A Lesson in Thorns (Thornchapel #1)(96)

Slowly, Poe shakes her head. “No, I—God, it’s the strangest thing.”

Fuck. “Tell me what it is and I’ll fix it.”

She takes his hand under the blanket and presses it hard against her cunt. It’s as hot and wet and swollen as it ever was, as if she hasn’t already been satisfied twice tonight.

“Can you fix this?” she whispers. “Because it aches, Saint.”

He can’t help it, he explores her with his fingers, the first touch of her sweetness that he’s had. She’s soft there, so fucking soft, and wet in a way that makes his entire body shudder just to touch. He wants her, he wants her like this, exactly like this, and it’s not that he thinks he’s incapable of vanilla sex, it’s just that the idea of her needing him to help, of him having no choice but to offer his body—

It makes it all the more rousing in a way he can’t quantify. Like the difference between wine and whisky, or rain and thunder. One is good, but the other is a treat.

One is a comfort and the other is a thrill.

“You want my hands or my mouth?” he asks her. He wants to give her both, he wants to give her so much pleasure that when she thinks of tonight, she’ll think of him alongside Auden and Delphine. He wants to take care of her, make her happy, because Proserpina’s happiness is like a sunshine that feeds everything; it’s like water trickling through him, sweet and life-giving.

He’ll do anything to make her happy.

“What if,” she murmurs, “you give me something else?”

It takes him a moment to understand.

“Proserpina . . .”

“I’ve been sure for weeks now,” she tells him. “Since the day I found you in the Thorncombe Library. I knew I wanted to do this with you.”

He runs a hand over his face, hardly daring to dream this is real. “You might still be sore, though. I don’t want this to hurt.”

She gives him a wicked smile. “I like things that hurt.”

“Fuck, Poe. You’re killing me.”

She laughs, but then the smile fades a little. “Do you want to? I mean, will it be okay for you since we’re both—well, I’m not—” She pauses. “In the shower, I noticed you needed—”

Saint presses a finger to her lips and she stops talking. “Yes, I want to. Yes, I’ll be okay. If I need something more during, then we’ll figure it out, right? There’s nothing that two people who like each other can’t figure out if they’re willing to try.”

And he means it. But really, this is enough—her needing him and his body. The illusion of having no choice but to serve her with pleasure . . .

Her smile comes back. “Okay.”

And that’s how St. Sebastian ends up rolling on a condom that Poe pulls out of her nightstand from a box she’s been keeping “just in case” she managed to seduce him. The fact that she even thought she’d have to try to seduce him at all when he’d spend the rest of his life in bed with her if he could is laughable, but also brutally touching.

He’s wanted. He’s desired. He’s so wanted and desired that the sexiest, smartest woman he’s ever met has been hoping and wishing to fuck him. It makes him feel powerful and strong, and when he parts her legs with an impatient thigh and wedges the head of his erection against her cunt, he feels even more powerful still. He slides into her with one unrepentant thrust and covers her body with his own.

She comes almost immediately. He’s never done this, never had any kind of sex until this very night, but some instinct makes him reach between them and fondle her clit while he strokes into her. It’s hard—hard to concentrate when his thick organ is squeezed into the tightest, wettest, hottest thing he’s ever known, when his climax is practically shredding the inside of his belly, when even in the darkness, he can make out the quiver of Poe’s tits and the open, breathless part of her sweet mouth—but he does it. He manages to rub her clit just right, and then she’s trembling and shaking and finally fluttering around him with delicate contractions that rip away the last of his control. He takes her hand and pushes it into his hair.

“Pull,” he gasps out. “Pull hard.”

She pulls.

Giving in to the primal, mindless urge to mate, he pumps his hips hard and deep, thrusting forcefully enough to make her cry out and bang the headboard against the wall, feeling the sweet, controlling anchor of her hand in his hair all the while. It’s enough, it’s more than enough, and with a low grunt, he fills a condom for the very first time in his life. Pulse after wet, hot pulse, he stays buried in her until he’s drained the last of himself, until her thighs loosen from around his hips.

And before he pulls out, he kisses her mouth and whispers, “You have me, Proserpina.”

And she says back, simply but happily, “I have you.”





Becket is nearly violent with frustration when he gets to the south door and realizes he’s not alone, but years of fighting back the blistering zeal means he’s able to pretend his way to a smile and a “Fancy seeing you here,” and he fakes it well enough that Auden smiles back.

“Proserpina is resting with Saint,” he says. “And I thought I’d go check the ruins one last time and maybe bring some of the things back. How’s Delphine?”