Page 27 of Cruel Tides (Queen of Tridents #2)

27

Claira

L eander flipped me over, and as soon as my back touched the bedroll, his face was burrowed into the curve of my neck.

“I wasn’t finished,” I huffed, but he started peppering kisses down the scoop of my tank top, the urgency in his movements letting me know just how much he didn’t care. He eased back with a chuckle and shushed me with the point of his finger.

A little taste of my own medicine. Cute.

His lips were already swollen from countless kisses, and dammit—their shine set off his hair, making him more blindingly gorgeous than usual. Freaking mermen . The golden flecks in his eyes lit with excitement as he went for the top of my jeans.

Grunting out his impatience, he pulled on the zipper, yanking it in the wrong direction. “Don’t—don’t rip them,” I whispered, fighting the urge to shoo his hands away. “I just got this pair this morning.”

“Then how about giving me a hand?”

He wanted me to do it?

A sly smirk played over his lips as I slowly slid a hand to my zipper. He took my hesitation as an opportunity, brushing light kisses down the inside of my elbow as I worked the zipper. Would he ever grow tired of kissing me?

“Thanks, beautiful.”

Beautiful? A flush of heat spread across my face. That wasn’t an endearment I was accustomed to hearing. Especially not from someone as gorgeous as him.

Leander’s eyes turned down to my stomach, and I squirmed underneath him, feeling suddenly embarrassed. Seeing him exposed in all his golden perfection was one thing, but him seeing me? The thought made my belly tumble and twist under the weight of his gaze.

Swallowing down my nerves, I slid my pants down over my hips. Leander’s clear eyes flashed with wonder, and he stood straight up on the bed.

“What are you doing?” I asked, gawking up at him. It was amazing how tall he looked, his body literally towering over me.

“I thought we were discarding our pants?” he said plainly, and his pants dropped straight to his ankles.

Well, okay then .

His cock bounced in the air above me, and I swallowed hard, wiggling my jeans the rest of the way off. He snatched my pants up with his, and I muffled a laugh as he wrapped them both into one giant wad and flung it at the back of the shower curtain door. “I don’t think that’s how humans usually do that.”

I mean, it wasn’t sexy, but it worked.

The plastic curtain was still rustling as he settled back on top of me, and warm hands came around the uncovered skin of my hips, his fingertips kneading over my flesh like he was studying human legs for the very first time.

A low hum deepened his voice. “No?” Even in darkness, his eyes were as intense as his father’s. The way the golden flecks smoldered and spun with emotion had me totally mesmerized. His chin turned down, and it took a second for me to snap out of their spell. “What is this?”

I followed his eyes down to my pink panties, and the blush sitting over my cheeks flared into an inferno. They weren’t fancy—just a solid cotton pair—but they were the only layer left between us.

“They’re, um, my underwear,” I said, wondering if I should turn this into a teaching moment. “Humans are supposed to wear them.”

“Underwear,” he repeated, a curiosity lighting in his eyes. His chin lowered as if he were inspecting them, the movement sending golden waves of hair bouncing in front of me. Focusing on a rebellious little cowlick I’d never noticed before, I reached for his hair just as a finger swiped over the middle seam of my panties. An unexpected jolt shocked through me at the touch, and I let out a tiny yip of surprise.

“Oh, really?” he murmured, his voice going smoother than velvet. A light finger brushed over me again, and I sucked down a breath, my hands fisting into the sides of the bedroll.

Looking satisfied with my reaction, he leaned down to press his mouth to my stomach. Eyes observing mine, his finger drew lines over the thin fabric until he’d worked another gasp from my throat.

“Mmm, I like this underwear,” he chuckled, his fingers finally moving away. My panties ripped apart in two quick snaps—one side of the waistband, then the other. “I think I’ll keep it.”

“Why did you—?” I gasped, but my outrage all but faded as cloth slid across the nerves he’d just awakened, his hand yanking my panties off me in one quick jerk. He shot me a roguish look and stuffed them into the front of his shirt.

“Are you denying your prince his prize?”

My cheeks puffed. With the way he kept teasing me, it was growing harder to keep to a whisper by the second. “You’re not my prince,” I grumbled, letting go of the bedroll to fold my arms over my chest. “I just got those this morning, you ass.”

“Not your prince yet ,” he corrected, and his wide hands shifted back to my thighs. “But soon. You’ll see.”

I opened my mouth to tell him how that would never happen when the corded muscles in his shoulders flexed, his powerful hands parting my thighs, opening them wide to the ceiling.

“Tell me,” he murmured, all the playfulness in his voice sobering. “Tell me what I need to do to make you feel what I just felt.”

The sincerity in his eyes left me nearly breathless, and I licked my lips, remembering how wonderfully thrilling taking his length into my mouth had felt. “I, uh, I don’t really…”

This was all so new to me. I’d attempted things with him I’d never done for anyone else before, and yet he was asking me what he should do?

Careful not to break the connection of our eyes, Leander’s head slowly dipped, making me wonder if he finally noticed how deep my blush had grown.

“Tell me,” he repeated, his breath lighting my skin. Wetting his lips, he pressed a gentle kiss to my inner thigh, just light enough to tickle.

My legs closed on instinct, but he spread them wide, his lips working their way down to my center. The steady pressure of him holding me open made my blush ignite like wildfire, and I fought back a groan, feeling more of my sanity break away every time his lips slipped closer to where I wanted to feel them the most. “Is this what I need to do to give you pleasure like you gave to me?”

“Leander—” I whimpered as his mouth ventured close enough for the edge of his jaw to tease at my center, showering the smooth skin of my thigh with kiss after kiss, each press of his lips more heated than the one before it. “Please, I just—”

I tried to help him. To tell him where I needed him to go next with an insistent nudge of my hips, but he pulled back, his mouth moving to the opposite leg.

I let out a little whine of frustration, and his chest rumbled with dark amusement.

“Not yet,” he chuckled, his lips and tongue toying with the ticklish spot under my knee. Lust had soaked his voice into something deep and wicked, intense enough to send another rush of heat straight between my legs.

The next row of kisses was torture, but he took his time caressing me, savoring every inch. By the time his mouth reached my core, I was nearly delirious.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he whispered, his head sinking lower. His lips brushed against my folds, and I keened, my hips rising against the weight of his palms, seeking the same delicious pressure he’d given when he’d labored over the insides of my thighs.

My reaction sent a growl rumbling through him, and the vibrations drove me closer to delirium.

Now that he’d teased every inch of me, my body demanded more—so, so much more. “ Please, Lee. Just… touch me.”

“Anything for you.”

Leander’s lips parted, and I almost wept as his tongue slashed a broad stroke over my folds. It swept across me again, and I fisted his hair like it would somehow keep me from falling off the earth.

My spine flexed into an arch as a game unfolded, his lips and tongue chasing little noises from my throat until my whining grew loud enough that I had to slap a hand over my mouth.

There were other merfolk around us—not even a yard away. How could they not know what we were doing? Oh, they knew. They had to.

That thought only heightened my awareness, and I finally let a moan escape.

Leander growled like he was answering my call, and suddenly my hips jumped as his arms hoisted them into the air. His tongue teased me, tracing slow, deliberate circles. The ones he’d discovered would bring about the hardest moans to contain, but did he know how close he was driving me to the edge?

His lips closed around the bundle of nerves he’d discovered that I liked him touching most of all, a light pressure drawing it into the warmth of his mouth, and I hurtled over the summit, sucked deep into a whirlpool of pleasure.

Wave after wave crashed over me as my head rolled back on Leander’s lumpy pillow, a fine mist hazing my eyes. Toes curling, I used the fist in his hair to hold his lips firmly against me as I rode out my pleasure. He waited until my spine finally crumbled, my muscle spasms dying down from my release, before he returned my hips to the bedroll.

“Claira,” he murmured, his lips pressing one last kiss against my thigh. I responded with a whimper, the aftershocks still rolling through me. “I want you to know that was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Ha, right,” I panted, desperate for breath. I pulled my legs together and jerked again, surprised at how oversensitive I was.

“I’m serious,” he said, his voice turning husky. I looked up to see his wide hand stroking the underside of his cock.

“I can see that,” I breathed out, my heartbeat quickening as I watched him pleasure himself.

A shiny bead of liquid collected at the very tip, and I stared at it curiously. Leaning forward, I licked the drop right from the source, surprising him enough that his hand stopped stroking. My lips twisted into a grin as I rolled the drop over my tongue, tasting it.

Now that I’d come, it was his turn again. Surely he wouldn’t protest now, would he?

I reached for his cock, but he was already moving back between my legs, his sandy eyebrows pinched in concentration. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered, leaning in close enough for his hand to swipe the tip of his cock through my overly sensitive folds. “Do you want to feel me inside you?”

Holy—

His weight shifted, sending me reclining back onto the bedroll, and his hand moved to brace himself up beside me.

“I—I do. Please , Lee,” I whispered, wanting nothing more than to feel his body on top of me, holding me close.

His eyes closed as he claimed my lips with his own, and my mind muddled as the head of his cock dipped inside me. I wound my arms around his neck as the pressure intensified, our tongues melding together as his hips rocked forward.

A jolt of pain twinged inside of me, and I bristled back.

It was too much, too soon. His cock was spreading me so wide already. How could I possibly — ?

He thrust forward, muffling my pained cry by hardening his lips, his hand coming up to cradle my chin. The pain left as quickly as it came, but he waited until my whimper had died down before slowly rocking forward again.

The gentle rolling turned into thrusting as we panted into each other’s mouths. Pleasure was building again, and fuck, I was ready. He must have sensed it too, because the caress of his tongue retreated, breaking the seal of our lips with a wet pop. “That’s my girl,” he groaned, fisting a handful of my hair. “You feel so fucking good.”

The muscles in his neck strained as he straightened his spine, his thrusts coming faster. Harder. More urgent.

His hand brought one of my legs up, changing our angles, and the head of his cock speared a particularly sensitive spot with a force I wasn’t ready for.

“Fuuuuck,” I gasped, and his face steeled with determination. He focused in on that angle, his cock quickly learning exactly where to grind against to get me cursing for him again.

“I’m close,” he groaned, his hold on my leg tightening.

But I was close, too. So, so close.

His body lurched forward, his cock seating deeper in me than any thrust had before it, and I dived right over the edge with a strangled gasp.

My center closed around him, tightening in rhythm with every pleasurable spasm. Leander’s eyes went glassy with a grunt, his dick swelling inside of me. He held himself deep as his cock pulsed out his release.

A silence came over us as we rode out every last drop of pleasure. Then Leander’s chest heaved, and he collapsed next to me, his arms wrapping around me in an embrace.

Sweat shone on his forehead, his hair a wild, golden mess, and yet he still looked completely perfect.

I kissed the tip of his pretty boy cheek and nuzzled my head underneath his chin as his arms drew around me tighter.

“Lee, that was—”

The shower curtain rustled, and both of us jerked. Three quick taps sounded on one of the poles holding up the partition.

“Your Highness,” a soft voice called. Sickeningly sweet. Calculating.

Aleena .

“I was hoping we could have a chat. May I come in?”

Leander’s jaw clenched as he lifted his head. His mouth started to open, but I pressed a finger to his lips.

“Occupied,” I called aloud, not even bothering to hide how breathless I was. One of Leander’s eyebrows rose, his lips quirking into a lopsided grin as his head shook with amusement.

“She’s going to murder you,” he mouthed, and I gave him a shrug.

Oh, he had no idea. But let her try it. As long as I was around, I’d never let Aleena get her claws into him again.

I dropped my finger and pulled him into another kiss.

Mine.