House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(104)

“Actually, I didn’t.”

“Do you wish to read my thoughts?”

“Does the serpent wish to swim?”

With a slow smile, he draws down his walls, and I peer inside his mind, and oh the things I see. All of them involve our bodies disrobed and entwined.

A blush touches my cheeks when I pull out of his mind, growing when I realize that I’m still straddling him. I go to slide off but his arm bands around me to keep me in place.

Allow me to hold you a moment longer, Behach ?an. You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited to touch you. As he speaks into my mind, his submerged hand strums up and down the runnel of my spine.

Although I stop moving, thus consenting to his caresses, my conscience pesters me about how poorly I’m behaving. If Nonna were here, the points of her ears would shrivel from shame.

“You’ve touched me plenty of times,” I point out.

“Not in this form.” With a sigh, he says, “Soon enough, we’ll have to get out of this pool and return to real life.”

“What will real life look like now?”

Lorcan Ríhbiadh brings his mouth closer to mine. “Like this, Little Bird.” He erases the gap between us, fusing our mouths and gripping me bruisingly tight.

Like a human high on sprite urine, I go from shock to ecstasy in a single heartbeat. And . . . why must I think of sprites and urine at this moment?

Lore chuckles against my mouth because, as always, my thoughts spill into his. Twice now that you’ve mentioned sprite urine.

I swear I’ve never tried it. I nip at his lip.

He hisses, so I pull back, but he slides his fingers through my hair to cup the back of my head and drive my mouth back onto his.

If you ever do, you’ll do so around me.

I curl one hand around his nape, feeling the play of tendons beneath my fingertips. Weird ask, but all right.

I will not have you high around anyone but me. He sweeps my body closer, allocating new heat into that part of me that had somewhat calmed and cooled.

To think I was going to give him the silent treatment . . .

He kisses the hinge of my jaw, then slips my earlobe into his mouth, before rasping, “You, Fallon Báeinach, are incapable of staying quiet when I’m around.”

I roll my eyes but then he begins to move his leg again, and a moan drops from my mouth. Gods, who knew a leg could be so . . . so . . .?

Erogenous? he suggests.

Versatile.

His gentle snort coaxes a grin from my lips and fills my chest with warmth. As he leans back, his amusement transforming into something else . . . something akin to rapture, I widen my knees, and the side of it bumps into what I assumed was not attached to his body earlier. How did I ever mistake something so rigid and thick for an eel?

His eyes spark, then gleam, as he guides me up and down the length of his thigh. With each stroke, my brain goes the way of my heart, liquefying, and my organs rearrange themselves inside my softened body, my heart sinking into that place between my legs that Lore is tormenting so very wondrously. I find myself locking air into my lungs before gasping it out.

Although we sit in a grotto, surrounded by stone and steam, it feels like we are melding into one another under a star-filled sky. The gathering heat arches my spine and makes my head fall back. Never in my life has anything felt like this. Gods, if it had, I’d have spent more time in bed riding my hand, or someone’s lap.

Lore growls. Behach ?an, from this point forward, the only lap or hand, or face, you will be riding are mine. Is that clear?

My cheeks burn just as ardently as my sex at the mention of his face.

Yes, my face. His fingers crush my skin—in the best way—as he grinds me against him. My nose. My tongue.

I sputter as he uses said tongue to lick a line from my clavicle to my chin.

Mórrígan, how jealous I am of my own thigh. He kisses back down the column of my throat, his perfect nose grooving my humid skin.

My vision goes sparkly black, and my blood converges in that one place he’s been titillating since I attempted to climb over him.

Best.

Botched.

Endeavor.

Ever.

This time, as I unravel against his thigh, as my heart swirls and blurs the contours of everything around me, as his arms band possessively around my waist and his mouth grazes my pulse point, I don’t weep.

I exult.





Fifty-One





Lorcan studies my upturned face, and although he does not touch me with his fingers or mouth, his dark smoke laces around my neck before gliding over my kiss-swollen lips.

We reached my bedroom door several minutes ago—me, dressed in Lore’s black shirt that falls to mid-thigh; and Lore wearing only his leather pants and boots—but we’ve yet to part ways.

Lore, until we’re both certain of what exactly this is, can we keep it between us?

One dark eyebrow arches so high that it gets lost behind a lock of mussed, damp hair.

“What?” I whisper.

He readjusts the unbound armor slung over his wide shoulder. Nothing.

You are clearly thinking something.

Am I?

I narrow my eyes on his, then startle when I catch the tail end of a contemplation. “I whispered your name; I didn’t scream it.”

Right?

At the rise of another cocky smile, I fathom that I may have gotten a little carried away. So your guards may be aware, but can you ask them to keep what they heard to themselves?