Page 156 of The Mercy of Dawn

“Tell me if you want me to stop, okay?” he murmured against her mouth.

She wanted to say okay, intended to vocalize it fully, but Mikael’s hand ended up under her shirt and it felt like a fucking brand. His fingers brushed up her stomach, slipping beneath the band of her breast wrap, and some half-whined agreement left her instead.

The prince laughed, but he didn’t tease her for long.

The warmth of his hand, seeping into every fiber of her flesh, traveled southward, dipping just below her waistband. Her core clenched with anticipation, hips arching up to meet his hand, but Mikael stopped.

He leveled his gaze with hers—a silent question.

“Please,” she whined.

Mikael’s eyes flared.

“Be careful with that word,” he said roughly, but Cyril didn’t have a chance to ask why. He was kissing her again, drawing his fingers through the slick heat waiting for him between her legs. He stole every bit of breath from her lungs.

Mikael eased a finger into her, pumping slowly to start, and Cyril lost any hope she had of forming words. His hands dwarfed her own, and he used them in the kind of way that made her doubt she’d ever find her own fingers satisfying again.

“You’re so wet.” Mikael’s half-groaned words oozed smug, masculine pride, and Cyril didn’t have it in her to even try to knock him down a peg. This was entirely his doing, and he knew it. “More?”

She whined and nodded, and Mikael sank a second finger into her. He swore, Cyril groaned his name softly, and she wasn’t sure if they were going to make it out of this glen in one piece.

Mikael was eager to drink down the wanton, desperate noises he drew from her with the slow, steady rock of his hand. The fullness she felt from his fingers was as foreign as it was blissful, and Cyril was entirely at his mercy.

She knew she wasn’t long for this world.

All it took was Mikael crooking his fingers just so, and telling her just how fucking good she felt, and she came apart. It was like a little crack of lightning skittered up and down her spine, taking every fleeting strand of conscious thought it with.

She gripped Mikael’s shoulder, a shuddering incantation of his name rolling off her tongue and onto his lips, and he worked her through what may have very well been a life-altering orgasm.

The cocky grin on his face told her he probably assumed as much too.

Cyril let her head fall back in the grass with a groan.

“I take it that was to your liking?” Mikael chuckled, placing a trio of decidedly tender kisses up her throat.

“Shut up,” Cyril mumbled.

It wasn’t just to her liking, it was un-fucking-real.

And despite becoming acutely aware of just how fucking hot it was outside, she still made a quiet noise of protest when Mikael’s weight shifted away from her.

They were not done yet.

Cyril reached for him, skimming a hand up his thigh as she asked, “What about you?”

“I seem to recall my cowardice only extended to me not touching you.” Mikael caught her hand and kissed her palm before he set it back down in the grass. “Besides, I’m fine. And we should head back before they send someone looking for the two of us.”

“You do not look fine.”

No, he looked hard as hells, straining against the laces of his pants, and Cyril was riding a wicked high. When she ran her hand up his thigh again, Mikael didn’t stop her. She palmed him gently, like she’d done so many nights at the barracks now, and leaned in to kiss his jaw.

“C’mon Mika,” she murmured. The shift in his hips as he tipped his head back was subtle, but it was all the encouragement Cyril needed to touch him a little more firmly. “Let me make you feel good.”

Mikael took a ragged breath. The heat in his eyes when they slid over to her had Cyril’s heart beating faster than it already was.

“Wrath,” he said roughly, “I don’t want someone to come and find you on your knees for me.”

There was no stopping the sultry smile that crept onto Cyril’s face.