Page 87 of This Prince Is Not Charming

“Fine, so that wasn’t what you checked off your list. What was, then?”

“I heard your sleepy voice for the first time. I’ve never heard you so groggy like that. Every time we fell asleep together, I either snuck away before you were awake or you woke up all chipper, which I always said was unnatural.”

Her eyes filled with warmth and tenderness that made my heart swell. “I have a sleepy voice? I suppose maybe I slept so deeply last night that I was groggier than normal this morning.”

“I’m glad you got good sleep.”

“But we do have to face reality today,” Ceri said. “There’s a lot we have to talk about.”

“Not yet,” I said, tipping my head toward the curtains. “Sun’s barely up. Doesn’t count until it’s fully over the horizon.”

She smiled mischievously, fully turning to face me, rubbing herself against my cock, and oh my godwitches. Fuck, that felt good. Every thought fled my mind as my hands automatically went around to her backside so I could grab her ass and put her right where I wanted her.

I flipped her around, and she gasped as I pressed my cock into her, finding her entrance and stretching it open.

“Mmm,” she said as my finger went around to her wet center.

“I’m not done with you yet,” I said. “I have another thing I’m ready to check off my list.”

“Yes,” she breathed as I pushed inside her from behind.

She arched her back, making me hit a spot inside her that had us both panting as we began rocking together.

“Fuck, Ceri,” I said while she writhed against me.

“I think I’m going to have to come up with my own checklist,” she said between my thrusts. “Just to make sure we’re being thorough.”

“Absolutely,” I said, needing to be deeper, needing to feel the way her walls clenched around me when she was about to come.

“Please don’t stop,” she said. “Just don’t stop.”

My fingers circled faster as I increased my pace, my release close. Too fucking close. I didn’t want this to end, but at the same time, godwitches, I needed to come inside her or I would die.

A wave of pleasure started at the base of my spine, shooting up like a geyser as I came hard, my cock pulsing.

“Oh, yes, that right there,” she said, and I continued touching her as the last drops of my orgasm spurted from me. “That spot, Cillian. That. Yes. Yes.”

Her cries got louder as I circled her clit faster until her walls tightened around me and she was yelling my name as she came apart.

* * *

Hours later, the sun shone high in the sky, impossible to ignore through the curtains, a ray of it slicing through my bed. We were both dressed now, Ceri back in that golden gown from the night before and standing by my bedside. I caught her hand and pulled her on top of me.

“Cillian!”

She fell onto me with an oomph, I reached up to cup the back of her neck and guide her lips back to mine.

“I don’t want you to go,” I murmured.

She sighed and rolled next to me, staring at the canopy. “I know, but I have to check on Papa. It’s midmorning by now, and I don’t want him worrying.” She swallowed and looked over at me. “Before I go, can I ask you something?”

“Uh-oh.” She sounded nervous, which made me nervous, another foreign feeling.

She studied my face. “Was it because of me? The heartstopper?”

That took me aback. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been that. I’d told my mother as much, that it was Ceri and my feelings for her that had led me to want to numb myself to the world. “No, it wasn’t you. It was how I felt about everything.” I remembered the day I’d decided to sneak into Nevan’s healer quarters to get some of the tonic.

“What was?” Ceri asked.