Nectar of the Wicked (Deadly Divine, #1) (47)

“That is not what I meant.” I swallowed the urge to apologize for my impatient tone. “Florian—”

His head lowered, the only warning I had before his mouth stole my own and erased what I’d been about to say.

He marched me backward to a bed twice the size of the giant one in my rooms. My legs hit the wooden frame, and I fell back onto the feather-filled bedding.

Florian loomed above me, dark hair and fever-bright eyes.

My heart swooped when he knocked my knees open with one of his, and his naked body dropped to press against mine. He groaned when his cock encountered bare skin beneath my robe, the flare of his eyes telling me he hadn’t expected it. “Fuck.”

He kissed me before I could find the strength to protest about what was surely going to happen.

Hot, wet, and toe-curling—his tongue and lips devoured mine with a hunger I’d yet to receive from him. Then he opened my robe and cursed at the sight of my breasts. My hands curled, lost in the thick gray bedding, as he gifted each breast the adoring heat of his mouth.

His hips rose, taking the heavy warmth of his cock that had nestled perfectly over my core and leaving me cold.

Until his finger slid through me and his mouth trailed a path over my stomach.

He stilled at what he found. “I see I have not been tending to your needs very well.”

I could have certainly agreed, but he was not talking about my emotional turmoil.

“So fucking wet, sweet creature.” He pushed my thighs wider, his mouth roaming lower to where I needed him.

Breaths growing panted, my back arched at the first slow swipe of his tongue over my swollen center. A groan vibrated against my slick and desperate flesh.

I knew what he was doing. I knew, yet all I could do was let him and admit, even if only to myself, I was weak and incapable of resisting him. Especially right now.

In my defense, he made it extremely difficult when the want that had indeed been awaiting his attention was finally given it. My body climbed higher with every lapping stroke of his tongue.

It seemed he was in a hurry this evening, as he didn’t feast until I was clawing and mindless. Which only further proved he was attempting to placate me so he could return to whatever business I’d interrupted.

He flattened his tongue against my clit, and I ruptured so completely, I was still twisting on the bed with my thighs clamped together while he pulled on a clean pair of pants.

Beneath heavy eyelids, I watched him snatch a long-sleeved shirt from the leather chaise lounge in the corner and slip it on. He buttoned it as he leaned over me to pull the bedding atop my useless body.

He was still hard. The imprint of him pressed angrily to his pants.

What awaited him must have been important. That, or perhaps he found pleasure in depriving himself.

A kiss that warmed the cold he’d wrapped around my heart was given to my head. “Sleep, butterfly.”

And after the doors to his rooms clicked shut, I almost did.

I blinked at the long oak dresser that sat nearest the doors. Then the matching slabs of shelving beside it that spanned the length of the wall to the chaise he seemed fond of tossing clothes upon.

There were no windows. Heavy drapes covered doors to a balcony stretching from the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed toward the open door of his bathing room, interrupted only by a fireplace.

He’d left me alone in his rooms.

So, of course, I decided it was only fair that I do some investigating.

Fair play, I believed he’d called it.

His bedchamber was the size of a small home. If a kitchenette had been tucked away behind the doors I opened and closed along the wall adjacent to my own rooms, then it very well could pass as one.

Florian’s dressing room was riddled with those soft gaping shirts he preferred, and just as many pairs of tight-fitting black and charcoal trousers. Coats, some dark and spun with wool, others padded with built-in armor, lined the end of the chamber. In the center was an open unit of more oak shelving containing belts and boots—military and formal.

After checking his bathing room, my mouth falling open at the onyx tile-lined tub twice the size of my own, I checked the drawers and found...

Nothing.

Not a thing save for light clothing suited for spring or summer. Seasons that would not visit this kingdom.

A touch defeated, I sat on the side of his outrageously large bed and stared at the vines and thorns carved into the oak headboard. An inkpot sat beside a golden candelabra on the nightstand. I leaned forward to clasp the brass knob of the top drawer. An empty pad of parchment was inside.

Next to a crown.

I almost laughed with shock, blinking down at the onyx vines and glinting diamond and sapphire leaves. Surely, I was not staring at the true Hellebore crown. But after seeing it in so many portraits within this manor, I knew I was.

Florian kept his crown in his nightstand drawer.

I shook the disbelief away and looked through the pad of parchment. I watched each bare page fall free of my fingers, then made to pull my hand from inside the drawer when a flash of silver behind the crown caught my eye.

A necklace.

Gently, I stroked the time-worn chain, the bright red stone that warmed under my touch, but I didn’t dare pick it up.

With the odd exception of the crown, it was clear Florian wasn’t so unwise as to keep anything of political importance in his personal chambers. In fact, aside from the necklace that appeared to be an heirloom, it seemed he kept hardly anything at all.