Ambrosia (Frost and Nectar Book 2)

“The thing is, changeling,” he whispered, his breath warming my throat, “if by some chance I don’t make it out of the Court of Sorrows, I can’t die with you thinking I’m the Henry VIII of fucking. And I will make you moan my name.” His low, silky voice caressed my skin, sending a wicked thrill through me.

Moonlight slanted in through the window, silvering his heartbreakingly beautiful face. I couldn’t let myself love him, but I ached for him. The look he was giving me was molten, with a dangerous undercurrent in his unearthly blue eyes.

He reached up again, gently caressed my right horn, going slowly from the tip all the way down. As he did, he searched my face, watching my mouth open, my eyelids lower and flutter with the forbidden pleasure of it all. Under the thin fabric of my shirt, my breasts peaked, and heat slid up my spine.

“That’s cheating,” I breathed.

“But how could I resist seeing that look on your beautiful face again?” His voice had gone husky. He leaned down and grazed his lips over my neck, then his teeth over my throat. His tongue swept over my skin, tasting me, and the rest of the world fell away. My thoughts narrowed to the worshipful strokes of his tongue.

One of his hands slid across my abdomen, then inside my shorts. From one hip bone to another, his fingers traced like he was memorizing my contours with his touch. Oh, gods, his languid strokes were igniting my body with need.

As my breaths grew shallow, my hips moved back into him. When they did, I could feel the large, hard length of him against me. His obvious arousal only made me more desperate for him. The thin cotton fabric felt excruciating on my skin, and my body heated with the torturous desperation to pull it off me. All my nerve endings felt full, aching for him.

When I moved my hips back into him again, he let out a low moan. Sucking in a deep breath, he gripped my shorts in his fist, and I had the distinct impression he was about to lose control of himself. To rip them straight off and plunge into me—

He’d never had to restrain himself this much when we’d been fighting. Then, it had always seemed so easy for him to maintain complete control, every one of his moves carefully calculated. But now I could feel the strain of his arm muscles and the steel of his chest.

His mouth moved from my throat, hand still clenching my shorts in a death grip. I felt his breath warming my back, exactly in the place where Morgant has ripped my shoulder open. Gently, Torin’s fingertips trailed over the scar. “It doesn’t hurt anymore, does it?”

His lips replaced his fingertips, and his kiss sent warmth radiating from the point of contact where his mouth met my skin. In between kisses, he murmured, “I will eviscerate that man someday. Do you know that?”

“No thinking about the future.” Flushed, I lay on my back so I could look at the heartbreak of his beautiful face more easily.

With me, Torin wasn’t able to let himself go completely. Not when he knew it would be ending.

A ghost of sorrow crossed his perfect features. “Ava. I thought of you all the time in my cell. How much I wanted you next to me, your limbs entwined with mine.”

His words stunned me, this version of Torin with his guard dropped. Under the intensity of his gaze, my chest flushed.

When I tried to remember what I’d been thinking about in that prison cell, it was all muddied in my thoughts. Just sharp flashes of desperation and a glimpse of what I must have looked like licking rainwater off the floor. I’d felt so wildly helpless there, but with Torin? It didn’t matter if we were technically from enemy factions. I was safe with him.

I touched the side of his face, tracing his high cheekbones.

Torin must have seen my expression change because he asked, “What are you remembering?”

I let out a long breath, trying to smile. This wasn’t taking the direction I’d been hoping for. “Nothing that I want to. Maybe your job is to take my mind off that dungeon.”

“Ava, you know we can never be…” A jagged edge ran through his words.

He needed something from me, but I wasn’t sure what it was. All I knew was that a moment ago, he’d been so close to touching me exactly where I wanted him, and now I was remembering things I’d rather leave buried. I felt the moment teetering on a knife edge, like I was about to lose what I so desperately wanted.

“I think you should just kiss me,” I said. “Why worry about two weeks from now? We could be dead tomorrow.”

A pained expression flickered across his divine features, but it was gone in an instant, replaced by a seductive curl of his lips, a heated expression in his eyes.

I’d sworn off men, and him specifically. But now? I was desperate to feel something crack through the icy numbness in my chest. Being close to Torin was like lava melting through black rock.

Responding to my command, he leaned down and claimed my mouth with his. His lips brushed mine lightly, like a question, and my response was to open mine to his kiss, to sweep my tongue against his. His muscles went taut, and I drank him in—his smell, the feel of him against me. The way he kissed me, as though he’d been imagining it for months.

Sparks danced over my exposed skin.

As he kissed me, he slid his hand under the hem of my shirt, caressing my hips, moving slowly over my ribs. Under the crisp white shirt, my nipples went tight with anticipation. He slid his hand down again, traveling to my hips. The way he touched me made my muscles coil tightly with the certainty that he knew exactly how to make me shudder with pleasure.

“I want to take my time to savor every moment, Ava.”

Slowly, teasing me, he swirled his fingertips under the band of my shorts. A wild ache built at the apex of my thighs. I yearned for him.

But he was taking his time, and he traced circles over my hipbone with a languorous stroke. My breath hitched, and he shifted his body, his hips between my thighs now. He kissed me slowly, savoring me, one hand sliding to cup my ass, and I moved my hips into him.

His fingers slid into my hair, gripping it, tugging it just a little as he kissed me. And with every languid stroke of his tongue, my body begged for more. With a nip to my lower lip, he pulled away from the kiss.

“I love the taste of you.” His voice came out husky, almost desperate.

I needed more contact from him, my bare skin against his. I started unbuttoning my shirt, and he glanced down to watch me, his eyes glowing with heat. As I pulled the shirt off, his gaze slid down me like a sultry caress, lingering on my bare breasts. My breath went shallow as his eyes rose again, pausing on my lips. A wildness shone in that pale blue, a primal desire that looked barely restrained. The Seelie king was about to come undone.

Leaning down again, he kissed me with the desperate fervor of a man who thought he could die tomorrow and only a kiss could save him. He moved his hips against me, hard and slow, and liquid warmth pooled in my core. With my breath hitching, I raked my fingernails down his back, my teeth grazing his shoulder, a hint of my threat from earlier.

His hand slid into the band of my shorts, and he tugged them down. “Take these off.” His voice shifted, the low, commanding demand of a king used to getting what he wanted.

He leaned back, watching me pull them off. He could have tugged them down himself, but he wanted to watch me do it, and the feel of his eyes on me made me pulse with need for him.

A primal expression shone in his eyes, and heat radiated through the air around us. “If I could have you always around me naked, Ava, I would be a happy man.” He stared at me, drinking me in. “In fact, it’s a king’s privilege to be surrounded by beauty. And it’s a king’s privilege to indulge his wickedest desires.”

He slid down, his abs between my thighs. He closed his lips over my nipple. His tongue swirled and licked, making me want to cry out. I moved my hips against him, letting him know exactly how much I needed him.

“Demon,” he murmured against my skin. But this time, I loved the sound of that word on his tongue, the reverent, husky timbre.

My back arched, and I stifled a cry as he stroked and licked my breast with a pace that was frustratingly indolent. Desperately, I wanted him inside me.

One of his hands moved down my body, gentleness twining with a dark possessiveness as he cupped my sex, slick with arousal. “For tonight,” he whispered, “this is mine.”

At his words, my thighs opened wider for him, and I moved against him, growing desperate for release as his fingers glided in and out.

“Torin,” I breathed, raking my fingernails down his back once more. “I want you. Now.”

He released my nipple from his lips, peering up at me. And to my immense frustration, his fingers stilled as well. “A Seelie king hurries for no one. Especially when he has his absolutely bewitching enemy in bed, naked and wet for him.”

Gods, he was an unrelenting tease, and I couldn’t stop myself from moving against his hand. I was so close now, but I needed more of him. “Take off your clothes.”

Ignoring my demand, he sucked at my nipple again, and my toes curled.

He was touching me exactly where I needed him, his fingers moving expertly as a crescendo of pleasure coiled in my core. Heat spread across my chest, and he raised his mouth to mine again. He kissed me deeply, stroking his tongue against mine. I moaned against his mouth, my muscles going taut, then softening as shudders racked my body. As my orgasm rocked through me, my thoughts fragmented. A carnal, dark pleasure pulsed through my body, rolling waves that made blood rush to my core.

As I rocked against him, my mind bloomed with a color, the divine, pale blue of Torin’s eyes.

When I opened my eyes again, I found him staring at me like he was entranced. With his hand still between my legs, he kissed me once more.

Flushed, I caught my breath. Torin wrapped his arms around me, and I breathed against the glowing skin of his throat.

Torin, without a doubt, made it his mission to look after those he cared for.

Blinking, I woke in the night, feeling too cold, missing Torin’s heat.

When I turned to look at him, I found him sitting on the edge of the bed. He rested his hands over his knees, and his head hung down.

“Torin?”

He turned to look at me, the mournful blue of his eyes piercing the dark, his hair rustled with sleep. In the moonlight, he was all contrasts—shadowy tattoos against pale skin, pale eyes, and hair dark as jet.

“Just a bad dream,” he said quietly. “You know, Ava, I only told Morgant that I didn’t care for you because I didn’t want them to use you against me. If they knew you were important to me…I don’t really want to imagine what they might have done.”

The first golden blush of heat started to thaw the ice in my heart. “I’m not sure he believed you. He seems infuriatingly good at detecting lies.”

My breath caught as he held my gaze for another minute, and then he turned away again. He ran a hand through his hair. “When we trained in Faerie, I feel like I got to know your every move, changeling. How you thought. How you breathed. And you’re not really an Unseelie. You’re not from this cursed place.”

“What was your bad dream about?”

“I was dreaming about my mother. I have vague memories of her when I’m awake. But when I sleep, I dream of her vividly. And I don’t know if the dreams are based on memories or something my mind conjured. I think this was a memory.” His voice sounded ravaged. “This time, I was standing by her bedside, watching her die. The curse had made purple veins crawl over her skin. I loved her, but I thought she looked like a monster as she was dying. I remember being so angry that she wouldn’t get up to look after me because I think I knew she was all done looking after me. And I didn’t really know who else to be angry with. So…those were her last moments with me. Me, being an absolute brat.”

A lump rose in my throat, and I moved closer to him. I wrapped the blanket around him and slid my hand around his broad shoulders to keep it in place. “I’m sure she wanted you there. Even if you were being a brat.”

He leaned into me. “The thing is, I know I’m a king in the enemy’s territory. I need to get out of here, and I need you to go as well. But I really can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to hunt down Queen Mab and Morgant, and end both their lives.”

I shook my head. “And then what? Then you die in a foreign kingdom. The Seelie and Unseelie go from a cold war to a hot war, and everyone dies.”

“Of course, you are right, changeling.” He turned, sliding back into the bed with me.

He folded himself around me, and when his breathing started to grow heavy again, his heartbeat slowing, my body melted into his.