Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

In a very distant part of my brain, warning bells rang. They’d probably been ringing this whole time but I’d been too distracted to notice.

Prince Thorne’s fingers kept moving idly between my thighs and at my breast. “Na’laa?”

“I . . . I’ve never seduced a Hyhborn,” I managed, thighs trembling. “Or been seduced by one.”

“Both of those things aren’t necessarily true,” he said. “You seduced me in the shower, and you were so very close to being seduced then.”

“I don’t believe that counts.”

“It doesn’t?” His fingers closed over the peak of my breast, sending a bolt of pleasured pain through me. “So . . .” He drew the word out as the finger he ran along me didn’t make an idle pass, but stopped, slipping into me. Not deep, but the shallow intrusion still was a stunning, acute shock, wringing a soft cry from me. “If it was my cock inside you instead of my finger?” That finger retreated until he nearly left me, and then he reclaimed the scant fingertip length. “Moving through this tight, hot heat of yours?”

Each breath I took felt like it went nowhere as his finger moved slowly, steadily— as his hand shifted and his thumb brushed over the nub of flesh just above his finger.

“Going deeper? Harder? Faster?” The blue and green churned wildly through the brown of his irises. His pupils were nearly white. “Would the sounds you make be those of a well-practiced and skilled lover as I fuck you? Or would your cries be those of one who has little experience in such pleasure?”

The moan that left me was one I’d never made before. I shuddered. I’d been fucked before, but I’d never felt these almost too-intense sensations he was creating inside of me, drawing out of me.

He dipped his head, lips glancing off my cheek. “I don’t think you’re a skilled courtesan.”

My heart thundered as I said the first thing that came to mind. “Perhaps the Baron believed you would not want one so experienced?”

One single brow rose. “Are you suggesting that your baron thought I would prefer debauching an unpracticed potential virgin who one day wants to become a botanist?”

A wave of prickly warmth hit my skin, loosening my hold on my tongue and common sense, but tightening my grip on his cock, just above that knot of flesh. He was even harder there than the rest of his body. “You don’t?” I asked, watching him as I moved my hand along his length just as he said he liked it. Tight. Hard. Those tiny sparks of light appeared in his pupils. “I’m no virgin, Your Highness, but truth is not nearly as important as perception. So, if you believe me to be an unpracticed virgin, it didn’t stop you from engaging in said debauchery, did it?”

The corners of his lips twitched as if he wished to smile. “It did not.”

Knowing that ground I was treading on was getting even thinner, more dangerous, I glanced down at where his hand was still between my legs, his finger still inside me. My eyes returned to his as I stroked him from the base to the tip, marveling a bit at the ridged feel of him. “And still hasn’t?”

The Prince didn’t respond for a long moment, but I felt his chest rise sharply under my other hand. “Am I to believe the way you all but ran into the bathing chamber upon the suggestion that we’d skip the bath was an act? That the flush of your skin when I entered the chamber was a trick of the eyes? Your hesitation in joining me? Your nervousness? All an act?”

I leaned in until our mouths were inches apart, summoning every ounce of bravery I had. “I’m not here to make you believe one thing or another.”

His hips jerked and the fingers at my breast pressed into my flesh. “Then what are you here for?” he asked, voice thick and soft.

I swirled my thumb over the tip of his cock, smiling when air hissed between his clenched teeth. “If I have to explain that, then obviously I’m doing something wrong.” I squeezed him, feeling a surge of satisfaction at the roll of his hips that sent water splashing against the sides of the tub. “But I don’t think that I am.”

Prince Thorne’s lips parted, but he said nothing as I continued to stroke him, just as slowly as his finger moved inside me. Through half-closed eyes, I watched him closely. His breathing picked up, coming in short, shallow pants. So, I alternated between smooth slides and tighter, slower tugs, but the controlled plunges of his finger made it difficult to focus on anything but that.

“I think you owe me an apology,” I panted, muscles low in my stomach quivering.

“For what?”

“For being wrong about me.”

“Perhaps.” He groaned, cock twitching in my hand. His fingers splayed across my breast and then found their way to the nape of my neck.

Each thrust of his finger, he went a little deeper, a little faster. Then it was his fingers, stretching me as his thumb swirled around my taut clit. I tried to rein it back. All of it. The way I moved. My reaction to him. The soft, breathy sounds I made. My body. The pleasure, and my hunger for it. My need. This wasn’t what I was here for. I slowed, throat dry as I struggled to remember my whole purpose for being here, but I was so thrown by the . . . the realization that I wanted this. Badly. Wanted more.

I shouldn’t. At least, I didn’t think that I should, but I . . . I did. I was enjoying that it was I who was the cause of his breath quickening. That it was my touch that brought forth those deep, rumbling sounds from a Hyhborn prince as I worked his flesh— as he did the same to me. A fluttering sensation low in my stomach and even lower. I wanted to be doing this.

Just as I had wanted to get in the tub.

To be touched.

To touch.

It had to be because I was simply touching another— giving pleasure and experiencing it without taking their thoughts or prying into their futures. And it was that, but it also felt like something more. I didn’t know what or understand it, and that scared me. I could feel it building inside of me, a rising tide of desire that threatened to overwhelm my senses— every part of me. I tried to hold back, to rein myself in, but it was like trying to hold back the ocean.

“Don’t fight it. Give in to what your body wants,” he coaxed. “Give in to me.”

I shuddered, surrendering to his demands— to the demands of my own body. I gave myself over to the moment, rocking against him, my hand faster now, his fingers harder now. Muscles coiled low inside me, tauter and tauter until the tension bordered on pain. Until I began to tremble.

“That’s it,” he growled, his body straining— his body humming against mine. “I want to feel you come on my fingers, na’laa.”

His pupils . . . they went completely white as I began to tremble. Then all that tightening, swirling pressure erupted. I came, crying out as all that tension unfurled in a molten hot flood of desire as his shaft swelled against my palm. The release was sharp and stunning. Waves of sensation crashed through me as . . . as his body seemed to heat against mine, so much so that my eyes fluttered open even as the swirling pleasure rippled throughout me.

His pupils glowed intensely, like polished diamonds. They were so wide that I couldn’t see any of his irises, and his body was humming, lending an almost blurred effect to the outline of his shoulders. He dragged me against his chest, his arm going around my waist, holding me tight as I gasped into the crook of his neck. The feel of his flesh against my breasts sent a myriad of unexpected sensations darting through me. I lost my rhythm on his cock, but he didn’t seem to notice as his hips pushed against my grip, sending water splashing over the rim of the tub. His cock jerked, spasming, and the sound he made as he came heated my blood, leaving me feeling as hot as his body now felt against mine.

The aftershocks of pleasure left me limp against his chest, my breathing ragged. Resting my cheek on his shoulder, I followed the lead of his body, slowing my movements as the spasms eased and then finally lifting my hand from him. I didn’t move away from him, though. His fingers still danced and teased, coaxing out a fainter ripple of pleasure before he slowly withdrew his fingers from me. Eyes closed, I still didn’t move as he folded his other arm around me. I didn’t know why he did this, but I . . . I relaxed into him. There was something unexpectedly soothing about his warm embrace, comforting. It made me want to . . . to snuggle closer, into the heat of his body.

The quiet ticked by, and I was unable to hold back my questions. “Your body . . . it seemed to increase in temperature and vibrate? Is that because you were feeding or was I imagining that?”

“You weren’t.” Prince Thorne cleared his throat.

“Does it hurt when it does that?”

“It does not.” His hand moved up and down my back, tangling gently in my hair. “It feels quite the opposite.”

Trying to picture my body heating and vibrating, I was unable to imagine how that would feel pleasant. “I’ll have to take your word on that.”

His chuckle was low and rough. The quiet returned then, and for a little while, I just let myself feel it all. How tight he held me. The weight of his arms around me and the warm, hard flesh pressing against mine, and the way it felt . . . it felt right.

Gods, that was such a silly thought, but that’s what I felt. I didn’t understand how it could feel right. It shouldn’t, but it did, and I soaked it all in, committing every second of it to memory.

Because I had never felt any of this before.

And I had no idea when I would feel it again.

I didn’t attempt to get past his shields, and that was, well, not good. I could’ve tried again, especially while we both were so quiet, but doing so felt as if it would . . . taint this.

Whatever this was— which was nothing, absolutely nothing.

I couldn’t linger, though. Grady had to be beside himself with worry, and I . . . I needed to figure out what the hell I was going to tell Claude, because what few answers I’d gained were vague at best. All I could tell him was who this Hyhborn prince was and what I already knew.

“Na’laa?”

“Hmm,” I murmured.

“I’m never wrong.”

It took me a moment to get what he was referencing. When I did, a chill slithered down my spine. Opening my eyes, I lifted my head and started to pull back. His embrace held firm. I gained only a scant inch or two of separation. My gaze met his. The stars were gone from his eyes. The colors had slowed until they were blots of green, blue, and brown. Nothing could be gained from the striking angles of his face.

I gathered up all that bravado it had taken to enter the chambers, sensing that now was not the time to finally feel the terror I should’ve felt from the moment we crossed paths in the gardens the night before. “Besides the fact that the idea that anyone, Hyhborn or not, can never be wrong seems implausible to me, I’m not exactly sure what you’re referencing.”

His lips curved, but the smile was tight and cool. “You said you were sent to service me, correct?”

I nodded.

One of his hands slid up my back, tangling in my hair. “I don’t think that was the only reason you were sent to me.”

The tips of my fingers pressed into the hard flesh of his shoulders. “I— ”

“While I find your little lies and half-truths to be strangely amusing, this is not one of those moments.” His fingers found their way to the nape of my neck and stayed. “Trust me when I say it would be very, very unwise to do so.”