For You, My Dear, Anything

Cardan tugs her harder into his lap, one hand curved over her ass, the other one buried in her unbound hair. His mouth tastes like wine until she bites him hard enough to break the tender skin at the inside of his lip. She’d always expected his blood to taste like hers, metallic, but it’s something deeper, richer, that makes Jude want to consume him.

“Fucking hell,” he grunts with a scowl, but leans into her like he wants her to do it again.

Jude readjusts her legs straddling his hips, grinding harder into him. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this, pressed into the dark corners of Elfhame in a desperate effort to get off. Alone, locked in her room trying to manifest the heat of another body isn’t as satisfying as it used to be. Not when she knows what Cardan’s mouth feels like between her thighs and the guttural noise he makes when he’s inside her for the first time.

The hunger he ignites in her is as frightening as it is compelling. Somehow, the fact that she wants to sink a knife between his shoulder blades only makes her want to tear him out of his clothes that much more. Even his scent gives rise to the desire to shove him up against the closest wall and push his hand between her thighs to alleviate the ache there.

Jude shoves her hands into the open halves of his shirt, one of the stupid ones he wears open half way down his pale stomach. His flesh is hot beneath her palms, muscles shifting when he pushes up to meet the grind of her hips. “You might be mortal,” he murmurs, dragging her mouth to his to nip, just as hard, at her lower lip. “But you’ve got teeth like an imp.”

“Can’t you be quiet for once,” she growls, earning a heated smirk in return.

“No.” And she hates that she knows he’s not lying. “Even if someone does hear us, do you know what they’d think?” He tips her chin back with his thumb before she can answer—even if she shamefully already knows what he’s going to say. His lips trace a hot path down her throat. The hand on her ass pushes her hips down into his, the bulge in his trousers painfully obvious. “That you’re just another one of my toys.”

Anger spikes in her stomach and she wrenches her head free of his grasp, shoving him back against the throne in one movement. “Then what am I? If not that.” She dares him to say she’s not. That she’s more. Less.

His black eyes gleam, thick hair falling over his forehead. He’s still wearing his crown, now askew, and damn him, he still looks regal. “Wet. And wanting.”

Her cheeks flush despite her best efforts and she watches his tongue dab at the place where she bit him. Suddenly, she wants to prove that he might be the one with his ass in the throne, but she’s the one who owns it.

Jude leans in, careful, deliberate. His head tips up in the expectation of a kiss, lips parted, but she presses his chin to the side and closes her mouth over his neck instead. “Then tell me you don’t want me.”

He’s silent, breathless for a fraction of a moment, but then she nips at the skin under his ear, sucks hard enough to bruise, and feels him give ever so slightly into her touch. “Is it not obvious what I want?”

She bites him harder. The softness of his tail flicks against her thigh and she grasps that too, running her fingers slowly up its length. “You’re not answering my question,” she says, then adds when he opens his mouth, “Not properly.”

He bites back down with a smirk, and wraps his tail around her wrist, the tip brushing across the inside of her arm. “You need me to say that I want you.”

A flick of his tail, guiding her hand down.

“That it’s your scent making me hard.”

A nuzzle against the underside of her jaw.

“That it’s your taste that I think about at night.”

His hands push her skirt up, guiding her own hand between her thighs.

“That the only thought that gets me off anymore is imagining the sounds you make when my head is between your legs.”

A kiss pressed to the hollow under her ear.

“Or my fingers.”

His tail brushes her inner thigh.

“My cock.”

Jude swallows and opens her eyes. The spell breaks. “Better be quiet or someone will walk in on the high king getting fucked on his own throne,” she grates out.

Cardan lets out a harsh breath, a laugh, as if he hadn’t just said all that under the guise of a hypothetical.

His laugh, like he’s making fun of her, ignites the burn of endless public humiliations, the ire that’s in constant waiting at any reminder of the power he holds over her. She shakes her head, offering a smile of her own, one she hopes looks sly. “That’s what you think about too, though, isn’t it?”

Surprise flashes in his eyes for the slightest moment. She drags her hips down his, bracing one hand on his shoulder. Holding his gaze, she draws the crown from his brow… and firmly places it on her own head.

It’s too big for her, dips in the back, but it serves her purpose.

“Wicked girl,” he breathes, bearing his teeth in a snarl. But he doesn’t take it back. “You’d be twice as much fun if you let go.”

The admission that she doesn’t satisfy him as much as he thinks she could burns down her throat. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she snaps, harder than she intends, then realizes it doesn’t matter.

He grasps her jaw in one hand, drawing her in to press his mouth across hers. She’s breathless, lets his tongue slide past her teeth before he pulls back just enough to say, “If you’re threatening to fuck me on my own throne, then I suggest you get on with it.”

Jude pauses, and just as the words register, something in her snaps.

She lunges forward, hands going immediately to the fastenings of his breeches, fumbling because she can’t get them open fast enough.

Usually he does this part, is the one so eager to be inside her that she doesn’t even get her underwear off before he’s nudging into her. His eyes close, head falling back, dark lashes fluttering when she draws him out of his breeches.

His submission emboldens her, and she leans in to nip at his lower lip.

“Jude.” Her name feels like a secret they only share in hushed breaths or raging fights.

“I have your crown,” she says, presses his name into his skin. “Call me by the title I deserve.” With her final word, she wraps her hand around him.

His dark eyes snap to hers. “Your Majesty—” he starts, and she sees the hunger in his eyes, but shakes her head.

“No. Another name.” She follows the line of his neck with her lips, tongue tracing tendon, teeth scraping over his pounding pulse.

“My queen.” She doesn’t know whether it frightens her more that he says it with such honesty or that his honesty means something else entirely.

She nods, brushing her lips over his. His mouth parts, wanting her to deepen it, but she draws away, teasing. “You’re going to wait for me,” she murmurs, and lifts up onto her knees to position him.

His tail curls around her thigh, giving away more than he intends. She rubs along him first, giving a few slow pumps before starting to slide down.

He doesn’t deny her, and that makes her bold enough to continue. “You’re going to let me do what I want.”

His pale cheeks flush with color, lips parted. He looks down, to where her skirt is hitched up and he starts to fill her, but she fists his hair in her palm and tugs his gaze back up to hers.

“No, look at me.”

He lets out a breath she thinks is out of pain—and for a moment almost regrets pulling on his hair—until she sees the flush staining his cheeks, the tilt to his brows, and realizes it’s a sound of pleasure.

She blushes in turn and loses her composure at the smirk spreading on his cheeks. “Does it scare you, Jude? That I like that?”

His eyes glaze over when she sinks the rest of the way onto him, holding back a whine at the tight fit of him filling her. Before he can react, she gives another pull on his hair, this one more tentative, trying to gauge his reaction.

He hisses, but doesn’t drop his head.

“Does it feel like I’m scared to you, Cardan?” She starts to move on him, bracing herself on his shoulders. Half so she has something to push against, half so he stays back, so he doesn’t take over.

An open-mouthed kiss lands on the underside of her jaw when he slides his hand in from her thigh. His thumb trips over her clit with each movement against him. She tightens her grip on his hair, and it turns into a game, as nearly everything does between them in some sort of twisted fashion: who can make the other snap first.

The subtle push back he gives, like he’s taunting her to do more, to say more, is what finally breaks her. She grasps his hand between her thighs, holds it in place, and jerks against him. He’s been touching her of his own accord, and the sweep of his tail across her thighs, the way he gropes her ass, almost guiding her motions, is frustrating mostly because she knows he’s letting her take charge.

She doesn’t want him to let her.

She wants to make him.

He presses harder against her clit this time, breaks rhythm, and she lets out a little cry. She wants to tell him what to do, where to put his hands, how to touch her, but what he’s doing feels too good to stop him.

In that moment, she weakens, buries her face in his neck and pushes against his fingers until she’s close enough that she pants.

And just at the last moment, he draws away, her climax fading back instead of surging forward.

She snarls, hips seeking his hand.

“What is it, Jude?” he asks. “Do I not please you?” The question, coming from another’s lips might have been insecure. And yet Cardan made it sound self-satisfied.

Slick sounds, the tapping of body on body resounds through the space.

She growls. “Stop talking.”

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, but she should’ve known better than to believe Cardan would just let her take over without maneuvering involved.

Her legs are trembling, and she presses down, trying to find the right angle. His fingers, still slick, catch in the folds of her dress.

“Let me touch you,” he murmurs, voice thick. “Jude.” His voice is a caress against her cheek.

“Shut up—” she snarls, and she’s too desperate to realize that there’s too much venom in her voice, that he should want to pull away instead of cave farther into her. She doesn’t realize he’s goading her on until it’s too late, until she pulls hard enough on his hair that he gasps and finds exactly the right angle to build herself up again.

She lets out a frustrated cry, legs shaking, and shoves him back against his throne.

“Look at me,” she demands. When he doesn’t immediately do what she asks, she digs her nails into his scalp, his shoulder. “Look at me.”

That gets his attention. His eyes are so dark they swallow the little light in the room. Gold remnants shine at the corner of his mouth and she leans down to taste him, greedy, to swallow his moan when she lifts almost completely off him and presses down again in one smooth stroke.

She can barely think around the need to keep going, to push him to breaking point just to prove she can.

His fingers dig into her bared thighs and her fingers tangled in his hair at the nape of his neck come away damp with sweat.

“Is that all you’ve got, Jude?” He grunts when she slams back onto him. “Or are you going to fuck me like you mean it.”

His eyes fall half-lidded when she looks at him, but the heat radiating through them surges right between her thighs. She swallows hard and braces her hands on his chest to get a better angle.

“Always doing what other people tell you,” he goads, but his voice is weaker.

The accusation burns through her even though she knows he’s only saying it to bite her into action. But the fact that he can’t lie makes her growl. His voice gives rise to a mess of frustrated anger and pleasure, and she knows the two aren’t mutually exclusive. “I told you to stop talking.” She means it as a threat, but the words come out sounding like a plea.

Cardan’s hand wraps around the back of her neck and tugs her mouth down to his. “Make me,” he growls out, only to have her tongue sweep through his mouth. He bites her, but she bites back harder, even when he sucks her lower lip between his teeth at the same time his hand finds her breast and tugs down the neckline of her dress.

And finally, without realizing she’s doing it, Jude lets go. She rocks against him hard enough that her clit grinds against him with every motion. She doesn’t care what he wants or thinks, only that it’s Cardan under her and in her and he’s hers.

“Jude,” he groans, and she knows he’s finally gotten what he wanted all along, his head falling against the back of the throne.

She rides him hard—harder than even she knew she’d like—with her jaw clenched tight and breaths coming in short gasps.

Cardan shudders beneath her, but he’s quiet, and she’s not sure whether that’s better or worse. Tension runs in tight coils through her, building towards a release she needs just as much as he does.

He murmurs her name, but she’s too focused on her own pleasure than think about what the sound of her name on his lips does to her. That it’s too reverent, too soft without the airs of the court between them.

“Jude…”

A frustrated cry escapes her throat and she means to snap her hand forward onto his mouth, but her fingers slip down his chin to his throat instead. His pulse pounds beneath her fingers and his eyes snap to hers, lips parted. She doesn’t want to hear her name from him, too aware of what it does to her.

The kohl around his eyes makes them shine, even though it’s smudged across one flushed cheek. And the plea that she sees in them, the way he tips his head back, body giving way to hers, is more erotic than anything that’s ever passed between them.

She clamps her hand slightly harder against his throat, his pulse fluttering under her fingertips. If he wanted to, he could easily pry her off, but he doesn’t, only tips his head back and holds her eyes like she’s the only thing keeping him alive.

Worse, like he trusts her.

His lips breathe a shadow of her name. Her grip tightens and a sudden burst of inexplicable pleasure erupts at the sight of him beneath her. It steals her breath as much as it does his. The submission in his posture, the way it resounds even in his eyes makes her cry out, lurch her hips across him until release pounds into her, stroke after stroke after blessed stroke.

He never breaks her gaze, and she sees the pleasure of his own climax follow. She sees flickers of spite, of anger, flash through them, but mostly—terrifyingly—something that looks like adoration.

Her grip eases away from his neck as her pleasure fades. Her dress sticks to her back and her limbs feel so shaky that she collapses forward against him, face buried in his neck with a groan.

These few moments, the ones where they’re both recovering, are the ones that are most confusing, where his fingers trace lazy patterns on her thighs and he presses lingering kisses into the bend of her shoulder, like he can’t stop touching her, like he doesn’t want to stop.

His crown still rests on her head, but neither of them move to return it to its rightful place. She’s still trying to piece together what just happened, when his arms curl around her back.

Or at least they try to before she shoves him off.

Jude tears the crown from her head, crawls off his lap, nerves clenching in her stomach. Being with Cardan—it’s confusing. She can handle the sex, the sneaking off to bang against a wall somewhere. But afterwards is different. She already feels like she’s drowning when she sees his wanting. Anything after that is too much to handle.

“Jude,” he tries, but she swallows hard, shakes him off.

She needs to clean herself off, but she adjusts her underwear, even though it doesn’t do much for her damp thighs. She’s going to ache in the morning.

“We’re already lucky enough someone didn’t walk in—” she says, refusing to meet his eyes.

She gathers her things, her discarded shoes, socks. There’s not much to do about the hairpins scattered around the throne, or the way her hair looks.

“Jude.” She shoves the crown into his hands when he tries to rise, tucking himself back into his breeches.

“Don’t try to follow me,” she orders, but of course, he does.

“Jude wait.” He clasps her arm, raised voice echoing in the empty room.

She stops, but doesn’t turn to face him.

“I need to know you don’t regret it,” he says, but it comes out like a question.

Jude exhales. Regret? No, that’s not the word for what she feels. She wishes she knew the word for how she feels. “No, Cardan, I don’t regret it.”