Page 156 of The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King

His voice still had that lilt to it, light and joking, but the smile had faded. Nothing light about that. Nothing light about his touch, either. All of it was steeped in such agonizing tenderness.

It made my chest hurt. Made my eyes burn.

It—it made meangry.

I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. Not when the remnants of my anger were still so sharp in my veins, the dregs of it tearing at the wounds they’d opened these last few months.

He started to sit up, reaching for me, but I pushed him back to the bed.

“No,” I said.

Confusion flitted over his face.

“Don’t move,” I said. “You don’t get to control this.”

The confusion melted into understanding. Even that, at first, was too affectionate, too soft, until he replaced it with a slow smirk curling over his lips.

I pressed down on his shoulder again, firmly, in a command to stay put. Then I shifted my attention to his clothing. I started at the buttons of his jacket, undoing each knot of silver across his chest. With each one, the blue silk fell away, exposing bare skin—a landscape of swells and dips of muscle, rising and falling heavily beneath his breath, covered with fresh wounds and old scars and soft dark hair that narrowed as I worked down his abdomen.

I’d hated that costume from the moment I saw it on him. And that’s exactly what it was: a costume, trying to make Raihn into one of the people who had once subjugated him.

That wasn’t who he was.

It now seemed so sickeningly obvious, I wondered how I’d ever even questioned it. No, the version of him that I revealed with every opened button, every new expanse of imperfect, once-human skin...

This washim.

I finished with his jacket, and he helped me by lifting his shoulders as I pulled it off of him and tossed it to the floor. I lowered myself over his chest, tracing his muscles with my fingertips, pausing over his nipple as it hardened beneath my touch, then tracing down, over each raised ridge of abdomen, to his stomach and the darkening trail of hair leading to his trousers.

And Raihn, ever obedient, did not move, though I could feel his ravenous stare. Not even when my hands fell to his waistband, unbuttoned it, and set him free.

The first time I’d seen his cock, I’d been shocked that such a thing could be considered beautiful—and yet, this time, too, it was the only word I could think:beautiful.

His entire body tensed when I wrapped my hand around it. It twitched a little against my touch, his abs tightening. I watched the bead of liquid at its head swell.

He wanted me. He wanted me so much he wasn’t even breathing anymore, his hands tight around the bedspread. And Goddess, the ache between my own thighs was getting harder to ignore. So easy, to just crawl over him, let him slide inside me.

Too easy.

There was no such thing as easy pleasure.

I wanted him to suffer for this.

I lowered, brushing my lips over the tip of him, tongue darting out against the salty sweet of the liquid on his skin.

Raihn drew in a sharp hiss. His entire body tensed, straining, like it was taking everything he had not to lunge across the bed and grab me.

Still, he didn’t move.

I softened my mouth against him, this time in a slower, longer lick—still gentle, gentle enough that I knew it would be torturous.

This time, his exhale had a hint of a groan to it.

“You’re vicious,” he murmured.

He had lifted his head just enough to watch me, his gaze predatory, like he’d rather die than blink.

An intense wave of familiarity passed over me at this—me leaning over him, him watching me, and that look of such barely restrained lust.

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