Page 90 of Mistress of Lies
“With the King,” Isaac spat. “Where else? I tried—” his voice broke, a terrible, haunting sound. “I tried to be there for him, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t even allowed to be in the room, and so—”
“So you came here.”
“I tried to stay away,” he admitted. “I walked the streets for hours, Shan. Hoping I could just… I don’t know. Disappear. But still, I found my way here.” He drained the rest of his glass, and fear rolled off him in a wave so strong that she could taste it.
“What happened tonight?”
“I am the Royal Blood Worker, and it is my duty to do as the King commands,” Isaac began, and she stepped forward to refill his wine glass. His hand caught hers as she set it down, keeping her close to him. She didn’t resist. “Even if it means delivering Samuel to him like a lamb to the slaughter.”
Intrigued and a little bit terrified, Shan sat at his side as she encouraged him in his tale. It didn’t take much, just a nod of encouragement here, a simple question there. Isaac spilled it all, as if he couldn’t stop himself, as if it was a compulsion.
A confession.
He told her everything, all that he had done in his trainings with Samuel, and the reports that he had sent to the King. How the King had been pleased with the progress but kept pushing for more—for more practical applications, for darker things that Isaac couldn’t bring himself to ask of Samuel. Frustrated, the King had taken it into his own hands, had summoned Samuel to the castle for a test.
And though Isaac had begged him not to force Samuel to be alone, the King had not been moved.
She held his hand through it all, all her masks fading and her responses becoming more and more real as he continued to speak. It had been years since they had opened up to each other like this—speaking of pain and fear and vulnerability. And as he proved what he had promised her before—that he was not the King’s mindless puppet—it was painfully easy to slip back into this, the time melting away as if it had never passed.
Shan knew that she was standing on the edge of a cliff, and the slightest push would send her falling.
When at last he finished, his eyes closed and his head tilted forward, she couldn’t do more than whisper his name. He glanced down at her, his dark eyes empty and framed by his soft eyelashes, and he looked so beautiful and broken that she couldn’t breathe.
“I failed him,” he whispered. “I promised him that we’d find a cure.”
“You haven’t failed him.” Shan squeezed his hand. “We can still find a cure for it, and Samuel knows that you are fighting for him. He knows the power of the King, and he will not blame you for it.”
She hoped so, at least. But Isaac just looked at her, a frown on his face, and said, “I still feel like a failure.”
“You’re not,” Shan said. And she believed in Samuel—he was stronger than Isaac knew, and she had to have faith that he could survive this test. “Trust in him, as he would trust in you.”
He bit his lip, and he looked so vulnerable, so shattered. “What if I don’t trust in myself?”
“Then let my trust be enough.” She leaned forward, capturing his mouth with hers, and Isaac grunted in surprise. For a second she thought she had miscalculated, that this wasn’t the kind of comfort he needed, but then he grabbed her, his hands on her waist, pressing in with an almost bruising intensity.
She didn’t fight him as he pulled her onto his lap, slotting his lips over hers as he pressed their bodies together. Her knees spread automatically as she settled over his hips, locking them together, her hands clenching his shoulders as she clung to him, tasting the despair and desperation on his lips.
He breathed her name again and again, a benediction, as he peppered her cheeks, her throat, the tops of her breasts with kisses. Shan pressed against him, an offering, knowing what he sought, the friction they both needed, driven by the desperate desire to lose themselves in their own bodies. To drown their fears and emotions in a few moments of pure physicality.
Letting him hold her up, she reached behind her, pulling at the stays of her dress so that they came loose, sliding down and revealing the corset beneath. Isaac let out a shocked breath, suddenly stilling as she allowed the dress to fall. He kept staring as she moved his hand to her corset, and he gently pulled it free, letting it fall after the dress and leaving her in just her shift.
“Shan,” he gasped, looking everywhere but strangely afraid to touch. “Are you—”
“I am,” she said, sharper than she intended. When he still didn’t move, she ripped her shift off, leaving herself wonderfully bare. She pulled from his embrace to slide down his body, enflamed by the feeling of her naked skin against the silk of his suit—him, still perfectly dressed, looking down at her in awe as she knelt between his spread knees.
Trailing her hand down the long length of his torso, Shan felt the flutter of each of his breaths, the barely held restraint that coiled through him. Her fingers lingered where his shirt tucked into his trousers, and she glanced up at him through her eyelashes, coy and sweet. “May I have a taste?”
His hand found hers, fingers twining as he eased the button open. “Yes,” he breathed, lifting his hips as she pulled down his trousers and underthings, baring himself before her.
“I’ve missed this,” Shan confessed as she leaned forward, dragging her tongue across his leaking cunt. Isaac bucked up into her mouth so she wrapped her hand around his hip, holding him firmly in place as she refamiliarized herself with him. “Let me suck you.”
“Please,” Isaac gasped, moving to pull his lower lips apart, letting his small cock jut forward, his bud grown and engorged and perfect for Shan to wrap her lips around. The result of the Blood Working treatments he had spent so long on, and Shan knew how to work it for his pleasure.
So she did, pulling his cock into her mouth as she suckled, working her mouth up and down his length, flicking her tongue against the sensitive head before taking him all the way in. His scant inches still felt heavy against her lower lip, twitching and eager, and she released her grip on him so that he could thrust into her mouth again and again, until he at last shattered against her with a low groan.
She leaned back with a smirk as he struggled to catch his breath, her fingers warm on his thighs. “Feeling better?”
He didn’t respond—he just seized her in his arms, rising to his feet and carrying her to her desk. She clung to him as he swept it clear, pressing biting little kisses against his throat until he groaned. He dropped her hard on the desk, the wood shockingly cold against her naked skin. She grinned up at him, daring and defiant, and he swore under his breath. “You are a marvel, Shan.”