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Jude decided that watching her husband’s tongue shoved down a lean-limbed fae girl was a good enough excuse to storm away from the revel. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to care. Most of everyone was amongst the wood’s trees, dancing and singing, leaving very few people behind at the palace. For a second she thought of making a beeline to her own chambers but one look at the throne room made her halt. Jude recalibrated. Yes. Some peace in that vast quietness was better than her hauntingly empty room.
Of course he followed. Why wouldn’t he.
Jude had the throne room to herself for a solid four minutes of simmering shame, sadness weighing her down. Then the king’s footsteps thundered her way.
“Queen away from her own revel? Does not seem fitting.”
She stared at the throne, not giving him so much as a glance. She offered silence.
“Oh don’t hate me, dear. Understand that me being here could be from a territorial nature. Simply assuring that no other male has followed you into your rooms.”
She turned with a red face. He was as beautiful as ever. Dark clothes, flowy material just hugging his form, begging to be ripped apart. For a revel, his face was surprisingly plain, only the smallest hint of dark liner on his eyes and silver on the cheeks. A corner of his mouth turned up, and things started clicking into place.
She waited a beat and then asked “Did you kiss her on purpose?”
More silence. His face was unmovable when he replied, “Do not flatter yourself, wife. Clearly I was enjoying myself.” He smirked in a way that reminded her of palace school.
Jude didn’t have the energy for this. She turned to the throne once more. “Are you planning on tongue-fucking some faerie’s mouth every time you want my attention?” Jude’s voice was drenched in hatred. “There are simpler ways.”
“I’m sure there are…” he said from behind, less eager. His voice adopted a grave tone. “Not that you’ve been enticed to share my company for the past two years.”
“Cardan, tell me what happened before those two years.” She was near screaming. Jude kept her temper in check but now she fully faced him, approaching with a pointed finger.
His smile was long gone. “I’ve already told you that was for—”
“Yes, yes, to protect me, whatever. Tell it to your pillow.” She headed for the door. “Starting to think the mortal world is where I actually belong.”
His hand shot out, stalling her. The king’s entire demeanor turned somber.
“Don’t. Don’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s what you say to me, again and again, every time you betray my trust. Every time you withhold your counsel, your plans, your feelings—”
“As if you are any different.” He growled.
“Every time you bring another girl to scream into your bed.” She hissed.
She was hurt. Jealous. It was true that since her return, Jude evaded Cardan as much as possible. Especially his rooms. It wasn’t from lack of feelings. Quite the contrary, she did so to protect herself. By staying away, Jude was building a wall around her own heart, already shattered once when her own husband and king exiled her.
Who had made no real move in the years since to apologize. Nothing except parade possible lovers in her face, trying to entice a reaction. Jude knew this, she wasn’t stupid.
Cardan had never kissed another in public, though. So unabashedly shamed her. Until now. He opened his mouth to speak except Jude bit him off.
“I am beginning to think my place isn’t here after all. The mortal realm is always waiting.” Even just thinking it hurt. Jude placed another brick on the wall, sealed it around her heart.
His face fell. “Don’t be— Jude stop with the— stop with the nonsense.” That fire was back, there in his eyes. That spike of anger and desire.
She answered by pushing him away with an open palm to his chest when he tried to step closer.
“Not such nonsense. You don’t want me, that much you’ve made clear. Why stay?”
His eyes blazed.
“So start talking. Change my mind.” Her voice was unwavering as internally she begged for him to react. “Tell me the truth,” Jude ordered. Her palm pressed harder on Cardan’s chest. “For too long now you’ve been trying to tell me something through secret plans and foolish maneuvers, by sparking my jealousy and tasting mouths of others. Say what you want. Tell me or I will leave.”
Fury radiated off him. Cardan’s jaw clenched, silent for too many heartbeats. Then, through gritted teeth he said, “I want to see you.” He spit it out like an insult. “I want to see my wife bouncing on my lap while I sit on that throne.” He pointed to it.
Her breath caught.
“Not that faerie. Not anyone else.” He stepped forward, cornering her towards the seat. “In two years, not a single being has shared a bed with me because I am faithful to you. Because I want you. I always have.”
Jude was petrified. They were steps from the throne when his anger all of a sudden turned to a sort of shock.
“I— I dream about it. Often. Your stupid mortal face won’t leave my sleep.”
The term woke her up again, filled her with fire amidst the chaos. She scowled. “Must make you feel impotent.” His nose was a hair away from hers. She closed the distance, letting go. The simple pleasure of meeting her lips to his felt like fresh water, like floating on a summer pond. Two years she had denied both of them the most basic heart-fluttering pleasure. No more.
His resolve broke. Both his arms enveloped her immediately, pulling her to him like a lifeline. For a second she could not draw breath how close they were. Jude unglued herself from him, panting. Cardan leaned in for more and was stopped when she retreated more. She had to look up at him, his ridiculous height placing hers to shame.
It felt like she was dying. Inhaling sharply, she said “Tell me more about that stupid dream.”
It was his turn to breath in heavily. He grabbed her, maneuvering them both onto his royal seat. He fell upon it, pulling her down atop his body. Black eyes looked up at her. Jude stepped back, so she was standing between his legs, spread open where he sat. It felt like they were about to devour each other. His chest rose and fell, his sounds still loud. She studied him from crown to toe, taking in the torn edges of his clothing where she clawed at. The muscles under his tunic. The thick thighs she stood between. His face paint, now disheveled. “Tell me,” she all but sneered, “how did I torment your sleep?”
Cardan’s gaze should have killed her on the spot. Instead, without breaking eye contact, he began pushing down his pants. “You take off your undergarments, but leave the rest.” His voice was dark.
She watched him, as her hands fell under her dress, as they tugged at the underwear and let it fall to the floor, stepping out of it. His lower half was exposed.
“Then…” he trembled, “Then you sit on my lap and tear open my shirt.”
Jude hated herself for settling on his legs. For making sure not to touch him where he wanted yet. Where she wanted too. For following his order as if under glamour. His shirt was ruined. The skin now exposed was radiating heat.
Cardan got the hang of it. His voice no longer wavered as he next told her: “Kiss my neck.”
She shuddered. Her tongue left a trail, swirling against his neck from one end of his collarbone to right beneath his left ear. Cardan’s groans no longer had a leash. Hands rested on her hips.
Her hand reached for him, clutching tight and beginning to stroke. Whatever sound left his mouth was more animal than fae. “Is this what I did next?” No more than a whisper against his cheek. Every inch of him was hot. “Did I let you spill on my dress?”
Cardan bit down at her ear. She curved her neck in order to look at what she was doing. He was big in her hand, too big, the tip swollen and most of it turning red. Two hands, she decided. With both hands she grabbed him, and in tandem massaged up and down at a faster speed.
The High King howled her name. It echoed through the empty room.
She picked up the pace again, intrigued by the feel of him, by the sound it made when she pumped over and over. Her body turned hot all over, in tune to his growing arousal, her desire to be joined with him growing by the second. The apex of her thighs nearly touched him, separated only by the cloth of her dress. It made her feel even hotter inside. She needed to get him first, though.
Without warning, his mouth fell upon her nipple, hands massaging what he couldn’t reach. She bit down her moans. There wasn’t a lot more to hold in until he broke, she thought.
But it wasn’t so easy. Not as her hands gyrated on his length at violent speed, or as his teeth left marks on the other breast. He was near yelling. Jude herself could not resist much longer, after all. “Give it to me,” a low command on his ear, “Give me the power to destroy you.”
In answer, he squeezed her body closer to his, melding their forms. “Pull me in,” he rasped, “quick.” He was close. He didn’t want to come without having touched her first.
Jude grabbed his cock, brought it under the skirt of her dress. Blindly, only through touch, she aligned him and slowly started to sink. Both hissed. Not being able to see made Jude feel it that much more, the sensation welcomed.
When he was fully impaling her, she halted.
A slow loud breath escaped Cardan’s lips. He couldn’t help himself. He said it. “I love you.” Without an ounce of spite.
Jude pressed her palm over his mouth. “Not yet.” Her voice was soft. Amidst Cardan’s features of tenderness sparked curiosity. She had to explain: “Let me be angry first. Later…”
His eyes grew heavy-lidded, then he nodded. Understood enough to catch her drift and settle back in his seat. Jude was silently grateful, pulling away her hand.
Cardan grabbed her hip. “Let me see,” he murmured. With his free hand the High King gently moved aside her dress, the cloth blocking his view. He bunched it up and heaved it to her side. There, he could see them. Could see the place where her body took in his length. Jude hadn’t even moved yet and already elicited a groan from him.
Cardan stared, as if in a trance. Slowly, pressed his thumb to her clit, drawing lazy circles. Jude hissed.
“What did I do next,” she gasped, “in your dream?”
His gaze fixed on hers. “You ride me.” His finger did not cease with the teasing. “Until we collapse.”
The words alone pushed her closer to an edge, to a long fall. Slowly, testing the pressure, Jude lifted from her hips and sank back down.
It was indescribable. A sweet filling, a pulse-racing delight.
She did it again, resting her arms on his shoulders. His thumb still worked her slowly, and she decided to go slow too. Jude no longer cared that she was loud, she began riding him while mewling out some otherwise pathetic-sounding moans. Her head fell back as she picked up the pace.
A hand on her waist stopped her, halting her movements. “Slower,” he barely even whispered. Again, he looked at her sex rather than her face, enraptured. “I want to watch you take in every inch.”
She shivered all over. And did as he said. Once she had all of him inside again, he grabbed her waist and kept her from moving. The hand working her clit pressed down harder, picking up speed. She could only bite down on his shoulder, eyes screwed shut and nails digging on his back. When she almost toppled over the edge, he stopped. Pulled the hand away. She hated him.
Finally, he looked up. “You really wish to know what I want?”
Jude couldn’t think past his cock reaching her belly. She only touched foreheads with him. In that close intimacy he rasped “I want you to use me. I want you to find your own pleasure with my body.” He was breathless. “Fuck me how you want, how you need. Use me, Jude.”
She felt like collapsing.
“Use me.”
She rocked her hips again, lifting and falling.
“Use me.”
Her hands clung to the back of his head, keeping them in place, assuring he wouldn’t go anywhere. She showed the king her teeth, anger and want and love forcing her body to move again, to press them together like waves hitting a sea shore. Jude carried something feral within her, and it woke up. Cardan reached forward and kissed her, fingers leaving bruises from how hard he clung to Jude’s waist. “Use me,” he kept saying, repeating, like a prayer. Each time he did she let out a small sound.
She bounced on his lap wildly, granting him his wish. Again, that heat crawling up her belly and spine. It twisted, reaching to the furthest ends of her body. The slapping sounds they were creating were obscene.
“Is this what you wanted?” she groaned above him. “You want your wife to fuck you on your throne?”
He only missed a beat. “I want her to ride her husband’s cock until she loses sense.”
She gripped the back of his hair, tugging harshly. He didn’t even flinch.
If anyone, absolutely anyone, were to enter the throne room, they’d find their queen springing up and down the king’s length, gladly burying every inch in her.
“Gods, I love these,” he growled as a hand cupped her breast. She still wore her dress, the fabric meeting her breasts when they rose and fell to their movements. “Love how they bounce while you fuck me.”
“Fuck,” she shrieked. His words, her thrusts, it felt delicious in every place of her body. Her knees gave a hint of ache but she could not have cared less if they detached from her body. She was close, yet not close enough. Suddenly, she decided to change tactics. Stopping only briefly, she maneuvered her legs so the weight was placed on her thighs. Then, instead of moving up and down, she started rocking back and forth. Fast.
“Yes,” Cardan moaned from below.
Fucking him was like being split open.
She didn’t register any movement until Cardan’s hand struck her ass, once, loudly. Jude shrieked. She lagged her head back, facing the sky.
“Yes, my wife.” By now he knew the effect his words had on her. Damn him. His breathing started to quicken too. His eyes bore into her soul as a hand pinched her nipple. “Keep me inside, all the way in.”
Jude undulated her hips faster, at a speed that made her scare herself. Each wave brought him out the slightest bit before pulling him back in. Her vision started to blur, legs frantic. Screams might’ve started.
“Look at you,” Cardan said in a voice unlike himself.
Again, again, again, she got her fill of him. Jude yelled at the ceiling.
His hands yanked her back to him, so they faced each other in the wildness of their joining.
“You see why I can’t sleep? Why I can’t think without you?”
She could only respond in small gasps. His hands forced her in place, for their noses to touch. Tears of pleasure welled in her eyes.
“You can’t stop, can you?”
She shook her head, sobs starting to escape her throat. Her teeth began to clatter, a sign that she was close.
His ferality mirrored her own. He was also showing teeth. “I will see you when you peak. I will watch you come undone.”
His damned thumb went to her clit.
“I want to see you shaking.”
She nodded.
“I want you trembling.“
She nodded.
“Will you beg me for it?”
She started sobbing into his face.
His own peak was close. “Call me your husband.”
Jude could barely breathe, barely think.
“Say it.” There was wildness in him.
Somehow she managed out: “You’re my husband.”
“Again.”
“You’re my husband.”
“Again,” his tone was now of begging.
She was crying now as she spoke. “My husband, my husband, my husband…”
“Look at me…” he pleaded. Her hips were about to give out when he bore into her eyes and said, “I love you.”
Jude wailed at the sky.
Cardan screamed into her neck. He came inside her in hot pulses.
A thousand pieces of them fell to the floor. Shatter of her and shatters of him.
In the minutes that followed, there was only their panting. Calming down, blood cooling. She slipped off him and immediately lamented the loss. Cardan was the first to speak.
“Come back to my rooms. Our rooms. Please.” He twined his fingers in hers. A bit of that sadness was back in his voice. Sadness and longing. And…hope.
Jude thought over what he said. Not just through words, but through his body and his commands and his willingness to voice the deepest of his desires.
“You love me.” She didn’t expect an answer. “You could have just told me.”
“Consider this,” he breathed heavily, a lesson in disarray, “my confession.”