Page 76 of The Dragon Queen

“What would’ve happened if Hadrian had won?” I couldn’t help but think of Dragon’s Rest. “How would the world look now?”

“I don’t give a shit about the past right now, not when the present is tearing me in two.” I was picked up and set down on alarge flat chunk of stone, Flynn stepping between my thighs. “Gods, Pippin… I’ve been fighting to keep everything under wraps, using every single trick my tutors showed me to maintain decorum, but I’m tired.”

I went to interrupt him, try to comfort him, but he took what he needed. His lips were pressed against my palm, and for just a moment he stood there, almost shaken with suppressed need.

“I always want you, always need you. It’s like an ache that never eases, no matter how deep inside you I get. Doesn’t stop me from wanting that.” Those blue eyes flicked up to meet mine. “Needing it. Tell me you’re mine, just for this morning. I know you can’t say a thing at court, not even give me a sidelong look, but now…?”

I should’ve heeded the maids’ chatter, thought of how this would look, but Draven made a terrible choice in picking me as his queen. Other women higher up in the nobility were raised to take their place at court, to know when to smile and which one to use with each type of person. I didn’t. I was just Pippin, too tall, too plain, and too damn raw to keep my feelings to myself. I tore open his tunic as he did the same to me and then slammed my mouth down on his.

Chapter 36

Stolen kisses were the best ones. They tasted sweeter, my body reacting all the more intensely. It felt like my heart raced faster and faster, like a dragon spearing through the air, but I would never fly on my own. Perhaps that’s why I was shucking off my uniform and when my fingers fumbled on the toggles, Flynn was there, flicking each one open before claiming all the skin he bared.

“Pippin…”

Going forward, I only wanted my name said with that kind of reverence, a savage thing that seemed to gnaw at Flynn, then me. His mouth trailed down my neck, nipping at the skin, marking it any way he could as his.

Because we weren’t allowed to, beyond this moment.

My hand went to his head, cradling his skull gently just to feel the shape of it again. It hurt, his kisses, but not because of his teeth. I wanted him, the need threatening to break me in two, so when his eyes flicked up to meet mine, I knew what lurked in those sky-blue depths, because it was a perfect reflection of my own passion.

“Pippin…”

He was like a man teetering on the edge of a cliff, and I was supposed to pull him back. Instead, I clawed at his jacket, unable tobear the sight of that uniform, those insignias. I didn’t need the rider, I needed him. Flynn, my Flynn, he emerged golden brown and perfect and hard and aching for me. His gasp, when my hand wrapped around his cock, was perfect.

“Pippin…” He tried to push my hand away as I reacquainted myself more thoroughly. “I’m too close.”

“Me too.” When I nodded, he did as well, growing wonder in his eyes. “Let's fix that together.”

Suddenly, I was naked and so was he, the sensation of the cool breeze playing over my skin like a whole other caress. A far gentler one than his. His hands were everywhere, tracing the shape of me, as if he’d partially forgotten it during his time away and he was desperate to remind himself of what he was missing.

“Flynn…” I clawed at him as he dropped down, pressing a kiss to my hip bone. “No, Flynn, I?—”

“Yes, Flynn,” he corrected in a low growl, nuzzling his face into the apex of my thighs, right before he parted them. I was hoisted up, left to balance on the edge of some ancient piece of masonry, as his mouth covered me.

It seemed fitting to stare up at a sky the colour of his eyes as I felt his tongue flick out, tracing every fold. I quivered at each pass, but it wasn’t just from the sensation. He made me feel the same way I did when we were on dragon back: flying too high and worried about coming crashing down, but now it was different. It was in the way he lunged for me, his tongue, his mouth hungry, as if pleasing me was’t enough and he wanted to eat me whole.

And I’d let him.

My hands slapped down on his scalp, scared he’d pull away and needing him to at the same time. His tongue was too soft, his lips forcing the pleasure to spike higher, but even when he forced his tongue inside me, his jaws working against me, it wasn’t enough.

“Flynn… Flynn…”

I panted his name like a prayer to a savage god, and right now, that’s what he was to me. I’d worship him, I babbled, if he just stepped free of me. Finally, he pulled away, eyes a darker blue than I’d ever seen before as they stared at me.

“I thought about what I’d do to you all the way back from Skane,” he growled, his hand sliding down, stroking his cock slowly. “I had it all planned. You’d reach your peak several times on my face before I’d relent and fuck you, but…” He shook his head sharply, as if to dislodge a thought. “In my mind, I was the perfect lover, but now that I’m here with you, I’m forced to face how fallible I am.”

He spun me around, placing my wrists firmly against the stone, forcing me to stare into the eyes of a decapitated stone dragon. My legs were kicked wide, my hips tilted backwards as his other hand smoothed possessively over my buttocks.

“I’ll get you there afterwards, my love.” My heart stuttered on those two words, my eyes falling closed for just a second. “I’ll lick my seed from you if that’s what it takes to give you the pleasure you deserve, but right now…” I felt the head of his cock brush my seam and I pushed back against it, needing that hardness. Our love felt like it was all sharp edges, cutting the two of us bloody, yet I couldn’t find it in me to regret it. I wanted it, wanted this, wanted him. “Right now, I need you, Pippin, more than breath, more than anything else in the world.”

I pulled free of him, catching the moment his face fell, when fear dared to show its face, right before I lifted myself back up onto the stone carving, then drew him closer.

We fit together like two puzzle pieces. It was as if my body and his recognised that we’d been apart for too long and that situation needed to be rectified, over and over. He almost sobbed in response to our pulling apart, brows knitting, right before he solved the problem and slammed back inside me.

“Your back…” He tried to pull me free of the carving, his concern for my well-being fighting for primacy inside him, but that’s not what I needed. One hand went around his neck, tugging his lips down, forcing them to plunder mine as the other reached back, finding purchase on the carving to stop myself being rubbed raw on it.

“I don’t care about my back,” I told him in a low rasping voice. “I can go back to the palace red and bleeding for all I care.”

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