Page 90 of Dare
Unhooking my legs and draping them over his waist, he rose while hefting me against the wall of his chest, where I slumped like putty. Gentler than I’d expected, he banded one arm under my backside and untied me with the other hand.
My arms flopped, aching but not chafed. Winded, I shivered from the aftershocks and predicted his next move. He would return us to our chambers and leave me to my bed.
As Jeryn stepped toward the threshold, I grabbed his bicep. “Stay,” I whispered. “Stay here with me.”
He frowned in stupefaction, as if the request was foreign, his reaction pinching another unknown place inside me. This man might have a bond with his family, but he didn’t know intimacy. At least, not this kind.
I didn’t either. The plea tasted strange on my tongue. What he’d done to me, no other man ever had. I felt this truth in more ways than one. I’d had caring parents, and I took Rune for a brief lover, but I’d been confined for years until landing on this island. Living in a prison, I’d never experienced a connection like this. No one had awakened such feelings in me before.
I gave Jeryn a look, telling him I felt as lost as he did. He took a moment to absorb that, then carried me to an open-air window ledge overlooking the forest. Swinging one leg across the rim, Jeryn sat astride the sill and propped me closer, where we strove to recover our breathing. My thighs straddled his hips, and my clit skidded over his broad cock, which stood high through his pants. I nestled into the prince’s frame, my pulse teeming with his.
I wanted to ruin this man, to taste him the way he’d tasted me, to dominate his moans, to claim them. I wanted to fuck his body until the sun rose and we saw each other in the light. I wanted us to share ourselves with each other.
Also, I yearned for my hands on him. Just as I craved his mouth on mine.
Slanting my gaze to his, I found a pair of Winter eyes devouring me. My heart fluttered as I reached up to sketch his jaw, cup his face, and warm his skin. I braced his profile, ready to usher his lips to my own, to rock my tongue with his, to consume his voice.
Kiss me.
Jeryn saw the move coming like a surprise attack. For some reason, my intentions fractured the spell, some form of dismay lancing through his features. Pulling away, he caught my fingers.
My brows crinkled in disappointment. “Why?”
The roughness in his tone opened a wound. “Because I cannot fucking take it.”
This man didn’t say things casually. What came out of his mouth was always intentional.
He couldn’t handle my touch? He couldn’t take kissing me?
I swallowed my confusion, not wanting to spoil this moment. Letting the questions go for now, I basked in the atmosphere, the echoes of the rainforest, the thud of Jeryn’s heart, and his arms encasing me. Finally, contentment rippled through my stomach, and my lips tilted into an exhausted grin. My eyelids drooped, the darkness pouring in.
***
Hours later, we awakened together. Slumped against the recessed wall framing the window, his chin rested atop my head. My cheek nuzzled into his torso, his strong arms locked around my waist, and my legs were spread over his lap.
Jeryn made a rumbling sound, his sleepy groan setting my blood to boiling. My eyes fanned open. Dawn streaked the forest and medical chamber in gold, a rare sight in the morning. Unseen creatures buzzed, and blossoms drenched the air in fragrance.
The prince held me so tightly, it would take a crowbar to pry my body from his. Enjoying the phenomenon, I sighed and curled into his frame.
And then he froze. And so did I.
Wrapped up together, we remembered. As I glanced up at him, the prince looked down at me, and finally we saw one another in the light. We remembered what he did to me, how it had felt and sounded.
Disgust had plagued me after we’d unleashed during the lightning rain. But repulsion wasn’t the problem anymore. This time guilt squeezed my ribs instead.
Sprawled naked atop his torso, I licked my lips. “It was—”
“—a mistake,” he finished.
32
Flare
Was it?
The transcendent way his mouth had made me feel shouldn’t have been a mistake. Yet as dawn spilled through the rainforest, remorse wrung me out like a cloth. That, and a strange loss.
Whereas my regret had everything to do with this man’s heinous past, Jeryn weathered my gaze with a repentant one of his own. Not because he’d touched a born soul—we had dismantled that barrier—but because of other reasons that stacked like bricks on his face.