Page 54 of The Poison Princess and the Lord of Misrule

Heat floods my face, my chest, pooling low in my belly. “There still has to be blood,” I say, mortification washing through me. “On the sheets, I mean. Otherwise he’ll know, and he’ll be looking for that evidence that I hadn’t given myself to someone else.”

His jaw works. “I’m not going to take that from you,” he says, and I feel the war in him, the longing and theloathing braided into one. “As much as it kills me that he’ll be the one, I’ll leave you intact, Sera.” His hand slides from my face, down my throat, over the crimson silk, coming to rest at my hip. “On this, you have to trust me. Let me make your body want it before he lays a hand on you. Let me be the one who arouses you, so the pain is dulled and you’re wet and willing, and when he touches your body, it’s my touch your skin remembers.”

I can’t breathe.

I should say no, yet I’ve asked so much of him. And he’s vowed so much to me already, all of his trust—I have to give him mine in return.

“This is madness,” I say. It’s beyond reckless, the kind of treason that gets a man’s head taken from his shoulders.

But his eyes are on mine, dark and pleading and certain, and I think of the dwale in my bodice, ready to swallow any moment when Aldric comes for me, and I think of how much I would rather stay in my body—if only for these last few moments before the night takes me—and I think:

A blade does not weep.

But a blade can choose what it carries into the dark.

“Yes,” I whisper.

His breath leaves him in a rush of relief.

“Make my body remember you,” I say.

He kisses me then. Slow, this time. Devastatingly slow, like we have all the time in the world instead of stolen minutes. His mouth moves over mine with a tenderness that makes my eyes sting, and his hand at myhip begins to gather the crimson silk of my wedding gown, drawing it up by inches, his fingers grazing the bare skin of my thigh above my stocking.

He pulls back just enough to look at me as his hand stills at the edge of my skirt, his intense gaze holding mine, every line of his body taut with restraint.

And as his finger traces the seam at the joint of my thigh, a sound breaks low in his throat. He pushes the silk higher, bunching it at my waist, baring me to the cool air of the dark room, and his hand slides up the inside of my thigh with a reverence that makes me shiver.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he murmurs against my jaw. “One word, and I’ll stop.”

“Don’t stop,” I breathe.

His fingers find the edge of my undergarments, snatching a breath from my lungs before he eases them aside.

And Morrishan’s mercy, when he touches me—when his rough fingertips slide through the slick heat already gathered there—we both go still. His forehead drops to my shoulder. A shudder wracks his whole body, and the sound that tears out of him is half a groan, half wrecked.

“Gods, Sera,” he rasps, then swallows hard. “You’re already so wet for me, Princess.”

The endearment slips from his mouth on a reverent breath, and it tears at something in my chest. “I will always be your princess,” I say, never wanting to stop hearing him utter it the way he is right now as his fingersbegin to swirl over me, sparks of heat crackling through me.

“Mine,” he says, and his fingers move in slow, careful circles, learning me, his calloused fingertips gliding over the most sensitive part of me until my hips chase the sensation, until a soft, broken sound escapes my lips and I press the back of my hand to my mouth to silence it.

Ren kisses my throat, my jaw, the corner of my mouth, murmuring across my skin.

“That’s it, let me hear you, let me feel you.” He forces me to lower my hand, the whole while his fingers never cease touching, building with firmer pressure to make my back arch.

The pleasure builds in a molten tide, my thighs spreading wider for him, encouraging his quicker movements. “More,” I gasp.

And with a deep groan, he gives me more.

His finger slides inside me, measured and careful, and I tense at the unfamiliar stretch of it. He stills instantly, his mouth at my temple, as his thumb circles that aching tight place until the tension melts and my body opens around him. Then he moves—gentle, deep—working me open, his breath ragged against my hair.

“Fuck, that’s it, love,” he whispers, so wrecked I don’t even mind that he uses Aldric’s endearment for me. “Let me feel how well you can take it for me.”

He pulls out suddenly, the pressure and sensation gone. My eyes fly open to see him pushing hisglistening finger into his mouth, his eyes glazed with desire, and he groans, muttering a harsh oath before he’s pushing inside me again, working me open with two fingers, and mine are digging into his shoulders.

“Oh, goddess…”

A third finger joins the others, and I bite down on his shoulder to muffle my cry.