Page 64 of The Princesses of Ruin
“Adrik.”
My name whispered from her lips is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.
I look up the expanse of her body to her eyes and speak the mother tongue. “What is it, my goddess?”
A smile quirks the corner of her mouth. “You know I speak Seterian, right?”
“It’s not going to stop me from worshipping you.”
I grab her knees and pull them gently, asking her not to hide from me. Her legs relax and she sighs, watching me with guarded desire. I kiss her knee again, then move on to the next scar. Each raised mark is unique and beautiful, a story for me to trace with my mouth.
She fists my hair, whispering curses of increasing severity the closer I get to her center. Blood throbs in my cock at the sound of her need. My nose drifts across the hair of her core as I switch legs, and I take a moment to breathe in her scent.
I’ve heard men describe women’s nethers as a bouquet of flowers, sweet as honey, and fine like wine. While I wouldn’t ever equate her scent to flora or food, it is intoxicating. It’s meaty, and tart. It makes my mouth water.
“Adrik.” She says my name in panic and I stop, pulling back.
Her eyes are red, unshed tears wetting her lashes. “I don’t love you.”
The admission is a small pain, but an honest one.
I plant a kiss on her pubic mound, my gaze locked on hers. Her chest heaves as her eyes glisten.
“I’m not asking you to,” I say. “I’m not asking anything of you.”
She grits her jaw when she smiles. “You won’t come running down the dock screaming my name and begging for me to stay?”
I pull back, my brow scrunched playfully. “That sounds like it’s happened many times. Should I be concerned? Are you a secret siren?”
She giggles and a teardrop slips from her lashes onto my face. The sound is not a laugh like all the times before, but a delicate thing that’s soft and just for me.
She thumbs away the drop on my cheek. “It’s said there’s selkie in the Wol royal line…”
I kiss the smooth bit of her inner thigh and hum in interest.
She huffs out a heady breath, holding onto me tighter. My hands rove up her hamstrings to her rear. The tight muscle under her scars brings more blood to my groin.
“My singing voice is quite good,” she says, the tension melting from her body as I kiss my way back to my destination.
“Now I’ll need a song,” I say, my breath raising goosebumps on her skin.
Her voice is raspy. “I thought you weren’t asking anything from me?”
“Just this one thing.”
I lean into her, lifting her leg to rest on my shoulder as I cup her ass. She gasps, gripping my hair to the point of pain. I groan and turn my face into the smooth expanse of her thigh. I want to feast on her. Bite her. Mark and claim her. Devour her in every way until she’s just mine and everything there was, or will be, is gone.
“I can’t give you what you want,” she whispers.
I shake my head against her leg, rubbing my nose across her thigh in painterly strokes. “Yes, you can. Youcan, but you don’t have to.”
My teeth graze her dark skin in a gentle nip, and I look up at her. Her throat works as uncertainty returns to her eyes.
“You don’t have to love me. Just let me love you.”
Her shoulders fall and a pitying look pinches her brow. She loosens her hold on my hair and her other hand cups my cheek.
“Adrik…”
