Fuck.

As a result of the Treaty of Aretia, the power to represent the province of Tyrrendor in the King’s Senarium has hereby been transferred from the House of Riorson to the House of Lewellen.

—PUBLIC NOTICE 628.86, TRANSCRIBED BY CERELLA NIELWART

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

“The things she said…” I clench my aching fists and notice I’ve busted the skin across my knuckles.

“I know.” His gaze rakes over me in a look I know all too well—assessing me for injuries.

“She said I’m just a convenient placeholder for you to fuck.”

“I heard. How hurt are you?”

“I’m fine.” Unless he’s asking about my pride. “My shoulder’s a little pissed, but I think my face took the worst of it.”

“All right.” He wraps his arm around my waist, pulls our lower bodies flush, and moves forward, forcing me to step back so the backs of my thighs hit the chair behind me. “Sit.”

“Sit? I just lost my shit and threw my control out the window in front of the entire quadrant because of the venom she spewed—the emotions she shoved down my throat—and all you have to say is sit?”

He lowers his head, invading my space. “Nothing I could say right now is going to erase her words from your head, so sit, Violence. We’ll do the talking afterward.”

“Fine.” I sink down onto the thick cushion, and my feet come off the ground. This particular piece of furniture was definitely built for someone Xaden’s height. Two of me could sit in this thing. “She wants you for your name.”

“I know.” He braces his hands on the arms of the chair and leans in, brushing his lips over mine. “And you love me in spite of it. That’s one of the many reasons I will always choose you.” He drops to his knees in front of me and works the laces on my boots with quick, efficient movements.

“What are you doing?”

His mouth curves in a wicked smile that instantly elevates my pulse and transforms the heat of anger simmering in my blood into an even hotter fire.

My lips part as one boot hits the dais, the other following immediately after.

“In here?” I glance over his head at the empty hall. “We can’t—”

There go my socks.

“We can.” He flicks his wrist, and the clicking sound of a lock echoes off the stone. “My house, remember? They are all my rooms.” His eyes lock with mine, holding me willingly captive as his hands slide up the length of my legs, caressing my inner thighs, waking every nerve ending along their path before he reaches for the buttons of my sparring pants.

My breath catches.

“My house. My chair. My woman.” He punctuates each claim with a flick of his thumb, popping button by button free. Need floods my body, flushes my skin with a heady, addictive rush.

He grips my hips with both hands and yanks me to the edge of the chair, then cups the back of my neck and pulls me into a devastating kiss. My lips part, and the second he licks into my mouth, his tongue stroking mine, my core fucking melts.

The kiss is slow and sensuous, our mouths meeting again and again as I weave my fingers through his hair and completely, totally surrender. He senses the shift, growling low in his throat, and the kiss spins out of control in less than a heartbeat, turning wild and urgent, tasting of that sweet madness that only exists between us.

He’s the only person in this world I can’t get enough of. The only one I constantly crave. Love. Chemistry. Attraction. Desire. Everything between us keeps me constantly burning like an ember; a single touch is all it takes to send us both up in flames. By the time he breaks the kiss, his breathing ragged as he orders me to lift my hips, I don’t care where we are as long as he puts his hands on me. The whole Assembly could walk through those doors and I wouldn’t notice, not with the way Xaden’s looking at me. The heat in his eyes could melt iron.

He hooks his fingers into the waistband of my pants and my underwear, then tugs them down my legs, kissing the tops of my thighs, the curves of my knees, and every inch of skin he uncovers, drawing soft sighs and impatient whimpers from my lips.

Fabric hits the dais, leaving me bare from the waist down.

“Xaden.” My fingers tug at his hair, my heart pounding so hard I can’t help but wonder if he can hear it, if the whole world can.

Instead of rising so I can get my hands on him, he pushes my knees wide.

I gasp at the cold rush of air between my thighs, but an instant later, his mouth sets me on fire as he drags his tongue from my slick entrance to my clit. White-hot pleasure streaks through my body like lightning, and I cry out, the sound filling the hall.

“This is what I fantasize about when I’m away from you,” he says against my heated skin. “Your taste. Your scent. The little gasps you take right before you come.” He settles in, his hands splaying wide on my inner thighs, pinning me in place as he uses his tongue to rob me of every thought. He swirls around that sensitive bud over and over, teasing, arousing, driving me higher and higher, but denies me the very touch I need. “Is this what you think about? My mouth between your soft thighs?”

Gods, how can he think, let alone form coherent sentences?

He scrapes his teeth over me delicately, and I gasp at the sensation, then whimper when his tongue follows. I can only moan when he slides a long finger inside me, and his answering groan vibrates through every nerve in my body.

“Yes.” It feels so exquisite that I muffle my next cry with my fist. “More.”

It’s always more when it comes to him.

He alternates between quick, teasing flicks and long, lazy licks, building an ever-tightening spiral of pleasure deep within me. Another finger joins the first, stretching me with a delicious burn, and my hips rock as he thrusts them in a slow, hard rhythm that makes me crave every part of him.

Power rises, scalding my already flushed skin, crackling in the very air around us.

Without stopping, he releases my thigh and reaches around my hip, then retrieves the conduit. “Take it.”

“I want you.” My fingers slide from his hair to grasp the orb, my hips chasing every stroke he gives me, my breaths coming in uneven pants.

“You have me.” I whimper at the mindless pleasure that rushes up my spine. “And I have you exactly where I need you.”

Even my hand can’t muffle the primal sounds he drags from me as his tongue matches the rhythm of his fingers, pleasure whipping through me with every stroke, gathering, building, stringing my body tight as a bow.

Gods, the sight of him kneeling, fully clothed, the leather of his flight jacket against my bare thighs, pushes me all the way to the edge and burns itself into my memory.

My thighs tremble when he curls his fingers inside me, stroking that sensitive wall that makes stars blink in my eyes. “Xaden…” My breaths stutter.

“Right there. Those gasps. That’s what I hear when I wake, already hard for you.”

With the next caress, pleasure and power crest through me, over me, in simultaneous waves that crash again and again. There’s no thunder, no strike, only the hum of energy in my hand that flares with the strokes of Xaden’s mouth and fingers.

But there’s no release, either. No gentle letdown. Only the waves of infinite ecstasy that come without breaking.

He lifts his head, keeping me in a suspended state of indescribable bliss as his eyes lock with mine.

“I can’t take it,” I manage to say as the waves come and come with no end in sight.

“Yes, you can. Look at where you are.” He grasps my hip and surges upward, propelling me deeper into the chair until my back hits the blackened wood, and still, he keeps stroking, holding me prisoner with my own pleasure. Brushing his lips over mine, he smiles. “Look at how beautiful you are, Violet, coming for me on Tyrrendor’s throne.”