Page 15 of The Bone King and the Starling

I bite my lips between my teeth as his hands start to work over my back, massaging and kneading. I can smell soap, pine and bergamot, decadent flavors, but I still struggle to relax as his fingers work up the nape of my neck and into my hair. He adds more of the same oils he did before, combing them through my curls with his fingers.

“You have thick hair. I’ll have to ask the bonesmith to fashion a suitable comb that I can use.” That he can use? I wonder what he means though I don’t ask. I remain tense, uncertain if I should allow myself to do as he says and relax against him, or if I should prepare to be dismissed. I do not know this male. His intentions have, thus far, been confounding and I do not trust him.

“Honey and sweet butter,” he breathes against the shell of my ear. He hugs me to him in a way that makes me feel…warm. A warmth that has nothing to do with the temperature of the water. I don’t think anyone in my whole life has ever hugged me like this before. “I am a male reborn.”

We lie there for a while, simply basking in the water. The steam rises up like a shield against the cold that threatens to crawl in through the wooden walls as night comes for us all. He’s so calm, lazily stroking his hands up and down my arms. It’s hard not to feel like I should be falling asleep…but I am far from it.

“Can you stand?” he whispers in my ear, voice coaxing and gentle.

I nod, though I know that’s only a partial truth and get to my feet at his prodding. My legs are shaky and weak, but I don’t dare tell him as much. Instead, when he says, “Turn,” I do as hecommands until I’m standing knee-high in the water, my sex at his eye level.

I flinch when I see the blade. Short but gleaming, it looks sharp and I’m afraid when he brings it between my legs. “Spread your legs. I’m going to remove some of the hair. I intend to feast for hours and when I do, I don’t intend to get your curls stuck between my teeth.”

His words are shocking and I don’t know what they mean. It all sounds alarming and scary, but he simply chuckles and drags his blade in easy strokes over my hair, not removing it, but trimming it short. He’s a meticulous male and I cannot help but spare several glances down at his face as he works.

He’s biting on the inside of his cheek and his gaze doesn’t stray from his task. He has a small cloth in one hand pressed beneath his area of concentration and uses it to catch all the small hairs. When he’s finished to his satisfaction, he places the blade and folded cloth outside of the bath, leans back and bites his bottom lip hard enough for the colors to change beneath his skin.

“You’re swollen here…” His thumbs return to prod my mound, parting it, and I hiss at the shock of air against my sex. “Are you in pain?”

I shake my head, but I hesitate. I know he sees. “I am a restrained male,” he says, though the expression on my face must convey what I’m thinking because he chuckles lightly, leans in close and licks a dangerous line through my folds. I buck, caught off guard by the sensation, and barely hear him as he whispers, “But not with you.”

He licks me again, this time cupping my entire sex with his mouth and lips, his tongue laving my swollen, bruised, wanting flesh. I gasp, my hands fisting again and again as I struggle to remain upright. I cannot do this. He asks for too much. I release a warbling cry and his head drops back. “I will need to feed thismadness. Lohr will not be sated by what I have taken from you so far.”

Panic zings through me as he opens his eyes and looks up at me from between my legs. Prostrated like this beneath me, it is a frightening scene to behold. I can see the madness the king speaks of shining in his black gaze. He presses his mouth directly to the bundle of nerves he touched so vigorously earlier and I waver.

“Are you ready yet, to take me again?”

I can barely understand him over the sudden surge of blood through my temples and the whooshing in my ears. My mind knows that my body is weak, perhaps, too weak to take any more. But my body knows only the pleasure he’s shown me thus far.

I am only here for the night. The one night. I exhale. I will never be here again.

My hands fall nervously to his shoulders. To touch him without his express command could see me badly punished. But…I do it anyways, finding a small stone of bravery amidst the rubble of my virginity and clinging to it. And I am rewarded.

He leans in closer until I can only see his face by staring directly through the valley of my breasts…and it has softened. His eyes are so bright, so clear. I’d never have been able to guess that he’d had any ale or wine at all this evening and for a moment, my mind thinks of my own leader here in Winterbren. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Chief Olec’s eyes so clear or aware as this.

The urge to touch the king’s hair is so strong in me, I flex my fingers and relinquish the little honor I have left, if there is even any at all. I whisper, “My king, may I touch you?”

In a blink, his eyes round and his lips go slack before he returns to me with a grunt, “Freely.”

Surprised by his answer, and that he isn’t upset with how forward I am, I take an unfathomable liberty and gently brush my king’s red hair away from his forehead. His eyes flutter and he leans into my touch. The strands of his hair are surprisingly thick. His hair is rough and knotted around the braids. Several of them are woven throughout the loose strands, and now they’re all tangled together. I used to do my mother’s hair, and she would do mine, but I’ve never touched a man’s hair before. It’s an intimacy I never even realized existed.

Growing slightly more bold when he closes his eyes, I stroke my hand through his long locks, all the way down the back of his neck. He tips his forehead forward against the soft skin between my hips, moaning low in the back of his throat. And when I repeat the motion again, he presses his mouth against my sex.

His tongue peeks between his parted lips and flattens against my swollen nub. I shudder and whimper, gripping his hair now instead of stroking it, needing the support. He says nothing, but licks me again, the rumble in his chest wrapping itself around my knees as I waver. His mouth opens wider. His tongue draws slow circles around my soft, battered skin and then he lifts his hands and spreads my mound away from my lips, baring me entirely to his hungry gaze. He plants sweet kisses on my lower lips, my mound, over my sensitive skin that beats with its own pulse.

I wobble on my feet, but his hand presses against my lower back and holds me up against his face as two fingers of his other hand slip between my thighs, gently stroking the tender skin. I didn’t realize how raw my inner thighs were before, but I can feel now all the places his rough leg hair and skin abraded mine. It hurts a little, but his hand feels so nice. And then…

I gasp as he slips his fingers inside my body, one, maybe two… My head falls back. His tongue doesn’t increase in speed, butinstead, continues to lazily taste every inch of my sex until…until…

His fingers hook in my body and he presses against a place in my core that simultaneously makes my legs tremble. A few moments more, and I’m done. I orgasm standing upright, the pressure of trying not to fall almost painful against the sudden way my head spins. The fire between my legs burns and sizzles while I ride a wave I hope never crests. I gasp, moan, shout to my king for mercy. And when I come back to reality, it’s to see him looking up at me, watching me as if hypnotized.

His fingers leave my body and his hands come to my hips. I realize only then that my hands are both tangled in his hair pulling it hard. “S-sorrry, my king,” I say, releasing my hold.

He doesn’t seem to have heard me. He seems hardly present as he rises to his feet and lifts me up. “Here, doveling.” He sets me down outside of the tub and picks up a towel hanging on the post in the room.

“Thank y…” I start to say, reaching for the towel, but the king wraps it around me and dries me himself. He takes particular care when squeezing out my hair before roughly rubbing the towel over his. “Shall I…” I try again, reaching for the towel to help him dry the rest of his body, but he doesn’t hear me again.

Instead, he steps a foot directly between my legs, knocking me off balance. When I fall, he catches me, lifts me up and carries me to the room with the bed. He tosses me onto the pillows and begins to prowl up my body, moving my splayed legs apart until they are so wide, he can fit his immense shoulders between them.

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