2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

with his teeth.
And damn me to hell, but I leaned farther back as his teeth pressed down at the same
moment his thumb drifted high on the side of my thigh, sweeping across sensitive skin in a
long, luxurious touch. My body went loose and tight, and my breathing … Cauldron damn
me again, the scent of him, the citrus and the sea, the power roiling off him … my
breathing hitched a bit.
I knew he noticed; knew he felt that shift in me.
His fingers stilled on my leg.
Keir began mentioning people I didn’t know in the court, bland reports on marriages
and alliances, blood-feuds, and Rhys let him talk.
His thumb stroked again—this time joined with his pointer finger.
A dull roaring was filling my ears, drowning out everything but that touch on the inside
of my leg. The music was throbbing, ancient, wild, and people ground against each other
to it.
His eyes on the Steward, Rhys made vague nods every now and then. While his fingers
continued their slow, steady stroking on my thighs, rising higher with every pass.
People were watching. Even as they drank and ate, even as some danced in small
circles, people were watching. I was sitting in his lap, his own personal plaything, his
every touch visible to them … and yet it might as well have been only the two of us.
Keir listed the expenses and costs of running the court, and Rhys gave another vague
nod. This time, his nose brushed the spot between my neck and shoulder, followed by a
passing graze of his mouth.
My breasts tightened, becoming full and heavy, aching—aching like what was now
pooling in my core. Heat filled my face, my blood.
But Keir said at last, as if his own self-control slipped the leash, “I had heard the
rumors, and I didn’t quite believe them.” His gaze settled on me, on my breasts, peaked
through the folds of my dress, of my legs, spread wider than they’d been minutes before,
and Rhys’s hand in dangerous territory. “But it seems true: Tamlin’s pet is now owned by
another master.”
“You should see how I make her beg,” Rhys murmured, nudging my neck with his nose.
Keir clasped his hands behind his back. “I assume you brought her to make a
statement.”
“You know everything I do is a statement.”
“Of course. This one, it seems, you enjoy putting in cobwebs and crowns.”
Rhys’s hand paused, and I sat straighter at the tone, the disgust. And I said to Keir in a
voice that belonged to another woman, “Perhaps I’ll put a leash on you.”
Rhys’s approval tapped against my mental shield, the hand at my ribs now making lazy