House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(128)
Our kingdom, Lore growls, a thin sheen of sweat misting his forehead. “Ours,” he repeats, out loud this time, his timbre as rough as his pace.
I swallow. The beast making love to me may be my king, but I’m not yet his queen.
Today, Behach ?an. Today, we— Eyes shaded black, he pumps himself one final time and stills. Only the buried part of him moves, twitching as he pours himself into me in long, fiery bursts.
Is it strange that I even love the feel of him painting my walls with his seed?
We shall remedy this today, he rasps, thumbs still drawing arcs over the base of my languid spine.
My brain must’ve turned to mush because I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what the two of us must remedy.
Every brick of muscle strains against his pearlescent skin as he leans over me to press a kiss to my shoulder blade. Making you my queen.
Sixty-Two
After Lorcan Ríhbiadh decided that today was to be my coronation, my heart seized and hasn’t resumed beating. He still lies over me, his cock softening unlike his resolve to set a crown upon my brow.
He asks me where I’d prefer the ceremony to take place—either in the Market Tavern or in the Orchard since those are the largest rooms in the kingdom.
My tongue must’ve fused with my palate and my thoughts with my skull because I cannot manage to answer him, neither out loud nor through the mind link.
Lore suddenly stops his manic planning, stops kneading my spine, stops peppering my shoulder with kisses. “Don’t you want to be my queen, Behach ?an?”
I twist around, unsheathing him from my core, in order to roll onto my back. My silence has frayed the mask of assurance Lore forever wears. I lift my hand to his cheek and stroke the tattooed feather there. “I want nothing more, but I don’t want it today. I want Nonna and my mother—mothers—to be in attendance. I’d also like for Gia to be present. I also want Dante to be gone so that Luce belongs only to us, Lore. And, although this may seem silly to you—”
“Nothing you desire ever feels silly to me.”
My throat knots with emotion. I have to swallow to finish spilling the reasons for my reticence out loud. “I want to have unlocked my magic. I want to deserve that throne, not because the Cauldron made me your mate, but because I’ll have earned my place at the top.”
“You’ve already earned your place. You brought me back to life.” The edges of his confidence firm, like the outline of his body, that had begun to unspool, and another part of him. “But I also understand why you care to wait, my love.” He nudges my lips open with his mouth, then nudges my slit apart with his cock.
Since his seed has yet to dribble out of me, what with the pillow propped under my hips, he glides right in. My stomach tightens as he seats the full length of himself inside me, then clenches some more when he draws out, delivering the delicious friction he’s slowly making me addicted to.
This time, his mouth doesn’t leave mine as he makes love to me. He kisses me gently, from one corner of my lips to the other. He leaves no millimeter of skin untouched, neither on my face nor on the rest of my body. His fingertips bump over my ribs, tracing their curves, before venturing to whichever part of me he can reach.
His scent deepens as his skin heats, and little beads of charcoal-flecked salt roll into our fused mouths. I taste every beat of his heart as he kisses me with slow, precious sweeps of his tongue. I cannot decide if I favor this deliberate pace over his rougher one. Both drive my pulse wild. He traces the rounded shape of my breasts with the cool pad of his finger, his circles tightening like my breaths as he reaches the pinker flesh tipped with hardened pearls.
My lungs squeeze as a deep, hot pressure builds in both my core and chest. His name forms in my throat and climbs onto my tongue but he brushes it away before I can utter it.
Although my climax is sharp, it unspools like a fugitive ball of yarn, rolling on and on until my limbs feel woolen. I am still coming when his hips and mouth finally still and he spills into me without making a sound.
I drift, drunk on him and his beautiful mouth and his steady breaths and his sensual hands and his outstanding cock. Gods, to think I may get to do this forever.
He pulls his mouth off mine so suddenly, it feels as though he’s removed a layer of my skin. “There is no may, Behach ?an.”
I tangle my hand in his hair that’s as wild as the eyes boring down on me and drag his head back toward mine so he doesn’t glimpse the flicker of fear that sparks whenever I think of the future.
So many things could go wrong, thinks the Fallon who’s been betrayed and crushed and shot at with a poisoned arrow.
I long for the optimistic version of myself, but she died the day Lorcan came back to life.
Hours later, as we lay in the dark, my head nestled in the crook of his shoulder, legs tangled with his, fingers twined over his scarred chest, I finally ask him whether Gabriele brought something new to the table.
“Dante has kept him in the dark. He wasn’t even aware that tunnels existed beneath the kingdom.”
“Do you think he kept him in the dark because he deemed him too weak and untrustworthy?”
Although my gaze remains fastened to our linked fingers, I can feel his drift across my forehead and linger. “Why else?”
“You once kept me in the dark to protect me.”