Anwen
Estrella rolls her hips against my hand, against my softening cock still inside her. I groan. I'll fuck her fast, slow, whatever she'll allow to just keep tasting her.
She starts to try to stand up, and I instinctively tighten my grip on her hair. She shivers-I knew she liked a little pain with her pleasure-but pries my hand free. Wordlessly, she walks into the tiny pool at the center of the little oasis we stumbled into.
I'm going to get that moment painted someday. Life-sized, if I can help it. Hang it over our bed where I can see it every single time I wake up. There's no way I'm ever forgetting this.
She glances over her shoulder, obviously asking if I'm coming.
If I'm lucky.
I scramble to my feet and follow her in. The water is warm like a bath, and the sandy bottom soft under my feet. It covers me up to my mid-chest. Her breasts float. I drift closer and drag my thumb over one of her nipples. It stiffens instantly, and she sucks in a breath. When I meet her gaze, her gray eyes are warm and heavy with want.
Slow isn't exactly my specialty, but for her? Anything.
I cup her other breast and play with them in alternating rhythms. Back and forth, slow, but never the same long enough for her to get used to it. Soon, her mouth is open, and low noises rumble up from her throat. I drink them in, wish I could add an audio component to my painting. She grabs my shoulder to keep her balance.
No need for that. I run my hands down her chest, grab her thighs, pull them apart, and wrap them around my waist. She obeys lazily, half holding on and half letting the water hold her. But she's at a height where it's all too easy to bend my mouth to her chest and taste her skin. The water of the pool is sweet, but I lap it up quickly. I want to taste her, nothing else.
She grinds against my core, already needy, but I ignore her. She wanted slow. Long minutes pass under the moonlight as I tease her higher and higher without ever touching her below the waist.
"Too proud to beg?" I ask, my breath ghosting over the shell of her ear.
She grinds against me harder. "My pride isn't the problem."
But isn't it? Hers and mine. Neither of us were willing to admit our connection to the other, what that meant. An idea blooms in my head. I am going to make her beg, and then I'm going to make her come like she's never come before. Then, we can talk on even footing.
I simply chuckle and return my attention to her skin. She's so delicious, the sounds she makes so perfect, that I'm happy to spend ages here. My cock returns to life after what feels like an eon and presses against her ass. I jerk my hips forward and she moans. Soon, I think.
Her hand lands on my side, then slides inward. She's trying to touch herself.
Fuck, I wish I didn't have a really good reason not to let her to.
I pull her hand away and swallow her complaints in my mouth. She rubs herself against me all the harder. I ghost my hands over her legs, her chest, anywhere I think she might want me and refuse to settle. When that doesn't break her, I take my cock in my hand and begin pleasuring myself. My knuckles graze her wetness with each stroke, just not enough to sate her.
"Please!" she finally says. "Please fuck me."
I grin. "Slowly."
She nearly cries when fuck into her as gently as I can with my own orgasm on the horizon. As much as I love fighting with her, the explosive passion that leaves marks for the next day, this is what she deserves. Someone to treat her softly, make sure she's safe and happy. She needs an Alpha King to her Luna Queen.
For her, I could be that man.
She falls apart on my cock seconds later. I spill inside her. Then, she climbs out of the water and lays, naked, on the not-quite-grass around the pool.
"Did your father tell you to lie to people?" she asks quietly.
My heart jumps into my throat. She couldn't have asked a worse fucking question. That's the only one that points the finger right back at me, that shows what a fucking monster I am. That maybe I would've been even without him.
She leans up on an elbow, her breasts swaying. "I need the truth, Anwen. I cannot spend-consider-my life with a mate I cannot trust."
Spend her life. She's thinking about a future with me. I swallow and leave the water, feeling a whole hell of a lot more naked than I was a second ago.
"No."
She takes a deep breath. "No, or not in so many words?"
"What do you mean?" I sit down next to her, close enough to touch but not yet.
"My father loved life." She smiles sadly. "He was always finding things to laugh about, ways to enjoy himself and coax others to do the same, even in the worst of situations. He never told me that I needed to laugh, but... I learned it all the same."
"Oh." I've never thought about it like that. There are just the things Father asked me to do, which I can blame on him, and the ones I can't. "Not in so many words, I suppose."
I wait for the disgust, but she just nods slowly.
She looks up at me. "You can ask me anything you'd like as well."
What are you thinking? Are you still mad? Why did we just have sex, and is it gonna happen again?
"Why did you ask?" I say instead.
"My mother, actually." She laughs quietly. "She taught me that there are no excuses for bad behavior, but that doesn't mean an explanation cannot help."
I lie back and stare up at the sky, thinking of the very similar conversation I had with Kieran. "Did it? Help, that is?"
"I'm not certain." She lies down with me. I can feel the warmth radiating off her body. "We buried Father."
"How was it?" Stupid, but I'm not sure what else to say.
"Crowded," she answers wryly.
It hits me like a punch. Suddenly, I'm back on that empty battlefield, searching for Father's corpse alone and finding nothing. There were other bodies. The stench of old blood hung heavy in the air. But I couldn't find him, and I'll never know what happened.
Estrella winces, then rubs her chest. "What was that?"
"One heart, two chests?" I suggest absently, fighting through memories.
She sucks in a breath of realization. I taste the cold dirt of that morning.
"Tell me what's hurting you," she says urgently.
I shake my head. "It's stupid. Tell me more about your father. He seems-"
"Like a good, brave man." She sits up. "But I strongly doubt this pain is... stupid."
I smile. She sounds like she's never said the word before.
"My father's funeral wasn't crowded. He missed the damned thing." I shake my head. "No one went back for his body fast enough. We buried nothing, and only the family and his Beta were there. He's not the kind of man you're supposed to mourn."
"And the chance to lead your people isn't supposed to taste like ash in your mouth." She takes my hand. "I don't know what I would do if my father's funeral was so poorly attended."
"He deserves better."
She squeezes my hand. "Yana, our holy woman, says funerals are for the living. Perhaps your father didn't deserve better, but you did."
I breathe in her words. They warm a cold, dark place inside of me. "Do you really think that?"
"That you deserve better?" She considers for a moment, which stings. "I do. Obedience, like so many other things, isn't an excuse. But it is a reason, and if you are truly trying to be different, it bears consideration."
"I am." I almost tell her the whole conversation I had with Kieran, but that contained as many of his secrets as mine. "I want to be. That's why I snuck off. If I told someone, either they would've stopped me, or it would've turned into a whole royal procession. I didn't want to be Crown Prince Anwen Solberg on a diplomatic mission. I wanted to be Anwen, your mate, trying to make things right."
A soft smile curves her lips. "That, I can tell."
I have to ask. "Does this mean you believe me? About Kieran?"
She starts to pull back.
"Kieran didn't do it." I hold onto her. "He wouldn't. I don't know who's doing it, but he's being framed."
She looks at the ground. "Anwen-"
"Do you believe me?" I ask.