He chuckles helplessly. I can’t stop the wistful thought of what this might have been like if we had had the luxury of falling in love without The Snow Queen’s interference. If this is all we’ll ever have, we’d better make the most of it.
There’s a beat of held breath when he withdraws. Instantly, the ache comes back, only to be chased away again when he thrusts forward. I let my knees fall open, clutching the back of his sweat-slick neck.
“You’re so hot, Gwen. Burning. I can hardly bear it, but I can’t stop.” He picks up speed, his buttocks clenching.
“You’re cold,” I inform him through gritted teeth. He’s also hard, and wide, and he drives so deep that I feel like he must be rearranging my anatomy. I don’t dislike it. There’s pleasure in the kiss of pain, a rising tide of need with each controlled movement.
I want to break his control. I want him wild.
“Unbearable?” he grunts. “Should I stop?”
I nip his earlobe and lock my ankles around the backs of his thighs. “I will personally dunk you in the Queen’s ice lake if you do.”
He laughs and kisses me.
From there, things turn fun and lighthearted in a way I haven’t been since the days when my romantic fantasies were nothing more than thoughts of leaning forward to peck his lips when Kai was smiling at me on a sunny afternoon. He mutters a litany of sweet and filthy thoughts against my temple.
I always wanted you. I refused to make promises I knew I couldn’t keep, but I desired you for so long.
His confessions are a balm to my wounded soul. I’ll never have to wonder again whether he would have welcomed my advances. I only have to live with the regret that we didn’t act on love while we still could.
While I understand my grandmother’s warnings about falling for a prince I could never truly have, there remains an untamed part of me that thinks it will always be worth the risk to be with Kai. Even as children, I knew he was my one and only love, for better or for worse—and gods know there’s little good that could come from us being together like this.
But it’s worth it.
So very worth it to feel myself coil around him, taking each increasingly forceful thrust with joy that comes out of me in moans and scratches on his broad shoulders. I move my hands down to his flexing buttocks and feel the motion that way. Feel him moving on me and inside me, tensing around him as he comes unraveled.
“Fuck, Gwen,” he grits out. It’s enough to send me spiraling into oblivion, stars shooting across my field of vision as the room around us disappears. I sob my release into the crook of hisneck as his control snaps. He thrusts so hard and deep that the aftershocks of my pleasure pulse deep inside my abdomen, then collapses on top of me like an unstrung bow.
Chapter 18
I awakenwith a clattering of teeth and find the fire dead. I’m wrapped in my cloak with Kai curled around my back, but his lanky body offers no warmth. His blindfold has fallen off, and I’m not surprised when the first words out of his mouth are cruel ones.
They cut anyway.
“Your hair is a frightful nest.” He sits up.
“You should see yours,” I answer tartly. The prince remains naked, and I’m intrigued by the sight of his cock nestled between his muscular thighs.
“Gwen.”
“Kai.” I prop my chin on my hand.
“Get dressed.”
I sigh. Back to the dreary business of trying to save ourselves.
“Eat.” I shove a piece of bread at him, one I brought to go with my stew last night. He tests it with his teeth and grimaces.
“It’s as hard as a rock,” he complains. Wordlessly, I snatch it from him, cut off a corner of equally stone-hard butter from my stores and crush it onto the bread.
“This should help counteract the witch’s ice magic. Try it.” Grumpily, he gnaws on it while I finish dressing. Once he, too,gets his clothes on, we venture out into the palace and are immediately met with the sound of snow bees. “I truly despise that buzzing sound.”
Kai rakes his hair back into a knot. “You get used to it.”
“Are you okay?” It hardly seems possible for him to be paler, but his pallor has deepened. He looks like he’s going to be sick.
“The bread isn’t sitting well.”
