Prince of Cats - Tasha Black Page 0,30
on until the wee hours. He must have missed her as well, because he’d been trying to catch her eye all through tonight’s dinner.
She’d been afraid someone at the feast table would notice.
But they were all too drunk on ale and celebration to make mention of it, if they did. It wasn’t as crowded as last night, when she’d presented Kieran and been hustled out. Tonight’s dinner had been more intimate, if you could say that about a gathering of twenty people, and she’d been allowed to stay a bit longer with Kieran before he started to get tired, and she excused herself to put him down.
Piper stood and allowed the water to run in rivulets down her body as the candlelight shimmered on her wet flesh.
The door creaked open slowly.
Piper froze.
Killian stood in the doorway, his features soft with wonder.
“Piper,” he murmured.
She watched as he barred the door behind him and turned back to her, his big body moving swiftly but gracefully across the space between them.
Her thighs trembled with need at the sight of him.
He lifted her easily from the water and carried her to the bed, laying her down gently, as if she were a child.
“Killian,” she whispered, arms open to him.
He pressed his warm body down on hers and though he was fully dressed, she could feel his desire, throbbing hot and stiff against her hip.
She tilted her chin up to kiss him, loving the violent way his tongue sought hers, even as his hand cupped her cheek, so gently.
“Please,” she whimpered, clutching at his clothing.
He merely growled and kissed his way down her neck, her breasts, her belly, nudging her thighs apart impatiently.
She didn’t have a chance to catch her breath or prepare herself for his frantic assault.
The pleasure was like a tropical storm - sudden, hot, and lush.
She bit her lip until it nearly bled in her effort to stop herself from screaming out her climax when it came.
Killian crawled up beside her and held her close.
Something was wrong. She knew it in her bones.
She buried her face in his chest, clung to him, unable to drag the air into her lungs to ask what had happened.
“We can’t go on like this,” he whispered.
And just like that, her heart was broken.
“I have a people to answer to,” he went on. “A pledge that was made from the moment of my birth. I have to put their interests first. And sneaking around puts everything we’ve done at risk. If anyone were to find out…”
She was drowning in pain and couldn’t speak.
“Do you understand, Piper Lee?” he asked. “Can you see why this is best for Kieran, best for his subjects?”
She pressed her face to his chest. She didn’t want to answer. Didn’t want to admit that he was right.
“Piper, please.” His voice broke on the please and she understood that she had no choice.
She lifted her face to look into his eyes.
They were so much like Kieran’s. How had she never noticed it before?
She pulled together all the pride and dignity she could muster, drawing it from stores she didn’t know she had.
“I understand,” she said simply.
It was what he needed to hear.
Tears blurred her eyes.
Somehow, she managed to roll away from his heat and lay back on her pillow.
She closed her eyes and felt him climbing off the bed, heard his footsteps as he walked away, the creak of the door, and the click when it closed behind him.
Then and only then she allowed herself to weep. It was not a pretty cry, with silent tears sliding down her cheeks. She cried with deep, resounding sobs that made her ribs ache.
The only thing that kept her together at all was her determination not to wake her son.
He will not see me this way. I will be better in the morning.
22
Piper
Piper awoke early the next morning feeling hollow inside, still reeling from a dream where she had been running through a dark wood, and then suddenly she had just been falling, falling…
But she made a point of taking another quick bath, and tidying up her room.
When the cool morning light slanted through the windows, she made her way to the bassinet and sang Kieran awake.
He smiled his best dimpled smile, and all of a sudden, the ache in her heart lessened and the sun seemed to shine brighter through the windows.
“We don’t need anybody else,” she crooned. “I’ve got you, babe.”
He seemed to agree.
She rocked him in the wooden rocker while he nursed, his chubby