Page 40 of The Traitor's Curse
“That’s the idea.” He’d laid me out on the bed at an odd angle, with one of my feet hanging off the end and the other off the side, and he sat up to start tugging at my shoes andmaneuvering my legs. “Someone asked you what?”
Gods, I shouldn’t say anything. This topic would surely lead to trouble.
But we were playing a game. Whether we played it on the same side or meant to strive for winner take all, we truly couldn’t avoid the reality of our lives, even here. And I had to have some idea of how he meant this to end. Would he simply finish things between us once he thought I didn’t need his constant protection anymore? Did he have ambitions for the throne, despite his protestations? Or to be the power behind it, which seemed far more likely?
Benedict dropped my shoes to the floor and lifted his head, eyebrows raised, waiting.
My heart juddered so hard I couldn’t get a full breath, and I had to force down the thick lump under my vocal cords.
“Not in so many words.” My voice shook too, and I clenched my hands in the bedding to try to steady myself. “If I meant to marry you. She didn’t approve. Ow! Careful.”
“Sorry. I think I tore your stocking.”
He had, and possibly the skin beneath it. He smoothed his hand up my calf, pushing the stocking back up, and began to loosen the cuff of my breeches. With his head bent down to look more closely at what he’d been doing, he’d hidden his expression from me.
Benedict didn’t speak, moving on to the cuff on the other side with efficient motions that were very careful indeed. Exaggeratedly careful, even.
“It doesn’t matter. So it’s rather absurd, isn’t it? It’s not even legal. Unless you have some arrangement with Lord Zettine to make it legal so you can take the throne that way.”
Benedict looked up at last, face as blank as I’d ever seen it, gray eyes shuttered to an opaque slate. “I’d have thought your objection would be your disgust at the idea, not its illegality.”
I couldn’t read his tone any more than his eyes. And clearly my attempt at turning it into a joke hadn’t been successful.
“Well, yes, of course,” I stammered out. “It’s a horrid thought, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t matter, because it’s impossible,” he snapped, lips curling back in something close to a snarl. “Now do shut up, Lucian. We need to fuck and take care of my curse so you can take your bath, I think.”
I blinked at him in shock at his sudden anger, a cold, stunned numbness spreading down through me, leaving me shivering in its wake.
Well, that answered one of my questions, anyway. How many times had he told me how little he wanted to take or even share the power of my throne? I’d never believed him. But now I did, down to my bones. He didn’t want to be the Crown Duke of Calatria or anything adjacent, not even as a consort.
Perhaps particularly as a consort.
It should have made me deliriously happy, overflowing with relief: my most obvious rival, removing himself from the running. That furious threat he’d made years ago before he left Calatria, to keep me chained to my bed while he ruled in my name, spending his nights using me and his days doing whatever he pleased? That would never come to pass.
But that numbness only spread, leaving my limbs clumsy and awkward as Benedict finished getting my breeches off and arranged me to his liking. My waistcoat hung undone, my shirt loosened and pushed up over my stomach, and he’d left my stockings on, leaving me bare only from the hips to the knees, with him kneeling between my legs fully dressed except for his open trousers. He’d taken a moment to shed his boots and sword belt when he got me on the bed, but he still could’ve been visiting one of those houses of ill repute Lady Violetta objected to sostrenuously, ready to go back downstairs and drink for another hour before he chose another companion.
I felt infinitely more exposed than if I’d been completely naked, with only the part of me he wanted to use put on display. Wanton. Debauched. And still sticky from spending on the floor.
Benedict leaned down, bracing himself by my shoulder and stroking his cock to full hardness, looking down between my legs.
Ennolu help me, but my breath came faster and my cock filled under his attention. I couldn’t keep still, restlessly opening myself for him, bracing my feet on the bed and spreading my thighs.
Benedict whispered under his breath. I’d never grow used to it, I didn’t think, no matter how many times I experienced his magic: the frisson all along my limbs, my hair prickling, as a tingling slipperiness spread inside me and slicked my hole.
He bent down and kissed me as he lined up his cock, circling his hips, using his hand to work the thick head into me without hurting me. That had to feel spine-meltingly good for him, the way my tight hole stretched barely enough to let him wedge his cockhead inside my rim.
It did for me, anyway, and I moaned into his kiss, my arms wrapping around him, my clawing fingers gouging furrows in the velvet of his doublet.
Benedict lifted his head enough to look into my eyes. Nothing existed but him, filling my vision, filling my mind, about to fill my body.
“Shhh, Lucian. You can take me.” He kissed me again, lingering, and pressed forward, his cockhead embedded in me now. “You take me better than anyone ever has.”
He slid in slowly, so slowly, still working his way in with swivels of his hips, the thickest part of his shaft eased with another dollop of magically summoned oil. He thrust, and thelast couple of inches of him sank in all at once, his balls between my cheeks and mine flattened by the weight of his body pressing down. The thick brush of his hair tickled my cock.
I panted into his mouth, stuffed and transfixed, and brought my knees up to try to ease the pressure, only for him to rock forward, working his cock inside me. Up and down and deeper and deeper, until the buzzing under my skin became almost unbearable and I writhed beneath him, throwing my head back and moaning.
It seemed to go on forever, that thorough, deliberate claiming of my body. Sweat stuck my shirt to my skin, dampened the silk stockings he’d left on my legs, beaded on my temples and upper lip. Benedict licked it off, bit at my jaw, and thrust harder at last, his cock driving into me mercilessly.
