Page 55 of Disillusioned (A Lay of Ruinous Reign #2)

Garin would stop now, while he was ahead. She was about to meet the emissary. She and her parents would meet Albrecht and hear of Maximilian’s offer, he’d carefully arranged the pieces to align. Lilac would soon be the emperor’s wife.

The emperor’s wife. The thought took his breath away.

He had done away with those concerns days ago, when the whisperings of French scouts and the path to bolster her armies had become clear; he had thrown Lorietta’s little book into the Argent and watched several pairs of white-green hands fight over it before dragging it down.

Nothing legitimate could ever occur between them that would benefit her—not with the current threat presiding over her.

He had decided this firmly in the nights he’d spent by her bedside as she clung to life at the inn. He should have known it from the start.

Garin was capable of making the right choice. He would stand, clean her off, and escort her out of the brothel. He would?—

Lilac cleared her throat, yanking him from his foolish daydream. The woman who looked up at him was no emperor's wife. No forlorn bride, no damsel.

She was his, within and without.

Her hungry gaze raked over him, from his face to his trousers as she trailed her hand beyond her skirts and ran two fingers through the residual blood left on her thigh. She then brought her hand to her center, smearing the red there through her wetness.

Garin watched, horrified, the thump of her heart drowning out every other sound, quieting the world for him as it had since they’d met. The queen then rose in her seat and brought those fingers covered in her wetness and blood to his mouth.

He felt like running through a wall.

He loosened his grip, his cock straining against his pants as he bent and brought his mouth to her.

Garin lashed at her clit with his tongue, exploring, gently pacing her until her knees began to shake under direct pressure.

Not lapping at her like a greedy animal took tremendous effort. It didn’t her take long at all.

Her body clenched under his grasp. “ Garin .”

Lilac gripped at the seat too clumsily to find purchase, and Garin slowed but did not remove his mouth from her as he coaxed his first two fingers in. She opened up for him beautifully, so warm and tight as her head fell back onto the frame, hips rocking into him.

She was his Lilith, his deity to revere and resent.

Garin was a mere man spelled by her luminosity and struck down by her lightning.

Try as he did, he had not been able to think about anything, anyone else but his servitude to her these last few days.

He’d forced himself to sleep, or at least laid with his eyes forcefully shut in an attempt to quell the hunger ravaging his insides.

And even then, there in the darkness, Lilac’s haunting, sweet face never left him.

And when he did sleep, in the fragments of his dreams, Garin didn’t think of reaching for his trousers before ensuring she’d finished thrice on his tongue and twice more on his hand.

Lilac gripped the settee cushion and her other hand wrapped into his dark curls again, gentler this time. She whimpered as he stretched her slowly, changing the quick flicks of his tongue to broad, flat strokes up the length of her dripping warmth as he curled his fingers inside her.

If her blood tasted of sunlight, her pussy was the dancing darkness that beckoned him back, reminding him that he was still a man of chivalry but a Daemon in need first, and fuck , how he’d missed the sound of Lilac panting his name as if she could not bear to keep it to herself.

They’d had to keep quiet in his room at his farmhouse, but tonight, he didn’t care who knew it was him making her come.

She began to tremble again, but instead of pulling his head against her, Lilac pushed at him. With restraint, he pulled back. The notes of pleasant amber and vanilla floated above the natural scent of her skin.

“Get up,” was all she said.

He did as he was told. She quickly pulled off his belt, and as she shifted his trousers down he wondered, followed by an instant stab of guilt, how many times Lilac had done something like this.

She was free to do as she pleased. He hadn’t asked her before, and it did not occur to him when they’d first made love.

It certainly didn’t matter now; it was a mere carnal question, fleeting, one of selfish greed that yearned to belong to her.

One that merely wanted to ensure all the hands and mouths who’d ever worshiped her had feared and cherished her, just as much as he.

He chuckled darkly to himself. Of course, they hadn’t.

“Garin?” Her voice was husky.

The sound of his name broke his reverie and caused him to look down in answer, just before she took his length in her palm.

“What are you thinking of?” Lilac glanced up at him as she stroked him, just as she had on their first night together.

He exhaled, recalling how difficult it had been not to tilt her head back and coax himself past her lips then.

He wouldn’t do that now, but he also wouldn’t stop her.

Tonight, Garin would do exactly as she wanted .

“You,” he finally said. It was all he could say after everything he’d accidentally just confessed to her. It is always you.

She laughed, a whimsical sound, just before she slid to the floor. He twitched in her hand as her warm tongue met the tip of his cock, coaxing her thumb against his sensitive underside. She locked eyes with him and ran her mouth down his shaft.

Garin let out a strangled sound and stumbled back as she took more than half of him into her mouth.

He felt her throat constrict around him; it had been a few years since he’d been with a woman this way, but that wasn’t anything close to whatever spell the queen had him under.

She didn’t even look up when he grasped the mantle to keep them from falling into the hearth.

With his cock in her mouth, she didn’t seem to notice, only following him on her knees as he shifted them to safety against the wall to the right of the fireplace.

Not knowing what to do with himself, Garin reached down to collect the strands of her hair. It was everywhere, escaping her braids in loose waves; eventually, he gathered all of it in his left hand.

“Tighter,” she removed herself to say, then bobbed down on him again.

Garin flexed his fingers, and she reacted almost immediately to the sensation at her scalp, moaning. The sound vibrated around his shaft as she started to suck him deeply, with her mouth and her fist enclosed around the rest of him.

“ Fuck .” Once he found her encouraging him to control the movement of her head, he knew he wouldn’t last long. He felt himself losing control, and it was a battle he’d willingly lose.

She rocked back to look up at him. Her face was reddened, and she laughed as she wiped her lips and chin, so gloriously messy. Her eyes flashed with such a hungry mirth, Garin wanted nothing more than to drop to his own knees and beg to be the one who worshiped her at the altar.

Gods . Modron made him just for her.

“Not yet,” she said, and moved to stand.

He kissed her on her way up, his lips meeting hers fervently, aching to be in constant contact with her. He needed her, but this—this was so wrong. She’d soon be crowned. Married. He had done all in his power to urge her along that path of destiny.

Lilac nipped softly at his bottom lip and giggled into his mouth. This woman was single-handedly beating her own destiny back with a stick. Or perhaps a dagger.

She was the beginning and end of his demise.

“I need to feel you.” She tugged him by his shirt off the wall.

She continued their kiss and pivoted him, guided him until the backs of his knees hit the settee.

Then, she shoved him. There was none of that unusual strength there from the other early morning, Garin noted, distantly pleased.

But he played along and sat back for her.

She was already slipping her dress off, looking entirely ethereal and soft, framed by the firelight.

He watched, mesmerized, and thought about how her curves and divots felt beneath his palms, the way her romantic waves of hair brushed her shoulder blades.

How soft her skin felt beneath his fingers calloused by time and the blade.

Garin leaned back, smiling appreciatively as she glimpsed him with his cock in his hands. Lilac pivoted to the flames, as if undressing for him still daunted her.

Finally, he thought. A healthy dose of fear.

He scooted aside to make room as she approached him, eager to feel her quaking under him again. But Lilac just leaned over him, lifting one leg, then the other. Straddling him.

She positioned herself in his lap, her dripping cunt bare and rubbing against him. Garin reached up, tenderly cupping and planting kisses upon her breasts as she leaned into him. He braced himself.

Out of nowhere, the amplified scent of her blood hit him again.

Garin grabbed her by the shoulders and sat up. He felt his pupils dilate before he even processed what she had done. Lilac sat back, red dripping onto her bare stomach, down past her navel, pooling between their thighs.

“Shit,” he heard her mumble, though he could only focus on the blood running down her torso, a surge of ecstasy and vile hunger rattling his soul.

She dropped the scalpel he’d thought had been lost to the floor and brought her bleeding wrist toward his mouth, unknowing of what she’d just done. Some of it dripped onto his white tunic, spreading in blotches of burgundy on his shoulder. “ Whoops .”

“Lilac,” Garin sputtered, catching her arm in his shaking fingers. He couldn't even get a full sentence out without her temptation invading his nostrils, the hunger ramming him like an ox. He held his breath, only to learn it didn’t matter.