Page 23

CHAPTER 23

Korven

I had memorized the black lines of her tattoo two days into discovering it there, inked across her back so quietly. But the message was loud.

The message she left for me to never find was deafening and ringing in my ears as I sucked on her clit, driving a moan from her chest while she squeezed my cock in her hands.

I couldn’t get over it.

She’d marked herself with me and the memory of us sharing warm days as children meeting under a Goddessdamned tree.

How could a fleeting childhood friendship have marked her inside and out?

In the two days after she’d found the gown that was made for her, she hadn’t worn it again. It fell across a chair, discarded and lovely, but never across her body because her body had been across mine.

I grabbed her ass, filling my mouth with her as she rode my tongue. Her taste, her warmth, her skin and groans replaced any necessity of living in the last few days of hazy pleasure-fueled hours.

We lived and fucked and lived some more while fucking, and if I could, I’d have spent these days over and over again for a lifetime. Indulging. Luxuriating. Basking in the scent and sounds we made together that had never existed before.

Her hands stroked my dick, forever hard in this bed, always ready. She gripped me, gasping for breath after I slid two fingers into her and curled, finding that place that always made her body tremble.

I’d called her mine in this bed more times than I could count, and each time, I knew it wasn’t true. I couldn’t keep her.

Keeping her would mean I’d failed my sister and that was something else I couldn’t do.

Her hands were around my shaft, stroking before she lifted her body above my face, sliding her own fingers into her entrance, wetting them and then spreading her succulent heat across the head of my cock.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” I growled, not in question, but in the scorching disbelief of how affected I was at every fucking little thing she did.

I flipped her instantly, one of her stockinged legs pressed at my chest and over my shoulder, the other I held down, squeezing her thigh to the bed as my cock drove into her in the fucking she deserved for that move.

I nipped at her neck through her moans, willing to give up every thrust deep into her if it just meant her lips would return, and I could kiss her.

And there it was.

What I wanted most was to kiss Seraphine Dupont.

In my lust-fueled pounding, I admitted that I had half a mind to fly to the top tower of Castle Havenshire right then, find her body draped in that stupid fucking wedding gown, kiss her lips, and wake her the fuck up so she could really be mine.

It was more than wanting her body. I wanted to know all her ins and outs. Why she sometimes stumbled on her words. Why she studied me so quietly when she thought I didn’t notice. Why she was so Goddessdamned nice and wanted to continue making her jars of ointments instead of living richly as the Princess of Riche. Why she held onto the memory of us so hard, choosing to let us settle into her skin instead of moving on.

She could have moved on.

I didn’t doubt she could have taken any of those Forestfae to her bed.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they had lined up at her door.

But she’d chosen a quiet life.

I wanted to be a part of her quiet life.

Without a word, she pushed me over, sweeping her body in flawless movement to ride my cock her own way, taking the lead, taking what she wanted from me.

Her skin flushed across her chest as she leaned back, my dick hitting just where she liked. I circled her clit with my thumb and watched in fucking awe of this woman forced back into my life, and now I didn’t think I could let her go again.

Fuck leaving her a feather.

I pressed harder, enhancing her cries of release as she rode me wildly.

I’d leave her with more reasons to ink me across her skin.

I’d leave her knowing she meant something to me.

I’d leave her?

No.

With each passing hour, I knew I was beyond the point of leaving.