment, I really am only his.

If only I didn’t have to walk away yet again.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Aurelia

As we step out of the carriage to the flash of newly lit-lanterns, Marclinus smacks my ass and squeezes the cheek through my gown.

“What a pleasure it’ll be to have some of this meat after dinner!” he declares, vigorously enough that his buoyant voice carries along the length of our convoy. Then he bounds off to grab one of the disembarking marchions from another carriage, with whom apparently he has some urgent matter to bring up.

A blush burns my face, but I keep my mild smile in place as if I’m unbothered. My jaw is starting to ache from clenching back so many winces and retorts.

Over the past two days since we started traveling back to the capital, my husband has been in particularly unruly form. Loud conversations, louder laughter, plenty of wine, and regular pawing at me and whatever other ladies hepicks to join us in our carriage, which he swaps out regularly.

Last night he went off with a couple of baronissas at our waystation, but it sounds like I won’t be spared his company tonight.

Is it something about being on the road, a restlessness because of the confinement of the carriage? I don’t remember him being quite this thoroughly horrible on our previous journeys.

Perhaps he’ll have calmed down tomorrow.

As I clutch that kernel of hope deep inside, Neven ducks out of the carriage behind me. The teenaged prince was one of our companions for this latest leg of the journey, although Marclinus barely spoke to him other than to make a variety of insulting jokes about his home country.

He glances after the emperor with a brief grimace and then looks at me.

“Isn’t it wonderful seeing His Imperial Majesty so lively?” I say, with a little more wryness than I might have allowed myself if anyone else was in easy hearing distance.

If the young prince’s temper has been riled up as I’ve seen happen in the past, I’ll do what I can to defuse it.

Neven’s expression turns more pensive than angry, though. He opens his mouth, hesitates with a flick of his gaze over the departing nobles who are moving toward the waystation’s open doors, and appears to gird himself.

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