Page 84 of Cursed Waters

“Oh, really?” he murmured, his voice going smoother than velvet. A light finger brushed over me again, and I sucked down a breath, my hands fisting into the sides of the bedroll.

Looking satisfied with my reaction, he leaned down to press his mouth to my stomach. Eyes observing mine, his finger drew lines over the thin fabric until he’d worked another gasp from my throat.

“Mmm, I like this underwear,” he chuckled, his fingers finally moving away. My panties ripped apart in two quick snaps—one side of the waistband, then the other. “I think I’ll keep it.”

“Why did you—?” I gasped, but my outrage all but faded as cloth slid across the nerves he’d just awakened, his hand yanking my panties off me in one quick jerk. He shot me a roguish look and stuffed them into the front of his shirt.

“Are you denying your prince his prize?”

My cheeks puffed. With the way he kept teasing me, it was growing harder to keep to a whisper by the second. “You’re notmyprince,” I grumbled, letting go of the bedroll to fold my arms over my chest. “I just got those this morning, you ass.”

“Not your princeyet,” he corrected, and his wide hands shifted back to my thighs. “But soon. You’ll see.”

I opened my mouth to tell him how that wouldneverhappen when the corded muscles in his shoulders flexed, his powerful hands parting my thighs, opening them wide to the ceiling.

“Tell me,” he murmured, all the playfulness in his voice sobering. “Tell me what I need to do to make you feel what I just felt.”

The sincerity in his eyes left me nearly breathless, and I licked my lips, remembering how wonderfully thrilling taking his length into my mouth had felt. “I, uh, I don’t really…”

This was all so new to me. I’d attempted things with him I’d never done for anyone else before, and yet he was askingmewhat he should do?

Careful not to break the connection of our eyes, Leander’s head slowly dipped, making me wonder if he finally noticed how deep my blush had grown.

“Tell me,” he repeated, his breath lighting my skin. Wetting his lips, he pressed a gentle kiss to my inner thigh, just light enough to tickle.

My legs closed on instinct, but he spread them wide, his lips working their way down to my center. The steady pressure of him holding me open made my blush ignite like wildfire, and I fought back a groan, feeling more of my sanity break away every time his lips slipped closer to where I wanted to feel them the most. “Is this what I need to do to give you pleasure like you gave to me?”

“Leander—” I whimpered as his mouth ventured close enough for the edge of his jaw to tease at my center, showering the smooth skin of my thigh with kiss after kiss, each press of his lips more heated than the one before it. “Please, I just—”

I tried to help him. To tell him where I needed him to go next with an insistent nudge of my hips, but he pulled back, his mouth moving to the opposite leg.

I let out a little whine of frustration, and his chest rumbled with dark amusement.

“Not yet,” he chuckled, his lips and tongue toying with the ticklish spot under my knee. Lust had soaked his voice into something deep and wicked, intense enough to send another rush of heat straight between my legs.

The next row of kisses was torture, but he took his time caressing me, savoring every inch. By the time his mouth reached my core, I was nearly delirious.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, his head sinking lower. His lips brushed against my folds, and I keened, my hips rising against the weight of his palms, seeking the same delicious pressure he’d given when he’d labored over the insides of my thighs.

My reaction sent a growl rumbling through him, and the vibrations drove me closer to delirium.

Now that he’d teased every inch of me, my body demanded more—so, so much more. “Please,Lee. Just… touch me.”

“Anything for you.”

Leander’s lips parted, and I almost wept as his tongue slashed a broad stroke over my folds. It swept across me again, and I fisted his hair like it would somehow keep me from falling off the earth.

My spine flexed into an arch as a game unfolded, his lips and tongue chasing little noises from my throat until my whining grew loud enough that I had to slap a hand over my mouth.

There were other merfolk around us—not even a yard away. How could they not know what we were doing? Oh, they knew. They had to.

That thought only heightened my awareness, and I finally let a moan escape.

Leander growled like he was answering my call, and suddenly my hips jumped as his arms hoisted them into the air. His tongue teased me, tracing slow, deliberate circles. The ones he’d discovered would bring about the hardest moans to contain, but did he know how close he was driving me to the edge?

His lips closed around the bundle of nerves he’d discovered that I liked him touching most of all, a light pressure drawing it into the warmth of his mouth, and I hurtled over the summit, sucked deep into a whirlpool of pleasure.

Wave after wave crashed over me as my head rolled back on Leander’s lumpy pillow, a fine mist hazing my eyes. Toes curling, I used the fist in his hair to hold his lips firmly against me as I rode out my pleasure. He waited until my spine finally crumbled, my muscle spasms dying down from my release, before he returned my hips to the bedroll.

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