Page 82 of Pawn of the Cruel Princess

My skin prickles with panic, but there’s excitement blended with the fear, and a thrilling arousal surging in my lower belly. I have never felt so alive.

“I’m done letting you believe you can best me,” he hisses. “Yes, I thought you might have murdered three people, and I saidnothingabout my suspicion to anyone. I helped you win back the nobles’ goodwill with those games of dice. I made you come on my hand and on my tongue, because I don’tcarewhat you’ve done, Ruelle. It doesn’t matter, because—”

His face wrenches with emotion, and he looks away. I take the opportunity to reach up and claw my nails down his cheek.

With a growl of pain, he releases my throat, catches both my wrists, and pins them against the pillar. “Stop, Ruelle.”

I try to get my knee up to strike his groin, but he presses in tighter, grinding his body against mine. He’s hard under his pants. The fresh-grass, rain-washed scent of him swirls around me, a blessed fragrance in the musty space. I breathe him in, almost without thinking.

“I will keep pretending to be your dutiful thrall.” His mouth is a breath from mine. “But only if you admit privately to me that I am your equal in every way that matters.”

“You’re a prisoner of war. An enemy.” I buck my hips against his. “And even as a Captain, you were never my equal.”

He growls with frustration. “Bitch.”

“Bastard,” I snap.

He’s glaring at me. I twist, trying to jerk my wrists free, but his grip is immovable.

“By all means, keep writhing,” he whispers. “It feels delightful.”

“Why even pretend to be submissive to me? Why not fight me from the beginning, every step of the way?”

“Because I liked you from the moment I saw you bleeding and grinning under your sister’s fists, you little devil.” His lips skate against mine, a tantalizing brush. “I pitied you at first, and then I began tocare.”

My heart is a moth, fluttering wild, wings catching a spark, roaring into flame.

He takes both my wrists and crushes them into a one-handed grip over my head.

He’s tearing open the buttons of his pants.

“And now, Princess,” he says, in a voice low and threatening as thunder— “I’m going to fuck you, unless you tell me to stop.”

My whole body is vibrating, pulsing, aching for him.

I liked you.

I began to care.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done.

Ducayne throws me face-down onto his shredded cloak. He drags off my boots, my pants, and my underwear while I kick at him. Then he flips me onto my back and circles my throat with his hand again, drawing me up onto my knees.

I don’t protest, because I need this. Not the careful, gentle touches—though I’m less scared of those now—but Ineedthe sheer power of him, the raw dominance. I need the fight, the violence. There’s a gnarled, deep-seated reason for the craving, but right now I don’t care to dissect it. I justwant.

“I’m still going to make you pleasure other people,” I hiss at him.

His grip tightens, and he groans, deep in his chest. “I can do that as long as I get to be inside you—gods,inside you, Ruelle—” He lets go of me, opens his pants, and pulls his cock out. It’s weeping his arousal already.

I want it in my hand.

I grab it, wrap my fingers around it like a knife-hilt.

With him, I never feel overshadowed or worthless. He cared about me, pleasured me, even when he thought I killed three people. Now that I’m over the shock of it, I can see there’s a sweetness in that—a dark devotion I hadn’t thought him capable of. Maybe he isn’t as “good” as I thought.

I pop his cock head into my mouth.

He tastes amazing. Warm, salty, sweet. Masculine. Humming my delight, I sink him deeper.