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The touch of his wicked, wonderful lips was simply too much for her.

Kate slid closer, opening her mouth to his, letting his tongue play with hers.

His tongue traced the softness of her mouth as he persuaded her with slow, drugging kisses, willing her to forget the world outside, to forget all but him.

She lingered in that moment, and when he rolled her onto her back beneath him, her legs opened around his hips, ready to experience heaven with him again.

She’d gone from having no understanding of her body or its desires, to the woman she was now, a creature who craved pleasure, who knew what true pleasure was.

“Mine,” Roan whispered fervently. “My little Kate.” He lifted her arms above her head, pinning her wrists together in the bedding with one of his hands. A moment later, he removed his hand from her wrists, but they were pinned in place now by some invisible force.

Then he eased his other hand down to his cock and guided himself into her. She moaned at the sore stretching of her body as he entered her, sinking so deep that their hips were pressed tight together. There was no end to her and no beginning to him. They were simply... one .

“The way you grip me... ” Roan growled like an animal, his blue eyes glowing like a summer sky even in the darkness. “It’s like you never want to let me go.”

Kate nodded desperately. It was true. She never wanted to feel unconnected to him.

Perhaps they could stay here forever in this bed, making love beneath the light of these cavern stars.

He withdrew and surged deep, making her cry out with pleasure.

Her arms strained against the invisible grip on her wrists.

Roan flashed her a wicked smile. “My pretty human pet,” he teased.

“I rather like you helpless beneath me. Perhaps I will keep your wrists bound to the bedposts in my room in the palace and spend all night and the next day bringing you to climax over and over.” He thrust deep again, driving his words home.

She submitted to his control, letting him fuck her.

Her body was his to tease, to torture with pleasure.

Yet even at his mercy like this, she felt safe.

Somehow, her body knew that he wouldn’t hurt her.

Kate shook with excitement as Roan took her.

In that moment, she could have vanished into the blue sky of his eyes.

It was both terrifying and exciting to let him take what he wanted of her, to submit, but it also made her feel desired.

.. cherished. He was tender and cruel at the same time.

His thrusts were hard, deep, almost punishing, but the look in his eyes, the way he focused on her every little reaction was intoxicating.

He seemed to only think of her and what he could give to her and how she was feeling.

The heady rush of that intimate connection was undeniable.

She would never trust anyone else the way she trusted this dark Fae king.

He sees me, all of me.

And yet he seemed to want her even more... and Kate felt the same about him. He had shared his dark and terrible secret, and she was unafraid of him. She understood him and why he had done what he had and didn’t judge him.

“Do you trust me, my little mortal?” Roan asked.

Kate nodded.

“Good.” He moved then, pulling out of her, and she wanted to weep at the empty feeling between her thighs. But Roan distracted her as her wrists were suddenly free from that invisible hold, and he urged her to sit up.

“Face the wall. Put your hands flat on it.” He nudged her to turn around and place her palms on the cave wall above the nest of pillows at the edge of Roan’s cavern bed.

She did as he commanded, and he knelt behind her, his hand sliding up her belly to cup her breast and lightly pinch her nipple.

“Ah!” She jerked at the tender peaks being tugged and played with and arched her back, her bottom pressing against his thighs. He chuckled low and rough.

“So little—I keep forgetting.” He pushed more pillows up beneath her knees, which raised her height so that her bottom nestled against his groin.

“Oh yes, that’s it,” he growled as one of his hands parted her ass cheeks and slid down to stroke the opening of her sex from behind with questing fingertips. She wriggled when he penetrated her with his fingers, playfully spreading the wetness of her arousal more fully around her opening.

“I’m going to take you just like this, little pet. You will thank me for your pleasure when you come. Understand?” He gave her bottom a light smack. The order created a rush of fresh wetness between her legs, and her body quaked with the need to come. She nodded eagerly.

“Roan... oh please...”

“See how pretty you sound when you beg?” Roan gripped her hair in his fist, tugging her head back so she could see his cold, beautiful eyes burn like winter fire.

She whimpered, writhing against the hand that still teased her down below.

One fingertip swept over her clit, causing her to jerk toward him and away from him each time he brushed it.

“Beg me to take you, Kate. I want to hear the words come from your lips.” Roan’s voice had become guttural, primal, promising dark, delicious things.

Kate rubbed her bottom against his hard cock. She couldn’t say the words; it would make her weak, give him too much power when he already owned so much of her.

“ Beg me , little one.” Roan’s demand sent shivers through her as he eased his cock inside her once more. He sank in a few inches, promising to give her what she wanted before he withdrew and then teased again.

Kate wanted to scream at being denied the bliss that hovered on the horizon.

The hand on her hip slid up to tease her breasts once more, and his warm breath tickled the back of her neck.

Then he thrust in hard and deep, sinking in so hard that his balls smacked Kate’s bottom, and she moaned in utter bliss at the stretching sensation from this new angle.

He moved in and out, slowly, sensually, just enough to keep her hovering on the edge of where she wanted to be.

She closed her eyes, enjoying each little sensation.

But she needed more. She thrust her bottom back against him harder, chasing the orgasm she so desperately wanted.

Kate cursed out loud when she couldn’t get what she wanted—and what she wanted was him, fucking her wildly, taking control. She wanted to give her trust to him in the most intimate way possible.

Choose him... ask him... trust him.

Panting breaths escaping her lips. She felt the rough scrape of Roan’s fingertips on her skin, felt him deep inside her, filling her. Her inner walls clenched around his cock, trying to hold him inside her. All around them, the glowworms made their shadows dance on the cavern walls.

Was it truly surrender if it was what she wanted? Giving herself to him was her choice. She saw that now. Surrendering to his seduction was her power move, not his.

“Fuck me, Roan, please,” she gasped. “I want to be yours.”

* * *

Roan felt the instant something changed between him and the little mortal.

The wall that existed around her, the barrier that kept him out of her head unless he was kissing her, crumbled away.

He could see every memory, every triumph, every failure, every moment where she’d thought she was all alone in the world and soldiered on in the face of that loneliness.

Then he saw the child, Caden, the child she’d once wanted to hate, the child who’d stolen her place in her father’s heart.

Yet Kate could only love the boy, despite Caden being the wedge that had driven her and her father further apart.

The one thing Kate couldn’t see but Roan could was that the child adored her in equal measure.

The boy’s love for her was there in every memory, but Kate had missed the clues, her heart too broken by the years of her stepmother’s belittling and her father’s cold distance.

Roan delved deeper into her memories, pulling out the ones that filled him with rage, memories no one should have. He would take them all, keep them away from his precious Kate.

I will guard you, even against yourself, he vowed.

The crystal that hung around his neck shone bright with the memories he had taken. Memories that would free Kate from the pain of her past.

“Roan... I feel... strange ,” Kate said.

He held her tight as he made love to her, distracting her from what he had done.

She turned her head to the side, and he kissed her neck hungrily, as she dug her nails into the cave walls.

He took her harder, driving so hard that she screamed with pleasure, and the sound was muffled by his kiss and the sound of his hips smacking into her bottom.

“Oh... my... God...” Kate groaned as he continued to pump into her before his body seized with the rush of his own climax.

He pressed deep into her, emptying himself into her.

His breath escaped in a harsh gasp as he grew dizzy with pleasure.

Taking her like this had been so intense that he didn’t feel like himself at that moment.

He felt like he had been separated from his body as he basked in the heat that flooded his chest and made him want to hold her close to him and never let her go.

If she’d asked for his kingdom right then, he would have handed it to her and a dozen stars from the sky along with it.

As he breathed hard against her neck, sweat dewed on his body. Still deep inside her, his body relaxed as he let the pleasure of holding his sweet prisoner soothe his possessive spirit.

Why did she affect him like this? Pleasure such as this had always been enjoyable... but this was so much more . That elusive peace he’d felt, that he’d been chasing since he’d first met Kate and she’d cared for him, was finally within reach.

Holding her in his arms, comforting her, pleasuring her, giving himself to her and telling her about his past had somehow given him a sliver of that blissful peace he’d craved.

But he also felt alive, right down to the last fiber of his being. Making love to Kate had electrified him, and that feeling of excitement didn’t fade. It lingered like the scent of spring flowers as twilight descended on the royal gardens after the rain.

“Thank you.” Kate kissed his cheek, then the crown of his hair.

She had remembered to thank him for the pleasure he had given her, as he had commanded.

Yet it wasn’t the worshipping whisper of a mortal woman craving his desires.

No... this was different. Kate’s thanking him was sweet, full of tender affection and something deeper than he ever could have imagined he’d hear from a lover.

He gently pulled out of her body, hating to disconnect himself from her. He wanted to press his lips all over her skin, to taste every part of her. Roan wanted to imprint in his mind the memory of her just as she was at this moment forever. Sweet, vulnerable, yet brave enough to trust him.

A voice whispered in the back of his mind that he was not worthy of her, that he was a selfish creature, like all Fae, but he didn’t want to face that truth.

“Sleep, my little Kate,” he urged. He caught her up in his arms and settled her gently on the bed that he had made in the Crystal Cave and held her close, more covetous than any dragon with his gold.

She was his now. All that he had to do was keep her away from the center of the labyrinth for a few more weeks. The labyrinth itself would do most of the work, leading her down false trails, but he also planned to use his seductions as a way to keep her distracted.

And then... then she would be his. Forever .