Mine.
When she laughed, she clenched around me. It was all I could do to keep from moaning.
“I think you’re lying.”
“You’ll never know, now, will you?”
She pinched my feckin’ arm.
“Easy now, human.”
Aveen didn’t seem the least bit fazed by my scowl. She laughed in my face, raking her short nails down my skin. Finding the scar the Queen had left. “What’s this?” When her finger grazed the corner of the “X,” I caught her hand. “A reminder to take control while you can.”For, once lost, you may never get it back.
Her lower lip jutted out in a delectable pout I just had to taste. Aveen rolled her hips—by accident or on purpose, I couldn’t tell. Either way, I was ready for another round—or ten. “Are you sure you want to die tomorrow?”
Her answer was to roll her hips again. And again, dragging a curse from my lips. “What if you don’t go through with it?” I said.
She stilled. “You mean, marry Robert?”
How dare she say another man’s name with me inside of her. I lifted my hips, reminding her that she was mine and only mine. If she said his name again, I would tear out his throat. “I mean, tell them all to fuck off.”She wasn’t some pawn or a payment for her father’s bad debts. She deserved to make her own choices.
A plan began to formulate as I started to fuck her slowly, my thighs dripping wet from us both. “You can live here. And I could . . . come to you . . . whenever . . . you want.”I’d give her everything she’d ever dreamed of. Flowers growing in every corner of this place. She’d never want for anything.
Her hand fell to my stomach. “I can’t.”
What a load of shite. She could do whatever she wanted. The problem was, she didn’t want this. Didn’t want me for more than a night. “You can. But you’re choosing not to.”
Her hooded eyes widened, a storm brewing in their icy depths. “That’s right. I’mchoosingnot to. This isn’t about me—or about you, for that matter. This is about my sister.”
Her feckin’ sister. Why did Aveen have to be so feckin’ selfless? Would the sister do the same for her? Hardly. She seemed as selfish as they came.
“Right. My apologies for misreading the situation.” I gestured to my cock, still buried deep inside her. “I thought perhaps it may be alittleabout me.”
“So, what? You just want me to live in this townhouse for as long as you’re interested? What sort of life would that be for me?”
As long as I was interested—couldn’t she see that my need for her could never be sated? That she and I were meant to be together forever?
One look into her steely gaze, and I had my answer.
“Forget I said anything,” I muttered.
She climbed off me, leaving me stiff as a post as I watched her wander around the room collecting her ruined clothes. I was so hard, it ached when I tugged up my breeches.
I could still salvage this. We had a few more hours together. “You’re overreacting,” I said, trying to lift the fallen mood with a liar’s smile.
“Am I? Because I’m fairly certain you just asked me to be your whore.”
My whore? Couldn’t she see how much she meant to me?Get off it, you eejit. She didn’t know because I hadn’t told her. And I could never tell her because of what the Queen would do to her if she found out.
With a flick of my wrist, all my clothes were back on. I shifted a dressing gown I’d bought for her for when she returned from the underworld. Aveen tossed it into the feckin’ fire.
“Aveen, I’m sorry I said—”
“No. No more talking.” She threw her cloak around her shoulders. “Take me home.”
I reached for her, my lifeline. “It was a foolish suggestion made in desperation. You don’t have to leave.”
“Yes, I do.”