Page 75 of A Lady’s Guide to Fae Kings

She was perched on the rolling ladder, far higher off the floor than he liked. Heights meant nothing to a woman who had spent years in the Hallow University Library. “You do not deserve this library,” she informed him loftily. One of the books behind her inched forward as if it wanted to be closer to her.

He had never felt such an understanding with a book.

Pippa gave another squeak of outrage. “Lachlan! This book has been considered lost for years now! This was the only edition!”

He would commit several more crimes with great enthusiasm to hear his name on her lips. She did not betray herself often, did not let herself emerge from the proper and placid image she cultivated. No more than he emerged from behind his own constructs, he supposed. It was too useful. Too effective. But not on Pippa, never on her. Even when Head Librarians decades her senior quaked at him in fear, she only raised her eyebrows.

They insisted on misunderstanding her. Underestimating her. It was infuriating. Though he could see how it might be useful, and he would not trifle with a single advantage that might be hers so close to the Labyrinth. He would arm her with anything, everything. Himself, if he could. The damned magic of the Tithe was too strong to break, or he would have done so by now, several times over. Not even the Hunt could manage it. He would have joined their ranks if they could.

Gods knew he had tried everything else. His failures of late were too numerous to count.

But for right now, she was safe. She was surrounded with books, her cheeks glowing, and it had nothing to do with her own magic hurting her. She was so much stronger than she realized. So much more beautiful. She started to climb down, but halted when he did not move from where he waited, hands wrapped around the ladder by her knees. She looked down at him curiously, with a hint of imperiousness that never failed to make him hard. To make him desperate.

To want to make her as desperate as he was.

There was ice creeping in the corners, snow under the table. Mists at the window.

But there was Pippa.

Just Pippa, with her moon-bright hair and her scarred wrist and her upturned nose still slightly pink from her last training session.

His wife. The thought of it made something primal prowl behind his ribcage. Nothing had ever sounded so right as those two words. Not medieval love poems, the secret sonnets of Shakespeare, or the hauntingly lovely songs of a mermaid.

His wife.

He stepped between her knees, slowly, deliberately.

Her eyes widened, her mouth parted on a tiny gasp. “Professor.”

His cock twitched, getting harder. “You’re doing that on purpose,” he scolded her.

She smiled innocently. “Am I?” She bit her lower lip, and there was nothing innocent about it.

A playful Pippa might well be his undoing. “You know what it does to me when you call me professor.”

“Not Your Majesty?”

“No. Not that.” He would burn the title to ashes, if he had to. “Sit down for me, love,” he demanded softly.

She lowered herself down onto a step, slowly, eyes wide. “What are you doing?”

“What I’ve dreamed about,” he replied. “If you’ll let me.”

When she nodded, he had never felt more proud, more like a king. This was what it meant to have real power, real magic: Pippa parting her knees for him with a small, shy smile. Wanting him. Trusting him.

He dragged her skirts up, following with his mouth, over one ankle, which he hooked around the rail, opening her up farther. Up her calf, a bite on her knee, the flick of his tongue on her inner thigh. Her breath was tremulous and delicate but her thighs were strong. The scent of her was intoxicating. It went straight to his head, and to his cock with a near-painful surge. The salty sweetness of her, tinged with clementines, with flowers from her soap.

He licked her quim, just one swipe for a teasing taste. She trembled above him. That was all it took to snap his restraint: her tiny tremble of pleasure. He needed more. All of it.

He worked her with his mouth, licking and sucking, using the flat of his tongue, then stiffening it around her bud, over and over again. He followed the tremble in her thighs, the roll of her hips, jerking in response and instinctually chasing what felt good. He committed it to memory with the focus of a general on a battlefield.

Her skirts fell over the back of his head so that he knew only her warmth, her taste, the sounds of her moans. The way she squirmed and bucked against him. Perfect. Sheer fucking perfection.

He slid a finger into her heat, and then another when he found her so hot and wet that he nearly came right then and there. He licked and sucked and stroked until she came apart, moaning and whimpering his name.

When he emerged from her skirts into the dusty shadows of the library, she was pliant and weak with pleasure, but still Pippa. “Move your left foot, professor, before you step on that book.”

There were few people in both worlds who knew he was even capable of grinning the way he grinned at her. “Yes, ma’am.”