Page 110 of Dare
I felt that confession in every place that mattered. My head and heart and body blazed to life, so that I went up in flames.
Jamming my dagger into the sheath at my thigh, I clasped his face and hauled his mouth back to mine. Jeryn crooned, punching my tongue with his own. My nipples swept against his chest, and his cock stretched higher, and our drenched skin seared into one another.
How I wanted his mouth to travel, to lick every inch of me. How I longed to blow open those pants and seal my folds around his cock. How I yearned to ride him in the midst of this turbulent, starlit sea.
But first, my parched tongue had other cravings. I squirmed until Jeryn caught on. With a hoarse groan, he pried his mouth from mine.
Before he could react, I scrambled from his grasp, my feet hitting the sandy bottom. Stealing his knife with one hand and planting my free palm against his chest, I steered him farther into the deep. Pushing him back to a cliffside fringed in leaves, I gave a shove.
Jeryn’s back struck the stone, a masculine grunt skidding from his throat. Foliage shrouded the rough surface, offering him a cushion amid the chinks. As for the rest of it, this man could handle pain.
And good. Because he would need that perseverance for what came next. Holding his gaze, I pinned him against the rock and angled the weapon’s tip at his throat. With our open mouths grazing and my tits squashed into plates of his torso, I traced the bulge in his throat. As we panted, the knife skimmed down to the ravine in his collarbones, then between his pecs.
Jeryn’s eyes gleamed. He enjoyed the severity of it, the knowledge that I could make him bleed at any moment.
And truly, those orbs had never been clearer. Only this man could appear lucid, even while lost in a heady stupor.
My lips curled into a fiendish smile against his mouth. I leaned in, my bent elbow stabbing into the stone beside his head. Using the knife to caress his flesh, I ghosted around one perfect nipple, which hardened into a peek.
From there, I circled the crest, then dragged the knife’s point across his pounding heart. If I cut there, would I discover skin or cement? Months ago, my answer would have been different.
Jeryn peered hotly, intently. Pressing the blade’s tip into his flesh scoured him, a teardrop of crimson bloating to the surface. Lowering my head, I draped my tongue over the bead, lapping up the blood while a hum rumbled from his frame.
Instead of briny, the morsel tasted crisp. Swallowing, I coasted the weapon lower, to the bunched muscles of his abdomen. The descent was a bumpy one, the contours hard until smoothing out once more as I teased the weapon over the ledge of one hipbone—then pressed a little deeper. When a thin line of red appeared, Jeryn’s teeth flashed. His mouth sought my own, but I veered out of reach, relishing his frustrated growl.
To make matters worse, I flitted my tongue vertically over his lips. This incited another coarse noise, his reaction drawing more arousal in the rift of my limbs.
As my weapon slid past those hipbones, things got more invigorating. Slanting the knife, I paused over the waistband and gave him a scorching look of inquiry.
Jeryn’s inhales grew shallower. “Third switch on the hilt.”
My thumb pressed the handle. The blade retracted while another flicked upright. Polished and curved, it would sunder greater obstacles.
The prince’s exhales quickened. He expected me to stay upright and on my feet.
I pulverized those assumptions to smithereens. In one fluid motion, I flipped his weapon in my fingers and plummeted to my knees.
Jeryn’s face slackened. His intake of breath sliced through the air, the sound tickling my ears. Despite the fervor around us, that noise eclipsed every crash of the tide against the breakers.
He gazed down at me, his features bewitched. And maybe a bit daunted, fearing how much he could withstand. Also doubtful I’d be merciful. Yet he remained fastened to the cliffside, obeying my unspoken command.
Don’t move, Your Highness.
His eyelids hooded, irises glinting under a half-mast gaze. Ever the purposeful villain, he reached overhead and twined his wrists around a pair of vines, then grabbed the cords.
Good man. Disciplined man.
My stare praised him for that move. Power stoked my blood, because it also meant he couldn’t trust himself to stay composed without restraints. Winter expected me to smash through those defenses, aware that dealing with Summer required stamina.
With me, this man had high expectations. With me, his patience would be exhausted.
Jeryn could have insisted I didn’t have to do this. But he knew, and I knew. I’d never been subservient, never been fragile, and never did anything I didn’t want to. I wasn’t kneeling to pay him back for the medical chamber, nor was I doing this simply to please him.
I was doing it for me. Because I craved it.
This Royal went pliant, placing himself at my behest despite the risk of breaking down. That alone set my soul on fire.
Although the surf whipped about, this recess provided shelter from the ocean. The starlit eddies were calmer here, enabling me to stoop without getting slapped by waves. Water sloshed over my thighs, painting me in the constellations that swam on its surface, as though they’d landed there. The sand sank under my weight, and salt-spray misted the hulls of my breasts.