Page 63 of Healer to the Ash King
“If you’re wondering,” he breathes, “I take a tonic. I cannot risk having illegitimate heirs with random women.”
My heart flinches, because by doing this I am making myself one of the random women. But I don’t want to stop. Maybe, like he said, we can just have pleasure together, without any other expectation or attachment. Maybe—ah—and then I stop thinking of anything besides his long cock pushing inside me.
I arch with the force of the pleasure, a breathless shriek breaking from me. The Ash King groans and slams in hard. He slides back until he almost slips out, then slams in again—and I squeal, my fingers raking against the floor, because my brain is about to explode with pleasure, I’m quivering, shaking, spasming right on the edge—
The Ash King pulls out and gives me the most wicked smile I’ve ever seen—teeth like knives and starlight.
“How does that feel, Healer? Do you like being teased?” He lifts my leg, pressing his mouth to my inner thigh. “I could feel your body fluttering around my cock. You’re almost there. I think a single touch would finish it.”
“I detest you,” I whimper, squirming. “You’re a horrible person.”
He laughs and grips my shoulders, pulling my limp, shuddering body upright with him. The hot, wet tip of him pokes against my stomach.
Incensed, out of my mind with thwarted desire, I slap his cheek. “Cruel bastard.”
It’s a weak slap, because I can’t shake the grip of my vow. He chuckles hoarsely and leans in, nuzzling my face with his. The craving to kiss him is almost too much to resist. But a kiss would mean something else entirely, to both of us. It’s something we can’t give to each other.
“Tell me you want me.” His forehead presses to mine. “Tell me you want me in spite of it all.”
I can’t look at him while I say it, so I put my arms around his neck, my chest soft against his hard muscles. With my mouth to his ear I whisper, “I want you in spite of it all.”
With a guttural sound of triumph, he throws me face-down on his bed. He jerks my hips up and pulls me back onto his cock, ramming into me so hard and fast that he’s grunting harshly with the effort, with the sheer violence of it.
I can’t take it anymore—I scream, arching as my body explodes in the most potent orgasm of my life. It tears through me, rips me open with sheer white-hot bliss. The King tucks three fingers into my open mouth to quiet me. He keeps thrusting until he shatters, and deep groans vibrate through his whole body as he comes inside me.
“Oh gods,” he’s panting, moaning. “Oh gods. Cailin—Cailin, gods, I can’t—”
“I know,” I whimper against the sheets. “I know.”
With one final shudder, he pulls out of me and crashes onto the bed at my side.
Slowly, slowly, Cailin the healer resurfaces, and the feral stranger who attacked the Ash King sinks back into the deep places of my soul.
I let magic sift through my skin, healing my burn marks and bruises. And then I heal the Ash King, where he lies belly-down and utterly spent on the bed beside me.
As I heal him, I realize he’s asleep, and I sigh with relief. Now I can slip away, back to my own room. I can clean up and forget that I did this.
Or maybe I’d rather not forget. Because I don’t regret it, and I’m not ashamed of it. Violent and hateful and strange as it was, we both needed it.
I said what I wanted to say. And maybe we didn’t resolve things, exactly—but at least he didn’t kill me. And I feel—purged, and sated, deeply, refreshingly, all the way down to my bones. Like a fierce, festering, painful thing inside me has been softened and eased.
I think I’ve been wanting to fuck him since he branded my chest with his burning hand.
And that makes me a terrible, terrible person. I should feel worse about this. I should not feel thoroughly soothed and relaxed.
I leave him there and tiptoe back to my room, where I wash myself off and put on a longer, more proper nightdress before climbing into bed.
Strangely, I’m able to sleep.
I take breakfast in my room the next morning, but I can’t eat much because my stomach keeps jumping with “what ifs.” What if he comes into my room to talk? What will he say? What willIsay? How does last night change things between us?
How did it changeme?
When I think of him pouring fire into the forest, burning his attackers, burning Brayda’s face—and when I remember him pounding into me, releasing inside me—I feel sick.
I’ve never done anything this morally questionable in my life. I’mgood. It’s who I am, who I’m proud to be. I help people, I don’t screw cruel, wicked kings on the floor amid the aftermath of our clashing magic.
It can’t happen again.
