"Helen..."
I whispered her name back. Her name so pretty on my lips, like they missed them.
Her body so close to me. I hold her steady on my ways my words are fumbled and to find them. Helena tilting her head away from me, "You don't want me."
"I do. You're so beautiful and amazing and smart. But..."
I pulled away from her, my chest heaving in shame. I wonder if I can tell her about him, eventually everyone will know. "I'm in big trouble. Lord Blackwood."
She pursed her lips. "You mean that nasty man with the green vest?"
"A week before the festivities started, he came to Dad. He said he wanted to buy you. But he's waiting to get Lord Blackwood to sell one of his griffins. Dad wants a whole brew of them to breed." I remember Gerald talking about his business, having the largest griffin farm in the area.
Raising them, breed them, then selling them. A philosophy for any new parent.
My hands slightly tremble at her waist. A flash of anger surges from me. Why should I be sorry for that man and what he took from me?
I tremored from anger overflowing, whatever other emotion is underneath drowning. "So he's going to sell me?"
I can't believe this is happening to me, again. I would be helpless again, as if nothing had changed since I was first sold.
Nothing did changed.
She tightened her grip on my shoulders, moving to my nape. Tilting my head so we are a breath away from each other. "Help me escape. I don't know where this will lead us, but if we're together, we can find a way to be alive."
She fought tooth and nail to earn her freedom, could I honestly say I did the same?
She patted the back of my neck, beckoned me towards her bed until her ass bounced on the bed, my body towering over her. "If you really want to keep your limbs intact, you must start managing your own life. Otherwise they will be sold to powerful people with their own deals to make."
I've wanted my freedom more than anything for so long.
And damn, I want her. I know I've wanted her for years.
I stroked her hair behind her ear, her legs parting to receive me. "I have a question that I promise is the last: do I have a choice here?"
In one breath she answered, "Always."
I leaned in, pecking a kiss on the shell of her ear before whispering, "Then I choose you."
------
She looks so different naked.
I already removed every item of clothing one by one with my teeth, each movement has her whimpering for more.
"Please."
The pricking of sweat beads on her brow, a strong contrast to softness of her untamed hair. That strutting around the mattress all around us, hugging us with golden softness.
I cock an eyebrow, smirking, "Already begging?"
She frowns, trying to steel herself, but she fails miserably. So she clutches my waist, guiding my erection towards her entrance. I'm only with my undergarments, but the fabric is a poor excuse for a barrier between this need to be inside her.
I make a ticking noise, wagging my finger. With a groan, I restraining her hands. Now she looks really pissed off, and I grin. "Let me make you ready, all right?"
She crinkles her brows lightly, but nods nonetheless.
I move her thighs to the sides, caressing them. Earning me a slight shudder at the movement. I dip one finger in the wetness.
My already thick length thickens more when I realize how wet she is. Fuck.
My lips part every time she tries to hide her moans, her cheeks growing flush. I eagerly search and wind my finger around and round, circling. Adding licks towards her clit, she adds her own brushes to my curls and my thighs. She's too shy to go in for the more intimate touches.
Lucky for her, I am not shy at all.
When I add another finger, her eyes roll back, tightening her grip on my hair. The pain is small, but I do not complain—not when the view is that beautiful.
I tell her, "You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen, you know that?"
The flash grows from her neck to her ears. I grin mysteriously, dipping towards her neck, biting and kissing. Moans become more breathless as my reaction drips on the bottom of her stomach.
It's not even funny how hard I am now. I never needed that much encouragement to be hard, but not even a single touch?
Her eyes go to the amount of length I have now. I can feel the hands wandering around my stomach, touching my abs. Then she wraps my cock around her palm.
She bites her lip, wanting is burning through both of us, but she is untrained. I move her hand, and I remove my hand from her clit. She whimpers but says nothing as I wrap both of her hands around me. My finger is wet from her, and the contact to my skin makes blood rush right into my erection.
"You want us both to be ready, right?"
She nods again, flustered, as she moves her hand around my length. "Then help me."
From base to tip, she winds me up and down, teasing and caressing. Her soft fingers are contrary to my rough ones.
I don't know from where the kind of control I had to thumb my tip. I'm not ready to come yet.
I tip my fingers to her still very wet cunt, and she clenches around my fingers. My grin is wicked when I unhook my fingers to replace my painful, hard erection.
Relief is instant.
The warm wetness of her is so pleasing around me that I nearly come right when I enter. I give one thrust, and she gives one hell of a moan in response. I drown the moan kissing her for the very first time.
I never kiss my partners in bed. The intimacy of it does not sit with me well, but this time it's really not about me. She needs this me.
She slowly laps her tongue around mine, returning the kiss. Her excited moaning while I match the rhythm with my thrusts.
"Taj," my name on her lips is nearly a plea.
When she comes around me, she collapses into the mattress. It takes only one movement before I come right after.
I fall on her, still content. Her lids falling but still has that sort of relaxed energy that I like. I watch her until she falls asleep.
-----
"I intend to protect you," I said softly, kissing her neck. "Do you know that?"
"I know," she murmuring, her soft breath touching me.
Last night wasn't like anything I've experienced. It was like we had a common language. It wasn't just me trying to love her, she wanted me too. Not just because of the costume of a man I wear every day smiling at the crowd. I felt more than that, I had never felt anything like it before.
We still have not moved, intent on being each other's presence, soaking in the feeling of each other. Although I felt the sun shining anew on my back.
My hands are wrapped around her, hugging her waist. I run a finger along her spine. She let out a deep sigh, and it seemed as if all the tension in her body was starting to release.
"I'm so scared of what I'll be when I'm out there. I don't want to just be a princess. I want..."
Her brows furrowed, and she thought, "I don't even know what I want."
"You are," I insisted. She was the one who inspired me to run to freedom. How could she not believe her own words?
I turn her towards me, wrapping both of ourselves, not ready to leave the moment. "You are Helena. No one will ever be like you."
I tucked her hair, now tangled all over the bed, behind her ear. "You don't have to understand everything right away."
She swatted it on my abs. "I know."
The pain only inserts a slight chuckle from me, "I will remember that for future reference."
"I just feel like an idiot." She bites her bottom lip hard, nearly sending me into a groan of lust. Gods, this woman. "Sometimes I'm jealous of you. You got to see and know so much more than I ever did. You already know what and who you are."
I inch my face to hers, inches from each other's lips. I inhaling her quickening breath. "Who exactly am I?"
The flirtatious voice that I so often use. It exudes from these flushed cheeks that were last night moaning my name. She turns her eyes to me, but not before I see her neck redden. I tighten my grip on her.
She remains quiet, not answering my question. Maybe she wouldn't answer me because I sure as hell who I am.
The little voice in my head told me to return. You know who you are. You're a killer.
I banished those thoughts away. I took was her silence as a chance to curl my fingers around her soft, curling hair. The golden strands feel like sunlight around my fingers. She moves away from my grip, eyeing her abandoned gown. "We should go."
I nearly begged, "not yet."
"Not yet," she answers my not-quite request.