Perfect Master(12)

She might even think she could take it, but he knew better. “You forgot to take off your wig. When we’re alone, I want to see you in all your naked glory.”

She lowered her gaze as though showing him proper respect. “I have no shame, not before my Master.” She lifted off the diamond-strewn confection of auburn curls, moved in front of the window and shook her head. She must have known that would make the sun’s rays bounce off her closely clipped hair, must have sensed how much he longed to discover with his own hand the feel of that bright, curly pelt.

He’d soon indulge that longing. He’d stroke her silken skin and lick the cream from her plump cunt lips the way Hikaru and the other royal eunuchs had done in his stead during the mating ceremony. He wet his lips behind the hood—the air vents suddenly seemed to have closed. He practically gasped for breath at the closed-in sensations.

Where was Hikaru? Arik’s cock had swollen painfully within its leather confines. “Come, then, if you have no shame, for looking at you has me seriously aroused. Free my cock and pleasure me while we wait for Hikaru.”

“Yes, my lord.” When she fondled him through the leather, searching for the zipper that provided access to his sex, he couldn’t stifle a groan. “I love this…love the feel of it in my cunt.”

The zipper opened abruptly, and she slipped one soft hand inside the suit to cup his sac. “I want to suck these, too. I want to feel them bouncing against my warm, wet slit. And I want to feel every inch of you caressing me.”

May the gods help me. She was offering him the sort of fucking he’d accepted was forever beyond his reach—an offer he was certain she’d rescind as soon as she saw him as he was—as he’d vowed to stay for the rest of his life.

Emerald drew up a cushion and knelt on it. She took his cock head in her mouth, encompassing it within that hot, wet cavern, licking around the corona and lapping the slippery lubrication that oozed from its tip. Her lips tightened around his shaft while she gently squeezed his scrotum. Fuck, he was about to come, and he didn’t want it to be like this.

“Stop.”

She lifted her head and looked up at him but kept caressing his balls and the base of his cock with gentle hands. “Why, my lord?”

Because…because he couldn’t bear to have her show him heaven only to snatch it away. And she would. No woman could possibly stand looking at the monster he’d become. Still, no woman could tempt him to change his path—to give in to lust and toss away the righteous vengeance he enjoyed each time he saw the pain and guilt in his father’s eyes.

“I don’t want you to see me. If you do, you will run as others have, and I want very much for you to stay.”

“We are mated. You claimed me before King Gawain and his entire court. I am your princess, and I intend to remain your princess for the rest of my life.”

As certain as Emerald sounded now, Arik wouldn’t let himself hope her determination would survive the shock she was about to receive. But he was impatient, no longer willing to wait for Hikaru. “We shall see how long you feel that way. Take off my hood.”

“How?” She reached up and stroked his cheeks, a puzzled look on her beautiful face.

He managed to hold back an oath when she ran the back of her hand over the ravaged side of his cheek, sending shards of pain down his neck and arm. “Not there. The seam around my neck unfastens all the way around. Once the hood comes apart from the bodysuit, you can loosen the laces at the back of my head and lift it off.”

Cool air surrounded Arik’s throat as the hood separated from the suit. A hiss erupted from Emerald when she slid her fingers into the opening. “I told you I have scars,” he said shortly. “You said you wanted to see.”

“I do.” She didn’t sound as certain now that she’d felt part of the thick, raised scar that took a jagged path from the stump of his right arm over mutilated flesh and bone, until it disappeared into his hairline above where a laser shot from one of his attackers had gouged out his right eye.

He couldn’t let her do it. “Zip the hood back on, Emerald, and be satisfied with knowing only as much of me as I show my father’s subjects.”

“No.”

“Do it.” Damn it, his princess was proving to be a very disobedient slave.

As though she knew her touch would steal his resolve, she wedged one hand inside the hood and tunneled her fingers into his hair. “I want to know all of you, Master.”

He wanted to stop her but what she was doing felt too good. “Please, by the gods, don’t do it.” Arik couldn’t bear to see the revulsion on her face but he couldn’t make himself drag her hand away.