Page 83 of Dare

The prince stiffened, his frame going taut like that of an animal, unsure what to make of this gesture. As if the touch could be a threat.

Despite his loving kin, this man had a deeper experience with pain than affection. The sort he’d kept hidden. The sort he’d inflicted. He had mentioned keeping his panics mostly to himself, wary of burdening his family too often or causing them emotional strain.

So who else had been there for him? Who had calmed the terror?

I coaxed my fingers through the layers. As I swept my hand from his jaw to the side of his mane, tucking a lock of hair behind his ear, a gasp sliced from the prince’s lips.

Like I had stung him. Like this feeling hurt.

My lips swam along his ear. “Jeryn.”

The whisper stroked the ledge of his skin. The prince drew in another sharp breath, as though the word had found a crawlspace, a rift to dissolve within.

Slowly—so achingly slow—he lifted his head a fraction. His open mouth dragged over my flesh, pressed to my pulse point, and stalled there.

My heart rate doubled, drumming against the place where Jeryn’s lips rested, his hot breath pumping into my flesh. The spread of my legs enclosed his waist, on the brink of inching wider to accommodate more of him.

As though he sensed this impulse, a hiss diced through Jeryn’s teeth. “Flare.”

Not an encouragement but a warning. And yet, the cut of my name from his tongue achieved the opposite of what either of us should want. My pussy clenched, the delicate folds chafing his pants. I had taken to sleeping without the scanty drawers and briefs I’d woven. Although it was more comfortable at night, I had forgotten this precarious detail. But the rough texture of Jeryn’s pants abraded my crease, the friction reminding me far too late.

We hadn’t moved, yet the contact drew slickness from my walls, and the intimate lips swelled. He must feel the outline of my cunt because a severe noise rumbled from Jeryn’s throat, the masculine sound haggard.

“Flare,” he muttered. “Get the fuck off my lap. Now.”

More than a command, it sounded like a plea. A cautionary threat meant to protect me, to keep me out of harm’s way, because going farther might wound me. Because I would regret it.

And that’s how I would become your greatest regret.

It didn’t take a seer to predict where this would lead, the precipice we teetered upon, the rules we were in danger of shattering. We’d been in this position before, with my legs astride his body. Except during the lightning rainstorm, I’d been facing away from him, too repelled to look at his face while I came.

This time, I stared into his eyes while strapped around him. And he stared back. Which felt much worse.

This couldn’t happen again. Not with an evil ruler. Not with the enemy. But was he either of those things anymore? Yes and yes. I still hated him for all the people he’d enslaved and tortured. However genuine, one conversation wouldn’t change that fully.

But at this moment, did I care? The answer tightened in my slit, the private flesh of my cunt aching.

Half of me wanted to punish this prince. Half yearned to console this born soul.

I couldn’t explain it, and I didn’t want to explain it, and I wasn’t about to explain it. With this monster, I gave up trying, because I’d rather feel, and feel more, and more.

This hadn’t come out of nowhere. This disarray had been building long before the lightning tempest.

Provoked, my fingers snuck up the back of Jeryn’s scalp, eager to bury themselves in his mane and pull on the roots.

In a flash, his hands seized mine. “Stop,” he uttered, the entreaty too faint to have come from such a whipcord frame.

My head misted, yet I hesitated. Although I would never force anyone, the unmistakable husk in his tone betrayed him. That, and the fear. My touch scared him, but not out of disgust.

Switching directions, I swept my fingers over the crown of his head. With light motions, I draped my hands through the layers, urging him to disarm with me.

The impact ricocheted through his form, his eyes clenching shut as he committed another crime. On a groan, his mouth traced over the sunburst collar encircling my neck.

And every fiber of my being detonated.

His lips skimmed the tattoos cruelly and feverishly. Then he kissed me there, his mouth pulling my flesh between his lips. And the heat of his tongue followed, the smooth flat racing up my throat.

Oh, Seasons. He wanted me, craved me, hungered for me. And I wanted him back.