Page 60 of The Crown of a Fallen Queen
The sound wrecks me.
She’s all wet and naked. I run my hand down the glass, from her chest to her stomach, and pretend I can feel the heat of her skin beneath my fingertips. I think back to her pebbled nipple inside my palm, to the little moan she gave when I squeezed her breast. I bet I could make her come from that alone.
I feel like a simple mortal, some horny virgin with an overdose of libido and no power at all. I should hate her for making me wait, but instead, I crave her more, the burn of wanting sweeter for it.
With my brow arched, I strip from my undershirt and pants until I’m as naked and exposed as she is. The way she streaks her nails down the glass, her body leaning forward as though swallowed by my gravity, gives me a boost of confidence.
I tuck my bottom lip between my teeth and stroke my rock-hard cock from root to tip. Pre-cum spreads across the head, andDevi’s tongue darts out to touch her bottom lip. She draws slow circles across her clit, her breasts now pressed to the glass.
We’re playing a dangerous game of tit for tat. I’m entranced by her quickening breaths, and wait for her thighs to quiver, for her lids to flutter on a moan that shakes her entire body, before increasing the pace. I drink her in—every curve, every scar, every flicker of pleasure lighting her face. She’s breathtaking, yes, but still hidden behind glass, like a priceless statue or painting.
Untouchable. A relic of a life she barely survived.
Her true self—raw, powerful, wounded—remains concealed beneath the armor of a brave woman who’s been betrayed and abused. Admired and revered, but not loved. Not the way she deserves.
I don’t want to watch her from a distance, or worship her through glass. I want to strip away her armor. I want to kiss her awake from the long slumber they left her in, until she remembers she’s more than what they broke. Not a memory. Not some priceless artifact like the ones she sells in her shop, but flesh and blood and fury.
Not a fallen queen.Myqueen.
To be touched. Cherished. Adored.
I want the Queen of Hearts, the goddess, the legend, to unravel beneath my hands. I want her to tremble in my grip until every wall she’s built crumbles. Until she feels as vulnerable, as vibrant, as alive as I do when I’m with her.
I’ll count the days, the hours, theeternitiesuntil I can call her mine. And when I finally get to hold her as my wife, by the spindle, I will love her until her broken, mangled heart beats only for me.
Chapter 18
Wind Eater
DEVI
We ride in silence, the wolf-led sleigh cutting a clean path through the snow. Seth sits beside me in the toboggan, nestled close.
“Isn’t this fun?” he grunts, as I jab his chest for the twelfth time in minutes, my fruitless attempts to stay on my side of the sleigh felt deeply in my cramped limbs. Each bump sends us crashing into each other—elbows, knees, bruises—until he wraps an arm around me. “Let’s try something else.”
He slowly, meticulously, shifts me over his thigh until I’m lying between his legs, steadying us both and stopping the jarring back-and-forth.
“Better. Now relax, you’re stiff as steel.”
“So are you,” I quip, rubbing my ass against his erection.
His voice dips into a husky drawl. “Mm. You’re not playing fair.”
There. While he’s busy lusting after me and plotting new ways for us to fuck, he’s not asking questions about the mission Elio saddled me with or the secret blade strapped to my thigh.
I press my lips together not to engage further, shutting down any further attempts at conversation, trying to keep my mind as blank and still as the landscape.
But my thoughts keep drifting back to last night.
To his glorious, naked body blurred by the steam of the shower.
How fierce he looked, standing on the other side of that glass pane, ready to smash it to bits. How delirious I was, coming harder than I have in decades as he devoured me with his eyes. The hot curses that spilled from his lips when he stroked himself to completion. The mess he made, ropes of cum splattered against the glass.
All terrible mistakes.
I almost gave in, almost let him touch my body without pretense, and that can’t happen again. I can’t have sex with him, not if it means feeling that way again, like I could forget what his mother did to me, forget that he’s my enemy, forget how much I hate him just to momentarily satisfy the ache in my bones.
Seth Devine is a weed. A beautiful, invasive,pollinates-everything-in-reachweed. I won’t let him add me to the endless flock of women he polluted with his seed. The way my body answers to his kiss fills me with self-loathing. As though I’ve become some pathetic, broken thing that craves what nearly destroyed me.
