A Kingdom of Lies (Realm of Fey #2)

CHAPTER 24

Thoughts were useless as our lips crashed together, senses exploding.

Duncan held me to him, hands grasping upon my arms as though I’d disappear if he let go. My own hands wove up his chest, fingers catching the bristly hairs as I combed through them, up to his neck.

Everything about him was hard, like warmed stone against the coldness of my touch. I felt him tense beneath me, our bodies pressed together with no want or need for distance.

I needed this, desperately. The touch, the tension, the distraction.

Duncan kissed like a starved man with coins finally weighing his pockets. Desperate and hungry. He moved with that desperation yet still demanded full control in the way his lips pressed atop mine. Noses clashed as our faces turned, shifting to allow for fluidity. I tasted him, sharp as wine. The kiss deepened quickly, his tongue joining the dance and parting my lips with ease, coaxing my own until they both twisted like snakes encouraged by their charmer.

I was lost to the dark of my closed eyes, allowing Duncan to guide me. He was the captain, I merely followed his physical command.

He urged me down upon the bed, leaning backwards, and tugging me atop him. The bed creaked as my weight was added, aged wood screaming in resistance. But we ignored it, along with many other things.

I clambered upon his lap, legs overlapping his until I was kneeling above him. Duncan’s head rested upon the wall of the attic, hands now grasping the sides of my face as he refused to break his lips from mine. He moved with confidence gained only from experience. The thought alone made my cheeks bloom red and my insides warm with excitement.

It was Duncan who pulled away first, holding me at arm’s reach. His breathing was laboured, as was mine. Without his kiss, I was aware of everything. How his legs felt firm beneath me, and the subtle movement of his hips as though we stood on a ship rocking above calm seas.

“Are we…” His words tapered off, lips red and glistening wet. Fingers now gripped my lower back, squeezing into my skin where he held me. “Doing this? Do you… want to do this?”

“I want to,” I assured him, “if that’s what you’re asking.”

He didn’t smile, at least not with his mouth. Duncan’s eyes lit up from within, brows raising as he exhaled a long, toughened sigh. “Say it to me. Tell me what I can have.”

“All of it.” I tensed, nails shifting down the hardened lumps of his stomach until goosebumps were left in their wake. “Take me, Duncan. Distract me–”

My hands fell limp as the image of Erix flooded my mind. Distract me. That was how it had started in the destroyed home in Berrow, sharing a bed as winter ripped at the outer walls with desperation to enter and watch us.

“Robin?” Duncan said, fingers reaching to my chin. I snapped back to the room, attention shifting from the haunting memory and the bad taste it left in my mouth. “This can stop before it starts. Blame this simply on a moment of drunken boredom and never discuss it again. I’ll do as you wish.”

I pondered his offer, forcing a smile as I blinked away unwanted thoughts.

“I know what I want, Duncan, and it’s this,” I murmured, eyes racing over him with honest wanting. “Let’s make a mistake.”

“I like the sound of that.”

Duncan gasped softly as my hand wove down beneath my arse and gripped the hard cock that pressed into me. Even beneath his leathers, I could feel its thick, warm and pulsing desire.

A growl built in Duncan’s throat. He grinned now, flashing teeth and tongue. “Some words of warning. I don’t doubt your experience or lack thereof, but I must tell you this. You would have never been with someone like me.”

No shit . My stomach jolted, but not from fear.

“Care to expand on that?” I asked.

He shook his head, dark hair shifting as though a breeze infiltrated the room. “No. I’d rather show you.”

I gulped. It was all I could do as Duncan looked upon me like prey.

“Remove your shirt,” he commanded.

I did as he wanted, tugging the clothing from my back with clumsy, nervous hands. Discarding my shirt upon the floor, I felt somewhat self-conscious, a feeling I wasn’t familiar with. Duncan was built like a man, thick and strong in every sense of the words. Etchings of muscles covered my body, but I was slimmer and shorter.

He didn’t seem to mind.

Duncan took his time, eyes drifting over my hardened nipples and taut stomach. Wherever his eyes dusted across, I felt them like a whisper of an unseen touch. He lifted a finger, running the coarse tip of it across the scar upon my chest. Twisted skin, left from the burn of Althea’s touch as she had cauterised the stab wound Tarron had given me. I waited for him to say something, ask what had caused it. Then again, I didn’t question his scars.

Shivers ran across my arms, the silence taut as I waited for his next command.

“If only I could taste you,” Duncan groaned, touch becoming rough as he gripped the sides of my waist. “Delicious, irrefusable, Robin.”

“You can.” My voice was small as I replied. I began rolling my hips, not caring for the ache in my knees or the moaning of the bed beneath us. All I cared for was the lump of flesh that I rode atop and the way it widened Duncan’s eyes and quickened his breathing.

“Careful, Robin,” he warned.

“Of what?” I asked, gasping as his hands tightened and he looked down to my hips with burning hunger. Mouth parted, he watched in a strange trance as I rocked upon his cock, enjoying the feeling of it pressed beneath me, a reminder of the power I held.

Duncan snapped his stare to mine, low lip caught between his teeth. Then he spoke, replied with a single word that set my skin ablaze. “Me.”

I was feather-light in his hold, ripped from my seat upon him and twisted with ease until my back was laid out across the bed. Duncan leaned over me, arms pinning me down at either side. There was no time to gasp before his mouth was back upon mine. Urgency fuelled the kiss.

My legs wrapped around his hips, and I pulled him down upon me. Nipping, biting, sucking at his lips and tongue to prove my own hunger for him. I was frantic, hands rushing up his bare, hard back. I got to his hair, grasping a handful and pulling. He was mine for the night – a few hours of pretending.

Duncan removed a hand, balancing on his other, as he fumbled with the belt upon his trousers. Silently I encouraged him, internally cheering as the belt smacked the ground and the thump of his trousers followed. By the time he broke away, bruised lips a faint blue, he was left with nothing but his cock standing proud between his legs. He was large, in every sense that mattered. In the glow of orange flame, shadows were cast across his scarred body. Muscles etched proudly, like mountains upon his skin. Dark hairs messy from the urgent spreading of my hands. And his cock. It looked at me as I looked at it. I wanted to reach for it, wrap my fingers around its warmth and pull him back to me. Instead, I studied him like a painter studied a landscape, memorising the curves, shapes and hardness of his body.

“Impressive,” I said, eyeing every inch of him – and I meant every inch.

My mouth filled with moisture, cheeks prickling, hands damp; my mind raced to decide what I was going to do first.

“Time we get the rest of your clothes off, I think.”

“You do it,” I commanded this time, taking control. “Undress me.”

Duncan did as I asked. He undressed me, hands tugging off my trousers, his knuckles brushing the bare skin of my thighs as he worked them down to my ankles.

As skin touched skin it felt like lightning.

Then he spoke, commanding the room as his own like the general he had worked so hard to become. “Suck me, Robin,” he demanded, hand grasping the base of his cock where he shook it with a tight fist. “Let me feel what the mouth of a king is like whilst I fill it entirely.”

One look down at his cock and I knew there was no way I’d have fit it all in. But I was going to try – I liked a challenge.

Duncan stood there as I pushed up from the bed and lowered myself down onto my knees before him.

“Have you ever had a king kneel for you?” I asked, brushing my hands up his ankles towards the warmth of his inner thighs.

“Ask me when the sun rises, and I will answer with honesty.”

Duncan’s hand worked in circles, up and down his shaft, never once taking his eyes off me. As I had with him, he studied me like a sculpture, searching for imperfections to smooth. I couldn’t help but wonder what Duncan thought, watching me as he did.

I could’ve listed the parts of myself I hated. The parts I wished to keep hidden. The way the bones of my hips pushed out through skin, or the fact my chest seemed to never have the ability to grow hair like others my age.

I pushed myself towards him, reaching forward with needy hands. “May I begin, or are you going to just glower down on me until you make yourself come?”

“Wait a moment,” Duncan said quickly, pulling his cock from my reach. “Until I give you the command. Be the good boy I know you can be.”

A nervous laugh bubbled out of me. With Erix I had always felt in control, but now… This was different, thrilling and unnerving in equal measure. Like standing on the precipice of a cliff and jumping off.

Duncan finally tore his gaze from me, looked downwards, and pursed lips as he spat upon himself. The line of spit dribbled until it graced the pink curve of his cock’s end. With a thumb he caught it from dripping to the floor, rubbing it around the tip until it glistened in the candlelight.

He then reached forward, took my jaw in his hand and pulled me until my mouth was full.

“Hands to yourself,” Duncan commanded as he begun to move, in and out, slow and gentle. “I want your mouth only.”

Despite my desire to, I really couldn’t get the entire length inside. Duncan revelled in that fact. Tears streamed my cheeks, the deeper he thrust. Duncan cleared them with his thumb, but more spilled every time his cock brushed the back of my throat.

He moaned like an animal, head knocked back as I worked at him. The sounds he made encouraged me, the hand at the back of my head guiding the rhythm of my sucking.

Before the ache in my jaw turned from song to scream, Duncan pulled me from him, picked me up beneath my armpits until I practically dangled from the floor. Duncan didn’t care for the spittle around my mouth, coating my chin and cheeks, as our mouths crashed back together. I lost myself to him, allowing myself to be moved around as though I did not control my own limbs.

Soon enough the world was tilted, and I was laid back down on my back.

“You never fail to surprise me with your talents,” Duncan murmured, fingers leaving red lines in the skin of my legs as he dragged them upwards. “Do you know what restraint it has taken for me not to finish within your delightful mouth? Do you?”

I shook my head, gasping as his fingers tickled beneath my thighs. We held each other’s gaze as he trailed his touch all the way to the sensitive part of my arse. “I told you that you had no patience.”

“Wicked, Robin. Teasing me for my lack of control. I’ll punish it out of you,” he groaned, pressing the tip of his finger in ever so slightly, enough to make my body quiver. “I’m going to fuck you now, okay?”

I reached for his hand, desperation taking over. “Do it, please, do it.”

“Where were my manners?” Duncan smiled in response to my begging. “May I fuck you, King?”

King . Such a funny title. I hardly felt like a king, especially now. On my back for a man who had sworn his life to hunt others like me. Oh, how the tables had turned. No, the tables had been completely flipped over, smashing into lots of tiny pieces.

With one hand, Duncan ran circles around the sensitive heart of my arse. With the other, he drew his tongue up his fingers, spitting upon them until they dripped.

“Yes,” I breathed. “You may.”

I closed my eyes as bliss overcame me. Duncan rubbed his wet fingers upon my sensitive entrance, the tip of his finger slipping inside of me as a promise for what was to come.

My back arched, forced down by his hand on my abdomen.

“I will give you a throne worthy of sitting upon,” Duncan said.

Euphoria exploded behind my closed eyes like stars dying in the night. “And I’ll ride within you like a steed worthy of royalty.”

I opened my eyes, fixing them on Duncan, wondering why he’d not entered me yet. I was so completely focused on Duncan that the shadows around us swallowed the room entirely. There was something serious about his expression, a moment of pause that came with worry.

“Are you sure you want me, Robin?” Duncan asked.

“I do,” I moaned as his finger slipped further into me. “Fuck me, Duncan. Take me for yours and do as you will.”

He released a long, laboured breath. “Oh, Robin, you’ll come to wish you never gave me permission. It’s men like me who will ruin your life.”

“Then shatter it,” I replied, peeling back every layer or wall that I had built up around him. “Destroy it. Duncan. Ruin me… entirely.”

And so, he did, without pain or discomfort. Duncan took my body and claimed it.

Duncan eased his length into me, a look of pure focus peppered across his brow. He watched himself slowly enter me, paying mind not to cause me pain, each breath allowing him to work further into me, shaft wet with his own excitement and spit.

Soon enough he built into a rhythm, each stroke sending bursts of pleasure up my spine. I closed my eyes, witnessing the explosions of colour that filled my mind. And my power… It crept out from me, cooling the sweat that laced my skin, without going too far. It held some restraint from breaking completely free and turning the world to ice.

This was divinity. Losing myself to a man who, in return, lost himself to me.

We were at it for an age. Fucking, bodies dancing.

Duncan surprised me most when he lifted my foot to his mouth, tongue twisting around my toes, sucking and nipping. At first the feeling stunned me, but soon I melted into it, enjoying every flick of his tongue and every graze of his teeth.

I never wanted it to end. But all good things stop eventually.

Duncan came to his end suddenly, moans building into a crescendo. I’d finished moments before, my spare hand assisting my climax. His fingers gripped into my leg as he cried out, lost in his relief. I watched him with pride, knowing I’d done that. With all the power I held, everything I could do, this… this was what gave me a sense of satisfaction with myself.

His thrusting slowed, breaths panting and chest heaving. When he opened his eyes to look at me, ringed with tiredness and hair sticky with sweat, he grinned. “You’re magnificent, Robin.”

I gulped as he withdrew his cock from me, the phantom feeling of it still lingering within, even moments after he’d turned his broad back to me. I thought I’d become an afterthought as Duncan began cleaning himself down with the discarded tunic I had taken off.

Then he turned back to me and took his time clearing the cum from my stomach.

“The feeling is mutual,” I replied, rolling onto my side and curling into myself. All I had done was lay myself down, presenting my body like food upon a platter of gold for Duncan to feast on, yet still I felt deeply exhausted. “That was not how I envisioned the evening going.”

It was sobering. My mind was crystal clear as though I’d not touched a drop of alcohol at all.

“I do hope that is not regret I hear in your voice, Robin?”

I looked up, concern pinching Duncan’s brow into a scowl. “Not at all, merely surprised. At you, at myself.”

Duncan stepped towards the bed, cock still hard between his legs. “May I join you before my legs give out? Exerting so much energy after my head injury has left me feeling like I’m standing on a boat.”

I patted the bed, chest warming at the idea of sharing such a small space with him.

We both lay naked facing each other. My back was pressed to the wall, the bed mostly taken up by Duncan’s large, demanding build. He ran his fingers up and down my bare arm, tickling over the bumps that had spread across my skin.

“When the wine wears off, and we wake tomorrow, you may think differently of what has happened tonight.”

“Maybe, but I think you’re going to be wrong,” I told him, head as clear as summer skies, not an ounce of wine left to haunt me. Perhaps Duncan had fucked the drunkenness out of me. “But you will. When realisation of what I am, what you are, catches up to you. By morning you’ll remember.”

Until then, I will continue to pretend – continue to use Duncan as a means to forget the world outside this attic room.

Duncan pressed a kiss to my lips, gentle as snowflakes falling upon skin. He pulled back, eyes blinking. “It would seem it is my turn to tell you that you are wrong, Robin. Tomorrow we will wake, still here, inside the church which has been defiled by our actions.”

That spurred a small chuckle from me. “The sex part?”

“Yes, the fucking in a church part, Robin. Sex isn’t a sin, but I’m sure even a god would draw the line at ‘time and place’. Let us hope the Creator, Duwar and Altar have taken the night off and won’t judge us.”

No longer did I hear the congregation of chanting beneath us. I only hoped that Abbot Nathanial had retired, and that his ears didn’t work well. I could hardly remember if we’d made a ruckus whilst we fucked – the idea of the old man hearing us turned my stomach in knots.

“What happens next?” I asked Duncan as his soft breath eased against my damp skin.

The question dangled between us on a fine string, ready to snap at any given moment.

“I can’t answer that, Robin,” Duncan replied, allowing me to tuck a strand of dark hair away from his eyes. The scar across his face flickered as his jaw feathered with tension. “Not yet. But I promise, if you are willing, we will face what tomorrow brings together.”

Together. A Hunter and a fey. A general and a king.

A killer and a killer.