That piqued a new curiosity that was certainly better left alone. “A mate, you mean?”
He nodded once and turned back to the tray of food. “The heat repeats for a handful of years until a mate is found, or the female body simply learns to respect the soul’s decision not to hurry the search for one.”
I stared at the captivating expanse of his back, the question I didn’t need to ask stuck like glue behind my teeth.
Florian braced his hands upon the drawers, seemingly lost in thought as he stared down at the food. Muscle bulged in his biceps when he clenched the wood, then swept a hand through his tousled hair.
It was best to talk of something else, so I decided to show him what I’d sensed after he’d left me alone in his chambers.
I stood and crossed to the drapes covering the balcony doors. “Look.”
Florian turned, his brow furrowing and his lips forming a tight line.
“Baneberry royals have an affinity for nature, do they not?”
Birds filled the balcony. Every inch of the stone railing was covered, and some even perched upon the ground.
The king walked over to join me, and I expected the birds to fly away. They didn’t.
Sunlight streaked across his cheek and torso, his taut skin close to gleaming in response and his eyes nearing a rare shade of purple. “Flora, usually.” The belated words were absent. “That which grows from soil.”
His quiet tone, and the hardening of his features, flattened my excitement yet again. “Perhaps they’re drawn to fornicating royals, then,” I tried to say in jest to lighten the unexpected arrival of tension, but my voice was weak.
Florian said nothing.
After another moment of studying the birds who still hadn’t moved, he tore the drapes closed and returned to the tray of food. “Perhaps.”
I stalked behind him and grabbed his waist, wanting to rid the heaviness that’d filled his voice and the room. “So perhaps you should stop feeding me food and give me something better instead.”
Florian smirked when I slipped between him and the drawers, and he clasped the back of my head. His gaze danced with mine, his smirk falling with the growing hunger that brightened his eyes. Then he lowered his head to place his mouth over my thundering pulse.
He kissed it once before his lips moved lower, the only warning I had. His teeth sank into my neck at the same time he plunged two fingers into my body.
My legs quaked, euphoria rushing through my veins and pushing with cold heat against my skin.
The undulating mixture of bliss, coupled with his hooking fingers and the rumbled groan in his throat, rendered me instantly mindless. Stars danced before my wide-open eyes as I gripped Florian’s head and his bicep.
“Delicious creature.” He kissed the punctures in the curve of my neck. His arm lowered to hold me up while I convulsed over his hand. My chest heaved, my blood heating all over again when he slowly ceased pumping his fingers and carefully withdrew them from my body.
He brought them between us, his eyes aglow on mine as he sucked them clean. “Sweetest fucking thing I’ve ever had the pleasure of tasting.”
Jealousy threatened to taint the warmth those words gave me.
I needed to cease wearing my thoughts on my face. That, or this male needed to cease being so damned perceptive. He smirked and undid his pants. “Your possessiveness is showing, Princess.” Closing his lips over mine, he kissed me so softly, then murmured, “And it’s making my cock throb.”
“I do not wish to share you, Florian,” I said without thinking.
Anger had taken hold, spurred by the sickness induced by the mere thought of him doing any of this with another. As well as remembering what that hostile guard had said—how he’d still indulged in others when he’d had Nalia as his lover.
Florian stepped out of his pants.
Embarrassed by what I’d said, though I’d meant it, I couldn’t even bring myself to ogle all of him. I stared at the tray beside us with its leftover fruit and remaining mound of bread. Unsure what to say as the silence stretched but knowing I’d already said too much, I reached for the glass of water.
Florian allowed me two sips before setting it back on the tray. “What have I told you?”
“Not to make emotional requests, for they will be used against me.”
Florian huffed. “And to fucking look at me.”
Oh.
I gave him my attention, mortified even more.
Seeming amused and perhaps shocked that I remembered what he’d said in that room in the pleasure house, he loosened his jaw. “You think I would use such a desire against you?”
“I am here to be used,” I said carefully but firmly. “Am I not?”
He had nothing to say to that. He could not refute it. It was the cold truth.
Releasing a rough breath, he lifted me to the drawers and stepped between my legs. His nose trailed mine, his gaze holding mine captive. “You’re here because it was always supposed to be this way.”
Those words were meant to mollify me, I knew. They didn’t.
His mouth crushed mine, his claiming kiss drawing blood and chasing away the darkness that had unfurled with his caged responses.
He left me panting to rub his cock through my center. His gaze stayed there, and I trembled with every nudge at my clit. “Feet up, sweet.” I placed them on the edge of the wood, and he gripped me behind the knees. I was shifted forward and spread wide, his command strained. “Put me inside you.”
We both watched as I did.
He released one leg to grasp behind my head, the wooden drawers groaning with every hard yet controlled thrust of his hips. I whimpered into his neck as a violent climax took me under, my teeth pinching his skin.
I didn’t overthink it. I wanted all of him, needed to taste everything he was upon my lips and tongue.
And if he wouldn’t give me what I needed, then I would take it with the same lack of remorse he’d shown me.
My canines pierced his skin.
“Tullia.” His pace slowed, the hand in my hair tugging me back as the first heady drop of his blood met my lips. “Once you start surrendering to it, you will only last so long before needing it.”
I swallowed, the copper and warm taste of him sliding down my throat. It wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. “I know.” I licked my lips. “But it’s natural.”
“Some think differently.” He looked at my mouth, his jaw and tone hardening. “Especially those from Baneberry.” His eyes rose to my own. “Over time, it will weaken you. For it’s one thing to drink blood, but to let that same creature take from you in kind can bind you.”
He spoke as if I had not already bound myself to him in ways I would never escape.
“Well, I’m not in Baneberry, Majesty,” I said, a touch too bitterly. “I’m here with you, and I want all of you.” His nostrils flared, his pupils expanding. I frowned then, wondering if perhaps he had other reservations. “But if you do not wish for me to—”
His mouth slammed over mine, furiously bruising.
He moved inside me slowly while breathing me in. His hips halted when his mouth broke from mine with a rough exhale. “Go on, then, butterfly.” He gripped my neck and cheek, then pushed my mouth to his throat. “Let me live inside you like you do me.”