“It’s too late, I’ve heard it—“
Sam kissed her before she could utter another word, and when he did, his heart fled. Both arms wrapped her waist, her hands running behind his neck, and he hugged her tight. Their laughter settled into a quiet stillness. He pulled back, his thumb brushing softly over her cheek, and soon, he couldn’t move or look away from her emerald gaze.
Shit, she was beautiful.
“Can you stand yet?”
She nodded, and he let her go slowly, watching her steady herself by holding to the stool near them. When he was satisfied she was okay, he began adjusting his pants and buckling his belt. Ana shuffled her skirt down and reached for a paper towel, but Sam grabbed her wrist before she could.
“Oh, no, you’re not cleaning up,” he said, and Ana’s brows narrowed. “You’re going to walk around the rest of this museum with my cum leaking out of that pretty fucking pussy.”
“So possessive,” she teased.
Sam’s brow heightened as he paused in buckling his belt. “Baby, you have no idea.” He hovered over her and reached between her thighs, feeling the stick already threatening to spill down, and he smiled as he brought his covered thumb to her mouth, where he dragged the pad over her bottom lip. “Taste us,” he said. “Tell me what you think.”
Her tongue ran over her lip, and she smiled up at him. “Divine darkness,” she answered.
His mouth flinched upwards. “Perfect.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FOR THREE WEEKS, Ana barely made any progress in her duty trying to find out more about the Shadowmyer king. She would wake, go to work, have lunch with Jay, and by the time she was done at the gallery, Sam was usually waiting for her out front of her apartment. For the first week, she’d found herself either on her knees or bent over some piece of furniture every afternoon. During the second and third week, they’d slowed down jumping each other every second and sometimes merely watched television together on the couch or went out for a walk.
But every night, between 2am and 3am, Sam left her bed to go to work.
And in the hours she had on her own, she would take a nap, or then roll out her notebooks on the table and open her computer.
Shadowmyer didn’t have online records as the other kingdoms did. They didn’t even have an active military. There were no departments for her to look through for information. Only a small council that the king allowed the people to choose every few years. But from what she could see, even their emails didn’t have any valuable information in them. More than once, Ana had wanted to throw her computer out of the window. She’d hacked into the council feed once when the king had joined them for a meeting, but it was unimportant to her mission, and their elusive leader had cloaked himself in shadows.
She hadn’t even been able to find any dirty little secrets on any of the council members.
Soboring.
No affairs. No secret escorts. No pedophiles or trafficking circles.
They were absolutely clean.
The only thing she’d found of interest was the secret email of one, his last name Rogers, that had been communicating with someone Ana knew to be inside Firemoor. She thought that was interesting, but only made a note of it to continue monitoring in case her own name came up between them.
She’d not been able to tail any of them yet due to her afternoons being… occupied. But she did have a few that she followed with their phone pings. None ever went to Castle Corvus, and Ana soon realized none of them knew who their king was either.
So Ana resorted to sticking closer to the one who was actually friends with the only person allowed in that damned castle.
Not that she was complaining.
She’d tried to sneak out and follow Sam onto the cemetery grounds a few times, but she hadn’t been able to see anything for the rain coming down.
It rained so much there. She wasn’t used to it. Firemoor had been disgustingly hot and humid and she’d hated the way her hair reacted to it. Ironmyer was a little drier, though still felt like the stanching armpit of a deathhound. Windmoor’s southern seas were breezy and dry, nearly too breezy for her liking. Icemyer was practically a cold wasteland. And The Spine… the Spine was pretty mild. Of the five territories, that was the one she’d been most comfortable in as far as weather, but their king… he’d been an old grumpy asshole that liked to watch her rather than touch her—which she hadn’t complained about. Not one bit.
Ana straightened her dress as she sat outside the Hand of the King’s office at SkyCor. She’d made the appointment a week earlier after chatting with Jay again about securing some of the art pieces to sell. It was her backup plan for getting into the castle if this Sam thing didn’t work out.
Jay had told her she’d likely get one of the Hand’s assistants or interns, but not the Hand herself.
“There’s no way you’re getting in to see her. She’s exclusive to the King. Rather wild, honestly. You’ve probably seen her riding her bike up to the castle. It wakes me up every morning. She’s intimidating as fuck, too. If you see her in the street, you don’t talk to her,” Jay had told her. “There’s a rumor that she can kill you with a wink.”
Ana rolled her eyes. “Exaggerations of witches,” she replied before biting down on a crispy fry. “I’ll get in to see her.”
“I love how confident you are,” he teased. “Something tells me you’ve worked royals before.”
