The Fae King Can't Lie, and He Says He Wants Me novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: To His Bed

Nia reads the ban on bedding the Witness exactly as written, and the King, who cannot lie, tells her in her own chamber what he sees until she comes on his fingers and his words.

I opened the door six inches and kept my foot behind it.

He stood in the corridor with one hand flat on the stone beside the frame.

He had taken off his coat, and under it his shirt was a plain grey linen.

"You read Clause Four," he said.

"I did."

"So did I, when I was nineteen. I never thought it would matter."

"And now?"

"Now I would trade the Hills for ten minutes alone with you."

His voice didn't change at all.

He said it, and that was what made my knees go.

"You can't say things like that," I said.

"I say only things like that."

He looked at his hand on the wall.

"It's the one gift I've got. I came to tell you before the Regent tells you something cleverer."

"You came to say you want me."

"Yes. I also came to say I won't touch you if the forfeit costs you your name. Yours matters more than my crown."

I leaned on the door and looked at the man.

Nine years of reading statements teaches you to watch for the clause that does the work.

"Say the clause again," I said.

"The King shall not take the Witness to his bed."

"To his bed."

"Yes."

"This is my bed. Technically it's my chair, and technically it's my chamber."

He went very still.

Then he laughed, one short astonished breath.

"Nobody has read that clause aloud in my hearing," he said.

"Nobody read it as written. Come in, Your Majesty."

He came in.

I shut the door and turned the key.

I put the key in my bra, and I wanted him to see me do it.

His eyes followed my hand.

"Sit," I said.

There was one chair, a deep green armchair by a hearth of grown roots.

He sat in it, long legs sprawled, and looked up at me with the lanterns in his eyes.

I stood between his knees.

I put my glasses on the mantel, because I wanted to feel this and not just see it.

"Tell me what you see," I said.

His eyes ran down me slowly.

"A woman who corrected four hundred people in one breath and didn't blink."

"Not that."

"A mouth I haven't stopped thinking about," he said. "Hips I want my hands on. A neck I want to put my face in."

I took his wrist and set his palm on my hip.

The heat went through my jeans.

"Say it again," I said. "The part about my hips."

"You're beautiful."

His thumb pressed in.

"I'd never say that and not mean it. I've never meant a thing more."

I'd been called a lot of things by a lot of men.

"A lot" was the one they used when they were leaving.

I climbed into his lap with a knee on each side of his thighs.

His hands went to my waist, and he breathed out.

"Kiss me," I said.

He did.

It wasn't polite.

His mouth was hot and sure, and he kissed me.

I pulled his hair loose from where it had caught on his collar and it fell over my wrists.

He made a low noise against my lip, and I felt how hard he was under me.

I rolled my hips once, slowly, on purpose, and he swore in a language I didn't know.

"Nia."

"Say it again."

"Nia."

I unbuttoned my jeans.

"Put your hand in," I said.

He didn't ask.

He slid his hand down my belly and under the cotton and found me wet already, and his whole body shook once.

"You're soaking," he said. "Fuck, Nia. You're so wet."

"Because of you."

"Because of me." He said it like a miracle he wouldn't argue with.

He stroked me slowly, from my entrance up to my clit, and my head fell back.

"There," I said. "Just there. Slower."

He slowed down at once.

His thumb circled my clit in small tight loops.

Two fingers pressed inside me, and I rocked down on his hand and held onto his shoulders.

"You're perfect," he said into my throat.

"Listen to me. You're so good, you take my hand like you were made to."

"I don't say anything that isn't true."

"Don't stop."

"I won't."

His mouth was on my collarbone, and his voice was rough against it.

"You walked into my hall in a yellow coat and saved a man's well in four sentences."

"Nobody has looked at me like I was a person and not a throne. You did it across a room."

Something cracked under my ribs that had nothing to do with sex.

He curled his fingers, and the world went white.

"Emrys," I said, and it came out nearly a sob. "Oh my God, right there, don't you dare stop."

"You're so good for me," he said. "Look at you. Come on my hand."

I did.

I came hard, with my forehead against his and my thighs locked around his wrist.

He held me through it and said "good, so good" in my ear until the last of it ebbed.

I sagged against him.

He kept his hand where it was, gentle, and his other arm tight around my back.

I felt how hard he still was against my thigh.

"You haven't," I said.

"No."

"Do you want to?"

"More than I've wanted to breathe."

He kissed my temple.

"But I'm going to make you wait for it, and make you ask."

"That's a very fae speech."

"It's a very true one."

I laughed into his neck.

I didn't want to move, and that scared me more than the Hills did.

When I finally slid off his lap and unlocked the door, he took his time getting up, and he left with his hair still loose.

The corridor stayed warm where he had stood.

At dawn court the next morning, I took my stool beside the throne with my notebook open and my face carefully blank.

Casimir Marrow came across the hall toward us with the Hounds at his heels.

He stopped in front of me and took a long, slow breath through his nose.

"How interesting," he said, to the whole court. "The Witness smells of the King."

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