Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Days Were Numbered

Satrine

Oh my gods.

I needed him to fuck me.

“Baby,” I gasped.

I was so into it, I could say no more, like, Slam that gorgeous, big cock of yours IN ME.

I was in a state.

I was also on my knees in Loren’s bed, Loren behind me on his, that big, thick dick of his hard and pressing into my backside. He had one of his hands at my breast, pinching and squeezing my nipple. The other was between my legs, doing things to my clit that honestly were so decadent, they should be illegal.

But no matter how I moved my hips, how desperately I rubbed my ass against his cock, he refused to come inside.

Even with his fingers.

“I think I need you inside,” I whimpered.

He growled into my neck.

Oh yes.

But then he said in my ear, “I’m not taking your maidenhead with my fingers.”

I grew immobile and blinked at his cobalt damask wallpapered wall.

“What?”

He nipped my ear.

I shivered as he said, “My love, I’ll accept your virtue, what’s left of it, when I have no more pain. I’m loath to admit I have it, but I do. And I want it all to be about you and me and our coupling when that time comes.”

My virtue?

His fingers rolled.

My mind blanked, I moaned, and my head fell back to his shoulder.

Totally freaking should-be-illegal.

“Do you need me to eat you?” he offered into my ear.

At these words, I gasped again, but this time a shudder came after it because I was coming.

He had an arm around my chest, one around my ribs, and he was nuzzling my neck, when it left me.

“Are you all right?” he murmured.

“Yes,” I pushed out, and I so was.

“I thought you wouldn’t stop trembling, and moaning, I was growing alarmed,” he teased.

Why was cocky so hot?

“Smug. Bluh,” I mumbled.

“Mm,” he purred into my skin, and at the sound and feel, my nipples, achingly hard, got harder. “If I can do that with my fingers, I wonder how you’ll respond when you have my cock.”

Which, of course, brought crashing back to mind the “virtue” situation he’d mentioned before he blanked my mind with an all-encompassing orgasm.

Virtue.

Maidenhead.

Oh hell.

He thought I was a virgin.

Of course he would, considering I’d been secluded in the countryside of Fleuridia since I was six, not allowed any friends or acquaintances until my father came and forced me to fake being my sister.

How could I get laid if that was the case?

Shit.

This begged the question, how did he think I got good at giving blowjobs if I’d never done it before?

Which brought to mind…

“Do you want me to…what I did this morning—?”

I didn’t finish because he fell to his back, pulled me down to his side, and used his hand at my jaw to turn my face to him.

Quietly, studying me closely—no doubt, I would find, when he said what he said next, in order to ascertain my reaction, assess if he was pushing too fast, not wishing to take the virgin to a place she was uncomfortable—he shared, “No, my love. I want you to watch me do it. We shall see, but I suspect it will prime you to straddle my mouth.”

I whimpered again.

He grinned wickedly and murmured, “That answers that.”

Yes, he was being careful with me.

Due to my “virtue.”

“Loren—”

He lifted his head, touched his mouth to mine, fell back to the pillows, and ordered, “Watch.”

I had no choice.

Because presently, he pulled us both up so he was resting against the headboard, and I couldn’t not stare at him jacking his big, beautiful dick until he came all over his belly.

Seriously, he was totally and completely a sex god.

He didn’t even clean up before he was down again on his back in the bed, and he had to give barely any guidance with his hands before I was swinging a leg over his head in order to ride his face.

And serious to all the gods in two universes, he was good at that.

He left me, drained from two huge orgasms, full of champagne, wine and the best meal I’d ever consumed, in his bed in order to go to his dressing room and clean himself up.

He blew the lamps out on his way back and joined me in bed.

Gathering me close, drowsily, I called, “Loren.”

“I have come to the conclusion, my love, that the trials we both faced to be in this bed together were the tribulations we needed to pay to earn what we have right now, and the beauty we will build for our future.”

I closed my eyes tight.

But he wasn’t done gutting me.

“And as such, I’d do it again, Satrine. All of it. Again and again.” He squeezed me tight. Tighter than was comfortable. It was sheer beauty. “If this is where it leads me.”

“Be quiet,” I begged.

His arms loosened.

“I speak truth,” he whispered.

“You’re killing me,” I mumbled.

“No, darling, finally, we both are living.”

Oh my gods.

Yes.

He was killing me.

* * * *

In his rooms, Loren had two window seats.

They faced the park.

And once he was asleep, his breath evening out, his arms not holding me quite so close (but they didn’t let go), I gave it time, and then more, to make sure he was out.

Then I slipped away from him, pulled on his dressing gown, and padded to one of those seats.

I curled into it and stared at the park.

I was a lie.

I wasn’t a virgin.

I wasn’t a count’s daughter.

I didn’t have a sister.

I didn’t know but considering what a big deal it was and how much havoc and heartbreak it caused over centuries in my world, evidence suggested that in some situations, a dude having a bride who was a virgin was a big deal.

I could fake it, of course. Not everyone had an intact hymen when the time came. Shit happened to break it along the way. I could talk my way around that.

But it’d be a lie.

And he’d think, all of our lives together, he was the only one. The only man I sucked. The only body I took.

I’d settled into Satrine. New world, new outlook, new name. And Maxie needed our name.

I’d settled into knowing I didn’t come here by choice, but I was staying there because of it.

But this…

This sucked.

I jumped when hands fell on me, and then Loren’s big body shifted around mine so he could sit behind me, and surrounding me, in the seat.

He’d pulled on his evening breeches, but I could tell his gorgeous chest was bare.

He also pulled me back against that chest.

“Why are you so far away, staring with such pensiveness at the park?” he asked quietly.

Because I just had the best date anyone in my world could even imagine having, and probably most anybody in this world too.

Because Maxine calls you Lorie.

Because you’re so respected, you walk into a massive restaurant with your new fiancée, and the entire place stands to toast your future.

Because you laugh at my hats, and Mom’s right, you look at me like I keep the world spinning.

Because I can never tell you who I am. I can never tell you stories about growing up. I can’t tell you about my friends. I can’t tell you the real deal about why Mom is so awesome. I can never tell you all that made me before I came to you.

Because I can never even share how I came to you. I can’t tell you about how scary it was. I can’t tell you how, if it hadn’t been you, this could have gone really fucking badly. So you saved me, my mom, my sister, and you made this a glorious adventure, not a terrifying tragedy.

Because you will never know precisely how deep I’m in it for you, because when myself and the one being I love more than my own life were thrown into the unknown, in the end, you made it so that we were both, in our own ways, blissfully happy.

And because I’m not a virgin, and you might figure that out, and all that will go to shit if you do.

“Dearest,” he prompted, wrapping his arms closer around me.

I twisted in them and caught his head in my hands.

He stilled at my movements.

“No matter what, know this, Loren. Know it down to your fucking bones,” I demanded, my voice ugly, rasping, even scary.

His arms got tighter. “Satrine.”

“What I came from, who I am, no matter what, I am who you think I am. I am who you believe me to be. I am that woman. For you.”

Something passed his face.

Understanding.

“Sweeting, calm yourself—”

I pressed in at his head. “No. You don’t…you’ll never get it and…and…”—my voice was breaking—“…and I can’t tell you. I’ll never be able to tell you. I’ll never be able to share it with you. I can’t. I just can’t.”

He pulled me deep into him, and his voice was low and flinty when he said, “You don’t need to, Satrine. I don’t need that. I have what I need right here.”

He was mistaking me, as he would.

And I couldn’t correct him.

“You don’t get it!” I sobbed. “And you never will.”

With a hand behind my head, he shoved my face in his neck. “Hush. Do not let this upset you. It doesn’t matter. It’s done. Behind you.”

“You don’t understand,” I wailed, pushing deeper into him, pressing my face to his skin.

He turned his head and kissed my hair, one hand stroking my back, his body rocking mine, and urged, “Hush, my love. Hush. You’re here. Not there. You’re safe.”

Oh gods!

He’d never understand!

My body wracked with a sob.

“Hush, my love,” he whispered.

It wracked again.

“I wanna tell you, I just can’t.” I yanked my face out of his neck and stared at his blurry head. “I promise. I swear, Loren. I want to tell you so bad.”

He shoved my face back where it was and stated inflexibly, “I’ll not hear talk of this again. I don’t need it, Satrine. Do not let it upset you.”

And there it was again, all of it, falling into place as if it was meant to.

But he didn’t get it!

And it was his to have.

But he never would.

I reared in his arms with my emotion, and he held on.

In the end, I cried myself out, and it was so mammoth, I was a ragdoll after it was over.

Never fear, my man was a god and he picked me up and put me to bed.

He held me there too, and muttered irritably, “That man is the foulest in creation, having done this to you. I worried you were handling things too well. You should have let this out sooner, darling.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled.

“It will come to you, and I hope it will be soon, just how safe you are.”

Until Lady Corliss meets a friend she should know well, but she doesn’t.

Or Dad-not-Dad makes his defense, and suggests someone go to Fleuridia and find this cottage we were supposed to have been sequestered in and the couple who brought us provisions, and it wasn’t there, and they don’t exist.

Or a million different threads of the carefully crafted lies Mom and I told started to unravel.

And then, how safe would I be?

We’d have money.

Mom or I would let go of Maxine on our dying breath, so we’d have Maxie.

But there were a million ways to be found out.

And then lose him.

And I couldn’t exist in this world without him.

Hell, I couldn’t exist in my world without him.

But I knew, down in my soul, somewhere along the way, something was going to get fucked up.

I knew down to my soul…

My days were numbered.