Page 101 of Beautiful Prey
One night, he said, but he couldn’t be more wrong.
Wrapping my lips around the crown, I suckle, moaning at the taste, the sound, the feel of him in my mouth. A broken curse tears out of him.
I take him deep then, working the piercing the way that makes his thighs shake. My free hand comes up to cup his balls, rolling them, and his hips jerk towards my mouth before he can stop them. With the other, I open my pants and wrap a hand around myself.
Fuck, I’m so hard it hurts.
Nothing in the Reach is like Jade Mercer coming apart above me.
His fingers tighten in my hair, his whole body starting to shake as his cock pulses against my tongue. Then he comes in my mouth with a broken moan, hips jerking forward while I swallow every fucking drop.
I tuck him back together, then rise and kiss him so he can taste what we just did.
He parts his lips without a fight. Licking into his mouth, I catch his lower lip between my teeth and nip until he gasps, then move along his jaw to the soft skin beneath his ear. He tips his head back, baring his throat.
I suck a mark into it until it blooms dark and he shudders against me. Then I press my lips to his pulse. “Marry me.”
He goes rigid beneath my hands. “What?”
“Marry me.”
He pulls back, staring at me with those impossible green eyes, lashes fluttering wildly. “Are you out of your mind?”
As if hearing my half-baked proposal, my multi-slate pings with a message from Ryven.
RYVEN: Berth clears in forty minutes, dude. Or it doesn’t clear tonight. Where the fuck are you?
Forty minutes.
Fuck, we need to get out of here now.
“I mean it. Marry me.” I brush a loose strand of blond hair back behind his ear. “What we just did, what I just gave you. Every day for the rest of your life. It’ll be like this for you. Always.”
Jade looks up at me with narrowed eyes, baring his teeth. “What? You think you can just buy me?”
“Jade—”
“You weren’t kidding.” Straightening his clothes with shaking hands, he backs away from me. “In the cave, when you said the ones who see your face get kept. You weren’t kidding.”
“No. Jade, that’s not what I meant.”
“You’ve got your wedding. The wedding’s still happening. You said that to my face at dinner. Your imperial prince, your treaty, your whole tidy little future. And you want me, what, on the side? Whistled for when you’re bored with playing prince?”
“That’s not—”
“And Onyx.” He shakes his head hard. “You think I’d let you... You think I’d ever—”
“None of that’s what I’m trying to do.”
“You are unbelievable.” His voice breaks, tears spilling even as he angrily wipes them away. “You buy my debts, my work, the roof over my brother’s head, the air he breathes, and then you think you can buy the rest of me too. Rearrange my whole fucking life and expect me to say thank you.”
“I’m trying to give you—”
“I know exactly what you’re trying to give me.” He reaches the door, tears still streaming down his face. “The answer’s no. It was always going to be no. You never once believed me when I said it.”
And he’s gone.
What the actual fuck?
