Thorn Queen Page 0,91

on this morning in the hopes of getting intimate with Kiyo.

Those clever fingers slid into me, stoking a wetness I hadn't thought could come on so fast. My small exclamation was muffled in his crushing kiss as he alternately thrust his fingers into me and pulled out to tease and dance with my clit. It was the latter he eventually settled on, circling and stroking as heat built between my legs and made all my muscles tense up. Then, the burning flood of sensation exploded, and I came with another cry that his kiss smothered, a cry that faded into a moan as my body trembled and spasmed from the shock waves of heat and electricity still shooting through me from his touch.

My orgasm created no pause in the action, though. The hand that had just brought me such pleasure moved from between my legs to his pants as he began to unfasten them. His mouth finally left mine, moving on to my neck, his kisses hot and fierce. He shoved his pants down, and I felt him against me, hard and ready as he pressed his hips to mine. My hands were tangled in his hair as I tilted my head back to receive his kisses, but his hands, busy as always, were prying off my underwear. The reality of what was happening sank in.

"Wait..." I murmured, lost as his mouth bit against my skin. "No, we can't...I can't..."

"You can," he breathed in my ear. "Let me...let me do it. Let me bury myself in you. Let me spread your legs and take you like I did before. We are gods in this world, Eugenie, with no other lovers who are our equals. No others who are worthy of this joining." The thong was on the ground now, and I could feel his erection pressed against my skin, so, so close to sliding in and doing all the things he promised. He rested his hands under my thighs and hoisted me up against the wall so that my legs wrapped around his hips.

"Dorian..." I gasped. "I'm with Kiyo...."

"So? You're a queen. Do you think you can't have as many lovers as you like?"

"It's...it's wrong. We can't..."

"We can," he said, voice low and full of promise. "And when we do, this land will be reborn...."

Afterward, I would never be entirely sure if I would have let him do it. I like to think I would have stopped him. I was in love with Kiyo, after all, and loyal to him. Surely I would have said no and shoved Dorian aside. I wasn't in love with him...or was I? In those moments before we'd kissed, I'd felt like he truly got me and understood the things in my head. I think I'd probably loved him since around the time we'd met; I certainly never lost the attraction. Still, that didn't make cheating on Kiyo right.

Whatever decision I would have made was taken from me when there was a knock at the door.

I jerked away from Dorian and hastily shoved my skirt down. He more casually turned away to pull his pants back up, seeming in no particular hurry. The door opened, and the lead councilwoman stuck her head in. Even with Dorian's back to her and me dressed, it had to have been obvious what was going on-particularly with my underwear on the floor. If she found it shocking, though, she didn't show it, and I recalled how free the gentry were in public.

"Your majesties," she said politely, "there's a storm coming in, and the workers were wondering what the Oak King wanted to do."

Dorian, decent once more, turned around and gave her a laconic, charming smile. "A storm? Really? How truly unexpected. Well, tell them to bring as much of the ore as they can into storage before the rain and cover the rest up. I'll come check on it in a moment since I have a feeling the Thorn Queen is about to depart with some haste."

The woman gave a quick curtsey and shut the door once more. "You're right," I said, jerking my thong back on. "I'm leaving."

"Yes," he agreed, still smiling. "Because that's your normal course of action when something happens that you don't know how to process."

"That's the thing," I growled. "Nothing happened here, okay? None of this did."

His eyebrows rose. "Really? Because I could have sworn that something happened when my hand was between your-"

"No!" I would have approached him with clenched fists to drive