Chapter 4: The Lap Lesson
The rain thickened outside, a steady drumming against the leaded glass that mirrored the pulse still thrumming in Lilly’s veins. Eris’s hand remained intertwined with hers, a tether in the silent, darkening room. The fire had burned low, leaving them in a pool of shadow and fading ember-light.
He released her hand first, the absence immediate. He sat up, swinging his legs off the side of the bed. His back was a landscape of lean muscle and old, faint scars, silvered in the gloom. He said nothing for a long time, just stared into the dying fire.
Lilly pushed herself up, wincing at the ache that seemed to have seeped into her very bones. She pulled the crumpled sheet around her shoulders, suddenly conscious of her nakedness, of the sticky evidence of him drying on her thighs. The phantom stretch, the raw throb, from where he had taken her last was a constant, shocking reminder.
“You’re bleeding a little,” he said, his voice devoid of its earlier rasp. It was flat. Observational.
She glanced down. A faint, rust-colored smear on the sheet. She felt a hot flush of shame, quickly followed by a spike of defiance. “You noticed.”
“I notice everything.” He stood, his silhouette tall and forbidding against the firelight. He picked up the damp cloth from the floor, now cold, and brought it to her. This time, he handed it to her. “Clean yourself.”
She took it, their fingers brushing. His were warm. “And then what?”
“And then we sleep.” He walked to the other side of the massive bed and lay down, his back to her, the green robe still loose around him. The dismissal was absolute.
Her defiance curdled into something colder. She was a thing to be used, then cleaned, then ignored. The storm of feelings from before—the claimed, desperate part of her—now felt foolish. She wiped herself with brisk, angry motions, the coarse linen a rough comfort. When she was done, she tossed the cloth toward the hearth and lay down on her side, as far from him as the vast bed would allow. The space between them felt like a canyon.
She listened to his breathing, waiting for it to even out into sleep. It didn’t. She stared at the tapestry on the far wall, a scene of hounds and a dying stag, until her eyes burned.
“Your father’s steward,” she said into the heavy quiet, her voice small. “Will he tell your father I’m here?”
“He already has.” Eris didn’t turn.
“What will he do?”
A long pause. “He will try to use you.”
She rolled onto her back, staring at the dark red canopy above. “Use me how?”
“As leverage. As a weakness to exploit. As a way to control me.” He finally shifted, turning his head on the pillow to look at her across the expanse of linen. His eyes gleamed in the dark. “My father does not tolerate distractions. Especially mortal ones.”
“I’m not a distraction.”
“Aren’t you?” He turned fully now, propping his head on his hand. “You are in my bed. You have marks from my hands on your skin. You have my scent all over you. That is the very definition of a distraction in his eyes. A liability.”
“So send me away.” The words were a challenge, thrown at him like a gauntlet.
His expression didn’t change. “No.”
“Because I’m a possession.”
“Yes.”
She sat up, the sheet falling to her waist. The cool air pebbled her skin. “Fuck you.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips, there and gone. “You already have. Thoroughly.”
The casual obscenity, delivered in that cool, precise tone, shattered her last shred of patience. She launched herself across the bed, fists flying. She wasn’t thinking, only feeling—a torrent of frustration, fear, and a searing, unwanted need.
He caught her wrists easily, one in each hand, before her blows could land. He used her momentum to roll, pinning her beneath him on the mattress. His weight was immense, immobilizing. His legs parted hers, his hard thighs caging her hips.
“Let me go,” she spat, struggling against his iron grip.
“No.” He leaned down, his nose almost brushing hers. The mask was gone again, burned away by a fresh, darker fire. “You don’t get to hit me and then leave. You don’t get to curse me and walk away. You are mine to handle. Mine to punish. Mine to fuck.”
He released one wrist only to fist his hand in her hair, tilting her head back painfully. With his other hand, he gripped her hip, his fingers digging into the tender bruises he’d left earlier. In one brutal, seamless motion, he sat back onto his heels, dragging her with him, hauling her upright and then down onto his lap.
She gasped, disoriented. She was straddling him, her knees on either side of his thighs, her body looming over him. His cock, hard and insistent once more, pressed against the damp seam of her body. He was still clothed in the open robe; she was naked. The contrast was degrading.
“What are you—”
He didn’t let her finish. His hand left her hip and positioned himself, the broad head of his cock nudging against her entrance, still swollen and sensitive from their previous union. He looked up at her, his eyes holding hers with predatory intent. “You’ll sit here,” he growled, the words vibrating up through her where their bodies almost met, “until you learn not to clench around me like a fucking vice.”
Then he pulled her down.
It was a swift, merciless descent. He filled her in one hard, deep thrust, seating her fully on him, impaling her on his lap. The cry that left her lips was one of sheer, shocked fullness. Her inner muscles, overtaxed and hypersensitive, spasmed around him in involuntary, frantic pulses.
He hissed, his head falling back for a second. “Gods. There it is.”
The instruction was seared into her mind, a command she was physically incapable of obeying. She tried to relax, to go limp, but her body was a traitor. The feel of him inside her, stretching her, claiming her from this new angle—it was too much. A hot, shivering wave of sensation rolled through her, concentrated deep in her core. Once he enters me, I can’t help myself. It was a silent, desperate confession in her own head. Her hips, of their own volition, gave a tiny, circular grind, seeking more of that devastating friction.
His hands flew to her waist, pinning her in place, stopping the movement. “I said don’t.” His voice was a strained wire.
“I can’t,” she whimpered, the admission ripped from her. Her palms splayed against his bare chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart.
His grip tightened. “You will.”
He began to move her. Not allowing her to move on her own, but lifting her by her waist and dragging her up his length until only the tip remained inside, then slamming her back down. It was a ruthless, controlled piston motion. He set a punishing rhythm, using her body like a sheath, each impact jarring through her, forcing sounds from her throat that were half-sob, half-moan.
“See?” he bit out, his breath hot against her neck. “You take it. You take all of it.” He drove up into her as he pulled her down, meeting her with brutal force. “This cunt was made for me. It grips me like it’s trying to keep me forever.”
His words were filthy, degrading, and they lit a fuse in her blood. The helpless grinding was replaced by a burgeoning, coiling tension. Each drag of him inside her stoked it higher. She was being fucked, yes, but she was also riding him, a paradox of absolute control and total surrender. Her fingers clawed at his shoulders. Her head fell forward, her hair curtaining their faces.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
She lifted her head. Their eyes locked. In his, she saw the reflection of her own unraveling—the blown pupils, the parted lips, the flush of helpless arousal. His own composure was fissuring, a fine sweat breaking on his temple.
His pace faltered. His control slipped. A harsh groan escaped him as his hips began to snap upward to meet her descents, his own rhythm taking over. He was fucking up into her now, wilder, deeper. The sound of skin slapping against skin, of her wetness making every thrust obscenely audible, filled the room.
It was too much. The coil snapped. Her orgasm tore through her with a violence that whited out her vision. She screamed, her body clamping down on him in a series of frantic, milking pulses. She convulsed around him, her legs shaking, her very soul feeling cleaved in two.
It dragged him over with her. With a final, devastating thrust, he buried himself to the hilt, holding her down as he came. His release was a hot flood inside her, and he groaned her name into the hollow of her shoulder, his body shuddering beneath hers.
For a moment, they stayed fused, a single trembling entity in the dark. Then his arms, which had been vise-like around her, loosened, sliding to cradle her back. He didn’t push her away. He held her as their breathing slowed, as the heat between them cooled to a sticky intimacy.
Eventually, he leaned back, pulling her with him so she lay against his chest, still joined. His fingers traced idle patterns on her spine.
Outside, the rain slowed to a drizzle. Inside, the only sound was the pop of the last ember in the hearth.
“Your father,” she mumbled against his skin, exhaustion weighting each word.
His hand stilled on her back. “Let him come,” he said, his voice low and final. “Let them all come.”
He shifted then, lifting her off him and laying her down on the sheets. He didn’t leave to clean up this time. He simply pulled the covers over them both, drew her body back against his, and wrapped an arm around her waist. His warmth surrounded her.
In the dark, with his breath evening out against her hair, the warning hung between them, a specter at the foot of the bed. But here, in this temporary fortress of skin and silence, it felt very far away. She closed her eyes, and for the first time, slept deeply in the Autumn Court.