Feeding a bloody heart to Odio wasn’t quite what I wanted to be the everlasting image in his, I mean, their mind’s eye. I bury the thought of the king, ram it down because I will have Meaningful Purpose with or without his affections.
So, I lift a strawberry and bite into it, the juices sliding over my lips. I can feel the liquid trailing down my chin just as keenly as I feel the heat of their eyes tracking its path.
“Allow me.”
My heart pounds in my ears as I spin around and peer up, met by the smooth smile of Lord Darwin. He manages the southernmost Fishing Trade, though the Half-tower is notoriously corrupt and often dangerous.
Getting all too close, he lifts his thumb to my lip. “You’ve made a mess. What is it about you, then? That has the king rescuing you himself, I wonder.”
I blink fast and shuffle from foot to foot, immediately uncomfortable, realising I’m in no way prepared to be touched by a man I do not know.
How can that be?
Iris was right—I am odd. I was more content with blood dripping down my fingers than with this man’s thumb on my lower lip. Closing my eyes, I inhale steadily to not offend him by flinching under his attention.
He’s wiping the juices, moving my lip beneath his thumb as he does when the curt voice of a nearby Guard booms. “Do not touch the Silk Girls.”
My pulse races as His gaze hits me like lightning cracking through a dark tunnel.
I search for him, feeling him acutely in every cell, but don’t find him. My hands immediately start to sweat, unsettled by the feeling of being watched.
“Everyone out while I eat,” Rome suddenly orders, a slow but thundering timbre to match the storm his presence brews around me.
Everyone heads quickly for the door.
I drop the strawberries and trail them.
“Not you,” he states, and I look up to find him sauntering toward me with his dark leather armour partly open, exposing a long triangle valley of tattoos down his hard, carved chest.
I grip the table to steady myself.
There is no fuss from the guests. The other Silk Girls leave; Ana glances over her shoulder; Daisy and Blossom duck away quietly; Iris smirks, enjoying that I am in trouble.
Lord Bled holds the door open as all other guests pass through the frame, and then he closes it behind him.
The door clicks, and within a second, Rome is hovering over me. One of his huge hands is gripping my hip and spinning me to face the banquet table.
He slides a hand between my thighs and lifts me from my core. Slinging me over the table, he presses my torso down, my cheek stamping the glossy top, heavy exhale misting the surface.
My legs dangle.
Toes try to find the ground.
“You’ll learn that some attention is not good for little girls,” he hisses.
I gasp, squirming under the weight of his large palm, only my backside moving while I don’t stand a chance to wriggle free. He’s so large, even larger now that he is angry with me for disturbing his party.
“I’m sorry about Odio,” I whimper.
“Always answering back.”
Holding me still, he slides his hand down to my thigh, then runs his fingers to lift my skirting up until my backside is bare. He spanks the flesh.
I cry out. “I said I was sorry!”
“Always speaking out of turn. Did I give you permission to speak? Did I give you permission to touch my pet or share your lips or smile with other men?”
I’m so confused but too scared to think straight. “No, my king. You didn’t.”
Reckless. Reckless girl.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and he spanks me again, harder this time, a sting racing through my flesh and jolting me.
“Not so clever now, are you?” He slaps me again. I can only imagine his true strength could break bones.
My pelvis pulses against the table as he rains down slap after slap to my flesh. Warmth radiates across my backside, and though I want the sudden shock of it to stop, I don’t want any distance from him. I want this. His hand. His honest reactions that aren’t ritualistic or Updates for The Cradle. The stolen moments, I live for them with him.
I whimper on the table as he shifts to stand right behind me. He presses his hips to my backside, blanketing me in the heat from his body.
My eyes flash open when the hard, long muscle protruding his hips presses to the crease between my cheeks.
That is not the size I have seen in my Anatomy of Man textbook.
I start to pant.
His sprawling hands map my spine and the sides of my body, touching, taking me in, inch by inch, as he thrusts against me through our clothes.
I moan. The way he touches me, grips me with force and possession, stirs my insides, wringing and coiling a bundle of nerves, low and demanding.
“Fuck, you’re making me do dangerous things. Do you have any idea what men like me do to little things like you? You shouldn’t be so eager to get attention. The only thing that protects you from being destroyed by me is your precious womb, do you understand? I could break you in two.”
I nod fast with my cheek flush against the marble. The strange tight, aggressive feeling of need inundating me, hissing to be heard and tended to. My body flushes hotter than I’ve ever felt before. Feverish. Frightening.
“I feel strange, my king. Sick. Hot. Please, stop.” Reeling, I push my backside into him, then roll forward to the edge of the table to ebb the pressure between my thighs. Moisture gathers in my knickers, hot and wet.
He lets out a long groan, savage. “That’s not what you think it is, Silk Girl. You’re not sick. You’re ovulating.” I feel his words in my bones. He strokes the new blemish on my backside, the span of his hand a blanket of rough, warm skin.
He grinds into me one more time, then stops. His hands leave my body, and my skin prickles—mourns—the heat from his palms. I blink, trying to centre my thoughts.
“I have him,” a man says from outside the room.
“Very good.” Rome breathes rough and rolls me on the table to face him.
Through my daze, I peer up at him but am immediately slung over his shoulder. He strides to his chair at the end of the room, carrying me like an inanimate object.
He sets me on the floor in front of it.
Blinking, I think about what to do. I know, adore, pleasure… I have been told what men like; I am not innocent to the mechanics of it. Just inexperienced.
I try desperately to ignore the warm, wet sensation between my legs.
His hand meets the top of my crown, petting me as he sits on the chair with his legs spread wide and my place between them. Shuffling closer, I find myself almost purring into his leg and thigh as I settle.
I am always on edge.
Guessing what people think.
Judging my own presence.
My bully gauge activated.
But the stroke of his fingers through my crown somehow spreads calm through my entire being, my shoulders lowering, my spine relaxing, a resting smile forming. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a resting smile before… I feel it in my chest like air. It’s different to a lively one. It’s so perfectly content; some merely surviving life may never wear one.
All rationale tells me to stay still and not speak, but I risk a glance up at him. Up his legs, two pillars of muscles, to the hard plane of his torso. I look at his face, expression focused ahead on the door. His jaw is clenching and unclenching, his blue eyes shadowed by fierce brows. The threat in his face flicks inside me, my nipples tightening.