Succubus Soul Read online

  “So you haven’t had much royal etiquette training or anything?”

  “Not really,” I said, chewing the inside of my cheek. “I guess I have to admit they’ve been pretty lax there. In some ways, I appreciate it. In others, I feel like I’m not at all prepared.”

  “For three marriage proposals?”

  “Yeah,” I admitted sheepishly. “But it’s like… They’ve given me so much time to have a life here, to hang with my friends, to study, to goof off… I’d feel like a selfish brat to insist on seeing the world.”

  “That is hardly a selfish trait in a future leader at all,” said Rio.

  I winced, folding my hands tightly atop my thighs.

  “You do not seem to like that,” he said after a moment of silence. “Any reminder that you are a princess or a leader—”

  “But I’m not that,” I said. “I’m a princess, I guess. But how do they expect me to lead a race of otherworldly elves? I feel more like a human than a Nelian.” Subconsciously, I moved to tuck my hair over my ears.

  “Yamete. Stop,” said Rio, leaning forward and closing the distance between us. “Do not cover them up. They are beautiful.”

  His hand gripped mine gently, and I shivered, the area between my legs suddenly too hot, threatening to grow moist.

  Rio pulled back only slightly, sitting much closer than he had before. “Then tell me about you—the human. You mentioned friends, goofing off. Is there someone?”

  “Sorry?”

  It was Rio’s turn to look away suddenly. “Someone you are in love with. Who could make this prospective marriage situation all the more unwelcome.”

  “It’s not unwelcome,” I said, surprising even myself. “And there isn’t anyone. Not really.”

  Rio’s eyebrow arched at that, but he didn’t ask.

  “And you?” I thought to ask quickly—too quickly.

  “No one,” he said quietly. “I consider Prince Trey and Prince Zeke to be my closest friends—we have met at so many events over the years—but I rarely see them in person.”

  That was interesting. Not that I’d picked up on any animosity between them, but I hadn’t realized they were that close.

  “I always knew my father would find me a bride he deemed suitable,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing just slightly. “So I knew not to get attached.”

  I wanted to ask if that was the case for all the princes, but I didn’t want him to think I was fishing for information on anyone else.

  This date was about Prince Rio, and my scattershot, emotional brain could manage to focus on just one handsome man at a time. I hadn’t gone this long without a boyfriend for me to fall so easily for so many, like one of Hazel’s boy-crazy clique.

  “Have you ever felt yourself holding back?” Rio asked, his voice falsely bright. “Knowing your fate to be predestined?”

  My mouth opened like a fish’s. He was reading my mind, though not literally. “Well, I… I suppose. Yes. I’ve never done more than make out with a guy before.”

  Open mouth, insert foot. After I’d said it, I realized that likely hadn’t been exactly the question he’d been asking.

  Rio’s eyes widened for a moment, and then he seemed to be fighting off a closed-lipped smile. “That must have driven them mad,” he said, his voice deep and husky.

  “Sorry?” I squeaked.

  “Having to stop at simply making out with a beauty like you.”

  Tugging at my skirt, I tried pulling it lower, only to find it continuously hiking up my thigh.

  He chuckled. “I apologize. I do not spend enough time alone with women. If it helps, I find you fascinating beyond just your unimpeachable looks.”

  “Oh? I mean… Thank you. You’re incredibly gorgeous, too.” My mouth really had to learn to wait for my brain tonight. But it was so hard so near to him, his hand just a few inches away from my shoulder, his pheromones practically oozing off him.

  His pheromones. My heart was so jittery, I wondered if this was it. If this was the Nelian sense, and I’d know if…

  “Could you show me?” I asked, almost glad for my mouth working faster than my brain just then. “What you do with women when you’re alone with them?” My voice was hoarse.

  Rio’s lips twitched slightly as he closed what little distance there remained between us. “Are you sure?” he asked, his hand moving gently to cup my chin.

  Nodding, I closed my eyes. His lips pressed against mine, soft at first, but determined, almost as if warming up my mouth for what was to come ahead.

  We came up for breath just briefly and then his lips were back, his tongue slipping slightly inside, brushing mine, his kiss hungrier.

  He pulled away too soon, his fingers still resting under my chin. I shuddered at the loss of his lips, my hot groin growing moister just with those kisses.

  He stood, holding out his hand. “Let’s take this to the bed.”

  I took the offered appendage and stood, feeling as if I were floating, but perhaps that was just the gentle rock of the boat beneath our feet.

  “Tell me when you want to stop,” he said quietly.

  We’re planning on stopping? I wanted to ask, but all I could do was nod numbly.

  “Your first time should be special,” he said, as if reading my mind.

  I looked around at the beautiful boat, the endless night sky beyond the windows around us. I felt his hand in mine, strong, warm, and I remembered the sensation of having him so close in my bubble, his lips on mine.

  I didn’t think my first time could be any more special than this.

  But I knew when I looked into his eyes that as much as he wanted this, he was worried. We hadn’t known each other long and I’d gone and admitted my inexperience…

  “Just give me a minute,” I said as we passed the bathroom. I slipped inside and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, trying to calm the tingling of my limbs. But at the same time, I didn’t want to calm it. I wanted to be out there, to figure out if this was what the Nelian sense was, if I could actually be destined for Prince Rio.

  It took me just a few minutes to freshen up in the bathroom, realizing I’d left my purse out there on the deck and afraid that rushing out to grab for it—to see if anyone had been calling me—might ruin this building, hot tension between us.

  When I got out, I found the cabin lights off entirely, and though it took me a few blinks to adjust to the darkness, the light shining off the waters outside was more than enough to bathe the interior in its soothing, cool glow.

  “Rio?” I asked, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. There didn’t seem to be enough room on this boat for him to have used his powers to any advantage to hide from me.

  But they sure got him to my side from wherever he’d been pretty fast.

  Suddenly, arms slipped around my waist, twirling me around so that I stumbled and found myself pressed up against his chest again. My forearms were flat against what I realized was his bare chest, a line of sleek, sculpted trim muscles on his thin frame leading all the way down to his abdomen, his navel hovering an inch or so above his pants.

  “I see you got more comfortable,” I said, my mouth running away from me again.

  “Is that all right?” he purred in my ear.

  “Of course!” I shouted, louder than I’d meant.

  I stared up at Rio, his dark eyes reflective of the silver glow outside.

  His lips seized mine, one hand on the small of my back, the other clutching possessively through my hair. The air grew steamy between us, the skin of his pecs hotter beneath my hands.

  His lips pulled away, hovering mere centimeters from mine, and I let out an animal-like noise, like a poor creature denied its food. His lips moved to my cheek, peppering my brow, my nose, my ear as he guided us both firmly toward the nearby bed, the back of my legs bumping up against the edge cushioned by the plush blue comforter. I kicked off my shoes.

  “Your skin,” he said breathlessly, his fingertip caressing me from my chin to the top of my poin
ted ear.

  I leaned into the touch, a desire to move closer to him, to let him pet me overtaking me. “A Nelian’s skin is different than an Earthling’s,” I explained. “Some call it rubbery—”

  His mouth pounded against mine, hard, my bottom lip pinched slightly between his teeth.

  “Delicious,” he said softly, pulling away.

  Taking hold of both of my shoulders, he lowered me to the bed, slow, taking careful measure that my head landed softly upon the plush blanket. He leaned over me, one knee on each side of my body, the bulge threatening to pop out of his pants far too tempting to ignore.

  “Take me,” I whispered.

  Rio shook his head just slightly and tugged at the sleeve of my dress, lowering first one shoulder and then the other, wrenching the material until my strapless bra was on full display, my arms working to get out of the dress all the way.

  His soft finger ran between the cleavage popping out of the bra, and I dug my hand into the blanket beside me, writhing at the far too soft play, our eyes locked all the while.

  “I thought your ability was speed,” I teased, my breaths coming hot and heavy between words.

  The corner of his lip twitched upward. “Beauty, you do not want speed in the bedroom.”

  His lips claimed mine again and I wrapped my arms around his back, trying to pull him closer, to take more of him, but he would not budge.

  Gasping, I pulled back and started wriggling out of the rest of my dress, and he pulled back to give me space to do so, taking the dress from me and yanking it down the final few feet with the speed and force I’d been longing for.

  He stepped back a moment, staring at me in my midnight black bra and matching silk panties, and his muscles seemed to harden as he took me in, staring at me as if about to devour me.

  Instinctively, I squirmed, placing a forearm over my bra, squeezing my thighs together, but that just made the building tingling sensation stronger and harder to ignore.

  Rio grinned. “You’re just making yourself more beautiful.”

  Half-panicked, half-ecstatic, I writhed some more.

  His mouth was on my abdomen in a flash, his kisses demanding. His hands slipped up under my back, trailing to the bra, unclasping it in one smooth motion. My arm was still pressed against the bra, though, and he lifted his head and made eye contact, as if asking what I wanted to do.

  Feeling braver, I flung the bra to the cabin floor, a gentle rock of the boat timed perfectly to make me writhe once more. His greedy lips went back to work, trailing up to the underside of one breast and then the other, zeroing in on a nipple and taking it into his mouth, sucking. My groin grew moister then, my silk panties soaked, as his teeth tugged, making the nipple grow harder and harder.

  Gasping, he pulled away and stood back, his thumb running a gentle path over the other areola, causing ripples in the pale brown skin as he urged it to erection.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered, and then he was leaning forward again, his lips back at my bellybutton, his hands taking hold of my thighs and yanking me down, lining up my ass with the edge of the bed.

  He pulled back, staring at me, as his fingers trailed up to the elastic waistband of the panties, dipping inside. An unasked question.

  “Yes,” I said, nodding, hardly able to get that word out from my parched throat.

  He yanked them down and took me in, my smooth, waxed mons not revealing a hint of the original green there.

  His kisses found the top of my folds, his tongue darting downward, sliding through the slick, slippery wetness.

  Moaning, I arched my back involuntarily, panicked for a moment that my groin would knock right up against his head, but he pushed back at my thighs, directing them wider apart, stretching them. It hurt, but the pain was the good kind of pain, muted exponentially by the buzz building and building beyond anything I imagined right at the apex of my legs.

  But he gave no quarter, no moment to even think about anything but forward—more, more, more tingling, more heat, more moisture, as his mouth moved up again and found my clit. He sucked on it, his tongue moving alternately out to lick it, his hands pushing into my thighs as he demanded I be his.

  I was, the sounds leaking out of my mouth growing louder and more guttural.

  Leaning up, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand as he stood straighter. His skin glistened with sweat and I longed to get those pants off of him, to have him inside me.

  Instead, though, his hand moved to my apex, massaging the clit in careful circles, his eyes never leaving mine. I tried to maintain some semblance of control over my body, but it wouldn’t stop wriggling, the boat rocking me slightly with each movement.

  His finger trailed between my folds, sleek, slow, until they found my entrance, where it moved in those teasing, demanding circles just for a bit.

  “Inside!” I gasped, and he didn’t need to be told twice.

  A single finger entered as his other hand took hold of my leg, bringing a knee up to his lips. His finger pushed, finding a little resistance at first as I felt my muscles contracting, but it moved forward, the pleasure more essential to me than any pain. My muscles finally grew slack, the rest of the finger trailing inside.

  I moaned.

  Just as I felt my body adjusting to the digit inside me, it pulled out again, his other hand gripping hard on my thigh, and then another finger joined the first inside me, thrusting inward.

  It could have been the darkness of the room, but I felt my vision go black at the edges as my head ground back into the comforter. His fingers slipped in and out, his lips sometimes kissing my knee, his thumb alternatively moving in massaging circles around my clit as his fingers slid in and out of my pussy.

  He’d been right. Though my body screamed out for him to move faster and faster, there was no way that speed could make this moment any better, this moment I just wanted to last forever and ever.

  And though we were not entirely united, I found myself exhausted, orgasming at just the work of his sleek, demanding fingers.

  It wasn’t until I outright screamed—a breathy, throaty scream—that he pulled out and dug his hands into his pants, loosening them, his eyes not once leaving my hot, sweat-soaked form.

  The fly of his pants fell and his erect member popped out, his hand moving in quick, jerking movements on it, far harder and faster on himself than he had been on me.

  “Writhe,” he asked of me, his voice guttural.

  The boat kicked up slightly again, and I couldn’t have stopped myself if I’d wanted. I writhed, moaning, imaging his thick, long cock inside of me where his fingers had been. The slap, slap, slap of his movement, his sharp breaths driving me back to insanity, back to the blackness dotting the edges of my vision.

  I screamed again in release, and Rio let out a deep grunt all at once, his seed flying out and straight onto my abdomen.

  His shoulders visibly sagging, he moved forward quickly, kissing my abdomen, wiping the semen away with his lips.

  I ran both hands through the back of his hair, digging my fingers into his scalp, trying to breathe, trying to calm my beating heart, until finally he climbed properly onto the bed, collapsing at my side.

  Chapter Ten

  Staring into Rio’s warm, gentle gaze for a while, I almost didn’t want to voice my question. But I had to know.

  “You didn’t go all the way,” I said, my voice surprisingly hoarse. It had to have been all the screaming.

  Rio’s hand grazed my ear. “Were you unsatisfied, beauty?”

  I chuckled, burying my cheek more into the pillow. “No.”

  “Your first time should be special.”

  I didn’t know how much more special it could get than that, but I couldn’t say that. I felt like if I pushed too much more, maybe I’d find out I’d been pushing him into going further than he was comfortable. Maybe he simply hadn’t wanted to go all the way.

  Maybe I wasn’t hot enough to make a man want to—

  Rio ran one of his feathe
ry fingers over my lips. “I do not like the look in those eyes,” he said softly. “Bryony, there is nothing more I would enjoy than having the honors. But you will thank me,” he added quietly. “Because your first time going all the way really should be with someone you love.”

  Love. There it was. I rolled over despite myself, leaving my back to the prince. I didn’t want to argue with him, tell him that I didn’t know how “virginal” I still was after what we’d just done anyway, but he’d mentioned love.

  If I argued much more, I worried I wouldn’t be respecting that. I just had to calm my aching heart that was still so wild and untamable around him.

  A sound like an engine whirring some distance away broke through the relative quiet of the bobbing waves, the gentle breeze.

  “That will be our guards,” said Rio, getting up and shuffling around the room, dressing.

  Sighing, I sat up as well, searching the bed for my underwear, surprised to find my bra stuck on a lampshade some feet away in the dark.

  Rio, fully dressed, his hair slicked in that intentionally messy look so people might be none the wiser, handed me my dress as I finished clasping my bra.

  “If you would like, I could see what it is they need, ask for more time if possible—”

  “It’s late,” I said, biting my bottom lip as I shimmied into the black number. Truth was, I had no idea what time it was. “And I should check in with my family anyway, after what happened.”

  “Right,” said Rio, his lips tight, a faltering smile pasted on quickly afterward.

  I wasn’t too worried about anyone. Papa Zander could always telekinetically let me know if anything too important came up. Still, I made a show of heading back outside, grabbing my purse from under the table, and checking my phone. Rajani had sent me a message telling me good luck and she wanted all the details. No one else had sent anything.

  I checked Derek’s last message, which was still from last night, already read. I’d never responded to it because we’d had that fight.

  The engine grew closer and then quieter as it cut out, the other boat rumbling to a stop some yards away.