Page 148 of Sworn to the Shadow Throne

I wrapped my arms around him and pulled his hips into mine until I could finally feel every inch of him against my belly.

He bit off a snarl to kiss me again.

I moaned, my breath meeting his, as his tongue demanded entry. I opened myself to him, granting permission as tendrils of shadow lifted my skirts.

His hands moved down my neck, past my shoulders, to cup my breasts. Then his head dipped, and the rough stubble of his beard grazed the sensitive skin of my decolletage as he kissed the peaks of each.

I only had a moment to appreciate the shivers of pleasure it sent through me before I let out a small, surprised squeak. “Oh!”

Higher and higher the dress rose, but I was also being lifted. Except his hands were still lavishing attention on my chest, his lips working their way up my neck.

I looked down. Darkness had gathered beneath me, solid as carved wood. It settled into the unmistakable shape of a tall, low-backed chair. Armrests rose under my forearms with the gentle suggestion to stay and get comfortable. His magic was warm beneath its dark surface, pressing heat into me through the contact.

It felt impossibly like being held. He’d thought of my comfort without being asked.

He’s been doing that, without faltering, since the day you met him, Luna.

It was a moment of wide-eyed realization that, honestly, had taken too long in coming. Owain was thoughtful and so patient with me.

His hands had moved to warm my thighs. Teetering on the edge of no return…

“Tell me you want my lips on you, my fingers inside you,” he whispered, breath warm on the sensitive skin just beneath my ear.

I nodded, wanting to fall off the edge with him. But my silence wasn’t enough.

He kneeled and his rough hands worked up and down the skin of my legs, burning through the contact, tightening slightly as he ordered, “Say it, Lunette.”

Flustered, impatient, wanting, I looked into his dark eyes and said, “Both. At the same time.”

My prince didn’t wait. With a firm grasp, his hands spread my thighs apart with a single thrust. My body was thrumming with the contact, anticipating what was to come.

But then every inch of him, save for the rhythmic expansion and contraction of his chest, went rigid. For half a heartbeat, I worried something was wrong, but he was only staring at my core hungrily, while licking his fingers—getting them ready.

I braced myself for the usual shock of fear at being seen, but I realized I was aching for exactly that. The need to be known by him rose louder than the old instinct to hide.

More than that, the version of me that had flinched and folded felt distant, like a bad habit I hadn’t had time to indulge since coming to the Tir. And Owain’s attention had never felt like judgment. It had always been permission to be exactly who I was.

“You’re perfect,” he said, briefly grasping the hard outline in his trousers. “I just needed to see you, Luna.”

Then he was bent over me, doublet sliding across my bodice, kissing me with an intensity that made me dizzy, while his fingers explored my most sensitive spot.

Wanting more, I pressed my hips into his hand, urging him on. He sank two fingers in. A low moan escaped my lips as he worked me inside and out with a consistent rhythm.

“You wanted both,” he murmured—a tease and a promise.

He moved back, fingers still working my core, and tendrils of shadows peeled away from his hands in swirling, hypnotic patterns, skating along my skin, sending tiny jolts of recognition along the way. His hungry eyes never strayed from me as the tendrils moved to wrap around my thighs.

My heart pounded with exhilaration, my breaths coming in short, rapid bursts as the bindings firmed my hold on the conjured chair. Still, I could move easily. They swayed with my smallest movements.

His voice came out as a hushed rumble as he moved down my body. “They’re for anything you want, moonlight. But I need you to open for me…even as you fall to pieces on my tongue.”

By the cursed gods. I almost reached my pinnacle right then and there.

The chair beneath me shifted, tilting my hips higher as his lips ghosted over my inner thighs. His free hand wrapped around one, and he dragged his teeth along the soft flesh there, inhaling slowly and deeply through his nose as he worked, only to bite down gently at the bend at the hip.

My hips tried to buck at the contact, but his shadows and grasping arm held me in place. I tried to squeeze my legs shut to stem the aching, but the tendrils stopped me too.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, his head still maddeningly nestled between my thighs, yet not quite touching.