Page 45 of Prince of Flowers
I couldn’t take it anymore. My muscles tightened, my body going stiff as I cried out, white heat spilling past his fingers, spattering my belly. Sylvain pushed his nose against my hair, bit the corner of my neck as ropes of his come joined mine, a glorious, glinting mess on my torso. We stayed there for a minute, panting, shaking, until I spoke.
“Gods,” I murmured, still dizzy, still dazed. “I could use a nap after that.”
Sylvain chuckled. “No naps, oh summoner. We’ve got to find that Blood of the Earth the scary woman asked for. And we need to fix breakfast, too.”
A vision of Euclidea Fang’s scowling face flashed in my mind long enough to sober me up. I shook my head to clear it, about to dip into the pool to wash myself off. And then Sylvain did the last thing I expected.
He dragged two fingers through the slurry of come still staining my torso. He brought them to his lips, sucked, tasted. Oh, fuck. Breakfast was served. If I didn’t know we needed to get a move on, that alone would have been enough to make me hard again, to bargain for a second round.
Sylvain kissed me, tongue pushing past my lips, searching for mine. I tasted him, and me, and us, faint traces of sweetness left in his mouth, the ghost of honey.
The jury was still out on another myth about the fae, a popular one. Eating fae food supposedly came with a curse, giving the fae power over the eater. I almost laughed, but smiled against Sylvain’s lips instead.
I wondered if the same applied to swallowing fae come.
He broke away, then gently, quietly lowered me into the pool once more. He cupped handfuls of water, pouring it down the sticky ridges of my stomach. Wordless, he pressed a kiss against the corner of my mouth, stroking sensitive fingers around my waist, the hair at the base of my cock, cleaning me, caring for me.
I stared at him, panting, sated, disbelieving. Eidolon, fae prince, whatever else Sylvain was, I’d never felt more adored.
18
“Where,oh where is this fabled guardian of yours hiding?” Sylvain threw his head back and groaned. “I have half a mind to start shouting. Maybe then we’ll lure it out.”
“Please. Don’t. Old Man’s howl was loud enough to frighten most anything. Well, most things. Some things. And you, you’re — different.”
I ran the back of my hand across my forehead, dabbing away the sweat. Just hours ago we were chilling in our own private pool in the woods. And it was hot then as well — very, very hot, in fact — but at least we had the water to cool off with.
The rest of my thoughts I kept to myself. For example, how Sylvain’s obnoxious shouting would only attract woodland critters who wanted to shut him up. He could be so charming, but Sylvain’s default setting made him the sonic equivalent of a toothache.
When he was being annoying, that is. When he was in the mood to pleasure, though, whether it was himself or someone else? Gods above and below. How had I stopped myself from swooning into the pool and drowning that morning? Those hands, that body, that cock.
And that mouth. Gods, that mouth, at once the best and worst thing about him. He still hadn’t stopped jabbering.
“Will you please quit your whining, Sylvain? It hasn’t been hours. Okay, a couple. I’m not sure. Anyway, you’d think a self-proclaimed warrior-prince would be more resilient when it comes to a trek in the jungle.”
Or forest, I added in my head, or a rainforest, or a swamp. The Oriel of Earth didn’t discriminate, climates and biomes be damned, just like the Wispwood itself.
“I’m a prince-warrior,” Sylvain said with a huff. “The prince comes first. We’re not accustomed to so much strenuous activity.”
“And yet there you were this morning practically uprooting trees with your bare hands. Do you really just switch things around based on what’s convenient for you?”
He squared his shoulders and sniffed. “It’s what a prince does. And what this prince wants is another wash. I can’t believe how sweaty I’ve gotten.”
I tried not to sneak glances at his sweatiness, the sheen of the skin on his powerful neck, the gloss that made his arms even more delectable to look at. My cock expressed its curiosity, tingling and stirring.
Okay, so I looked, damn it. He was bare-chested, because of course he was, beads of sweat drawing lines down the groove in his chest, his abs, those muscles that dipped under the line of his — no. Stop. I bit the inside of my cheeks, focusing on the task at hand.
“Guardian first,” I said. “And then we grab the Blood of the Earth, and it’s back to the Wispwood. You can wash as much as you want.”
Sylvain scratched the side of his chest, grinning lazily. “Only if you join me.”
My cheeks flushed with heat. “Let’s not do that right now. I’ll be the first to admit, it was a good time. A really, really good time. But we’ve got a quest to complete. We finish that, and — well, I don’t know what comes next.”
“Whatever it is, it’s sure to be fun.” He bumped our hips as he passed me, the scent of his sweat mixed with something subtle and floral. “There. Up on that hill. A better vantage point. We crest it, and perhaps we’ll spot your great, lumbering brute of a guardian from there.”
“Excellent point,” I said, letting him go ahead of me as I quietly cleared my throat and adjusted my package. No time for casual boners, I reminded myself, readying my legs for the climb.
Not so steep after all, as it turned out. It was more of a mound than anything, not so much a climb as it was a short, slightly uphill jog. I joined Sylvain on its peak, giving him a funny look as he placed his hand over his eyes, shading them from the sun.
