Page 94 of Dare

My molars compressed hard enough to shatter a bone. With supreme effort, I resumed bathing. Except the chore became laborious, as if I were moving through tar. Those combustible eyes made contact without trying, the heat of her attention burning my veins. Any longer, and I’d turn to give her the uncensored look she wanted.

If that happened, it wouldn’t end there. Putting it mildly, the sensation of her eyes on my bare cock would have the opposite effect. I would snatch Flare from her hiding spot and fuck her into the nearest wall until she was convulsing.

This avid gaze of hers might fucking kill me.

At last, her breathing faded. Next, the brushfire of her stare vanished. Then the familiar fragrance evaporated like an illusion. As if cognizant of my thoughts, she had fled.

I should have been relieved, yet my head fell forward. My eyes cinched shut, her absence creating worse chaos—an exponential loss. One that exceeded my longing for Winter and everything I’d left behind.

Fuck. I sloshed from the water, but instead of prowling after her, I threw on my clothes and cut in the opposite direction. More distance. I required more distance, lest I should change my mind, catch the little beast, and destroy us both.

I shoved past the old stone doors, slammed down the ruin steps, and struck into the wild. The aftermath of what happened propelled me forward as I took refuge in the vegetation, stalking into the tangle of trees.

Perhaps she had realized her error. Perhaps the notion of spying on her former oppressor had disgusted Flare. Perhaps she’d had time to remember that.

I hoped she did. It would be best.

Charging through the understory, I traveled from one spot to another, my calloused soles resistant to the hard soil. Since I’d forgotten my satchel, I gathered what specimens my hands could carry. My fingers tore stems by their roots, dirt spitting from the ground as I pulled.

Tugged. Yanked.

This pitiful attempt at productivity failed to placate my body. My cock stiffened like a piece of iron, making it difficult to navigate the rainforest on solid limbs. Dispatching the bundles onto the forest floor, I slouched against a tree while visions of Flare infiltrated my head.

Long before she’d craved me, I had coveted her. The addiction had begun within moments of that dungeon in Autumn. Or perhaps before then, back when she hadn’t known I existed.

For all my attempts to hide these impulses, I had succumbed eons prior to her own descent. This woman had ruined me from the start. Her eyes had been the first culprits, stinging me with their light. After that, those enduring hands had pushed me to the edge.

Inevitably came the nights I had lost control with her. First, the lightning rainstorm. Then I’d awakened in a debilitating fit of anxiety, and Flare had come to me. The moment her hands had landed on my flesh, I’d lost all fucking sense.

Flare in my arms, comforting me. My panicked state running the gamut from ramblings to a forbidden embrace that broke my restraint and unleashed my tongue.

Presently, my cock strained. The head bloated, the distended length widened, and the entire goddamn ligament shoved against my pants. I picked open the clasps, my dick springing from the flaps and stretching against my abdomen. The stifling air coated my aching flesh, the glaze consuming my attention.

The sight brought more figments into stark relief. Illusions of her arousal slickening my cock, her desire seeping down my skin.

The roof of my crown darkened. Fluid pressed through the incision across the top.

I strapped my fingers around the base and dealt with the frustration. Helpless. Bewitched. Hissing, I siphoned my hand up and down, from the seat to the tip, each motion punctuated by my stifled groans. The commotion pressed against my teeth, but I held back. In this forsaken forest, who knew what would happen if the noises became airborne. The wilderness might carry them off to wherever Flare had gone. Comically, avians might imitate the fucking sounds to her.

Not going to happen. I clamped my mouth shut, squeezed the radius of my cock, pumped the skin with measured strokes. Moisture permeated the air, lubricating me down to my testicles, which hung heavily.

Blood surged across my fingers and inundated the glans of my cock. Chuffing oxygen, I recalled every second with Flare. Her hips grinding into my lap during the lightning rainstorm, her pussy saturating the fabric of my pants. Then my teeth on her salted throat on the night I’d panicked, my mouth sucking on her pulse point, my tongue laving her collar tattoo.

I had wanted to rinse the inked sunbursts clean. I had sought to purge her of those infernal symbols.

And later. How I’d sank to my knees, prostrating myself and lapping at the soaked crease of her thighs. Her response, pure and pleasured. Her orgasms and the sweet taste of her cunt. I had been the one plying Flare, but she’d been the one to finish me off.

I had lied. Blatantly. Flagrantly. It hadn’t been a mistake.

Embers scorched a path from my balls to the line of my crown. Fluid rose, prompting a muffled growl. Swiping my thumb over the drops, I smeared myself and lunged my hips faster.

It would be easy to shut my eyes. I could pretend she was here, watching me. To that end, I could delude myself. Instead, I fixated on my dick and let it serve as a reminder. I would only ever indulge alone and had no right to more.

Flare deserved an actual prince. Not a cruel one. Not a mad one. She hadn’t been timid when I licked her pussy, and she hadn’t moved as though pleasure was utterly foreign to her.

Thoughts of Flare mindless, sweating, and crying out beneath the rhythmic thrusts of a lover caused my retinas to burn. Envious growls launched up my throat. My erection broadened, deepening to an angry reddish shade, and veins inflated from the skin.

A single word leaped to the forefront. Mine.