My stomach tightened and moisture pooled between my legs. “And what if that’s not what I want?”
He laughed soft and low. “We both know that it is, princess. I can smell how badly you want me right now. I can’t get the thought of you on your knees before me out of my head. I can still remember exactly what you tasted like off my fingers. I’m dying to see if it’s any different when my head is buried between your thighs and you’re pledging your loyalty with a scream of pleasure.”
“Evren,” I whispered his name in warning, but it sounded like I was begging him to do exactly as he promised.
He moved a hand around me, and he pressed his rough fingers into my exposed back. “Gods, Adara.” He ran his nose along my jaw, and my chest rose and fell quickly against his. “You undo me every time my name is uttered from your lips.”
My back arched as his power thrummed through me, and a deep ache started between my thighs. An ache I hadn’t been able to get rid of since I met him.
“We’re supposed to be at the ball.”
“We are.” He nodded against my neck, breathing me in deeply. “Lots of people are expecting to see the future queen of Citlali.”
He spoke the words, but he didn’t move away from me. If anything, he pulled me tighter against him until I knew that my dress would be wrinkled from his touch.
“But gods, I must taste you before they have their fill.” Evren walked backward, pulling me with him, and I almost tripped over the skirts of my dress as he fumbled for the stone wall and ran his hands along the smooth stone.
For a moment, I wondered what he was doing, but then the stone moved, just as it had for the guard, and Evren pulled me inside the dark corridor that was lit tonight by a few lanterns that hung from the wall. The stone had hardly closed before he wrapped his hand around my neck and tugged me toward him.
“What is this place?” It was small enough that the two of us standing together were forced to be close, but the corridor stretched on for as far as I could see.
“It’s the guards’ passage.” He forced me back against the wall and ran his lips along my neck. “We use it to get where we need to be in the palace quickly.”
“And does the queen know of it?”
His teeth grazed over my collarbone, and my eyes fluttered closed at the sensation.
“There is very little that the queen doesn’t know, princess. But she is far too busy tonight to wonder what’s going on in the halls of her castle.” He brought his mouth up to meet mine then, and he kissed me roughly, as if it was taking every bit of his control not to consume me.
And I kissed him back just as carelessly.
He groaned when my tongue met his, and I could taste the hint of ale on his tongue.
“Put your hands on the wall, princess.” He pushed me forward until I was forced to comply with his words, and I pressed my hands into the stone just above my head as Evren held on to my hips. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.” He ran his hand from the top of my shoulders down my spine, and I inhaled a sharp breath when I felt him drop to his knees behind me.
He pulled my skirt to the side, the slit at my thigh allowing him access, and his fingers grazed over my undergarments in a whisper of a touch. I jolted when he pressed more firmly against my sex, and I heard his soft laugh behind me.
“So ready for me. Aren’t you?” He slid the fabric to the side and dipped his fingers beneath until they met my flesh. “So damn wet.”
I clamped my eyes closed as he gathered my moisture with his fingers before slowly sinking them inside me. I widened my legs to give him better access to my body, and he pressed a gentle kiss to the back of my thigh.
“Do you want my mouth on you, princess? Do you want me to taste what lays between your perfect fucking thighs?”
I nodded my head before looking behind me to where he kneeled. He was watching me so intently, and I knew that I would never experience this again. No matter what happened in my life, I would never experience a lover as possessive as Evren.
“Has anyone tasted you before, or does that honor belong to me?” He nipped at my thigh and my knees threatened to buckle.
“Only you,” I whispered and reached behind me to touch him. I ran my fingers along the back of his neck and felt the way his hair fell through them.
He lifted my skirt then and his tongue caressed the bottom curve of my backside. My hips surged back, searching for his mouth, desperate for his tongue to be exactly where I needed him.
Evren’s hand slipped away from my sex and roughly grabbed my hips before he ripped away the delicate lace of my undergarments.
“Fuck, you taste even sweeter than I imagined.”
“Oh gods.” I pressed my forehead against my arm just as he jerked my hips backward and forced my bottom to arch almost uncomfortably so.
I wasn’t prepared for what he was doing, and when the first swipe of his tongue met my sex, I cried out against my arm.