Free The King's Pleasure by Kitty Thomas Page A

She’d seen it on his face. Strangely, the more he did to her, the stronger she became, the less she allowed it to touch her, and the more she knew it hurt him.
    “If you like all this so much, perhaps you should give us a nice, long orgasm,” Niall said. “Maybe I’ll have you whipped again if you don’t.”
    It was the final nail in the coffin meant to undo her, but he’d already twisted her mind so deeply and so far that even the perverse suggestion had a twitch starting between her legs, followed by a low throb that built stronger the longer the guard rode her.
    Suddenly the idea of the court finally shocked by watching something sexual made her fight to have the orgasm the king had suggested, just for spite. She’d faced greater hardships than this just getting by day to day before Niall had entered her life. She’d die before she gave him the satisfaction of breaking her for crimes she’d never committed against him.
    The guard seemed shocked when her orgasm rippled through her and she let out a low, satisfied moan. While others in the court might think she’d faked it, John must have felt the pulses as her cunt gripped him hard, as if she were the aggressor. The guard, however, hadn’t found his own completion. He pulled out of her without finishing.
    “Shameless slut,” Niall said, but there was no malice in the pronouncement, only pride.
    She looked up at him. “Like you trained me to be.”
    A small smile played at the corner of his mouth, but then it was gone, not even leaving the ghost of amusement behind. She’d thought in that small moment that it was over, that he’d come to his senses. He’d never apologize to her. He was the king. Kings didn’t apologize; they couldn’t afford to. But she didn’t require his apology. It was only important that he knew she’d never betrayed him nor tried to hurt him. As long as things went back somehow to the way they’d been before the festival she’d forgive him anything.
    But it wasn’t to be. “Strip her of her finery and take her to the dungeon,” he said. “If she won’t take the gifts and pardon I offer her, then she’ll be treated like a criminal.”
    Could this really be happening? Was he really abandoning her like this? Surely his wrath and ego had been appeased. It didn’t seem possible it was ending this way.
    Rather than drag her roughly off, John untied her and carried her to the dungeon. He stripped her only once she was out of sight of others. By that point she was crying harder than she had when he’d whipped her.
    “Are you hungry?” he asked, once he had her in a cell. It was damp and too cold, the kind of place she could easily imagine dying in.
    “Not yet,” Abigail said. “I had a big breakfast.” She knew her attempt at bravery was falling flat.
    “That’s the last of that, I’m afraid. I don’t know what you did to piss him off, but I’ve never seen him like this. Even in battle he never behaved this way.”
    “I didn’t do anything. He’s wrong.”
    “Kings can’t be wrong,” John replied.
    Maybe Niall couldn’t have even been wrong in private if it had only been the two of them. She should hate him. She knew it would be the normal reaction, but she couldn’t help feeling hurt for him. How must it feel to let no one in, ever? To not be able to? Even through her darkest times, she’d had her family to lean on and confide in, at least until she’d become the king’s slave. Now she had no one.
    When her father discovered her fall from grace, she wondered if he’d think it was what she deserved for being such a whore, that this was what came of selling yourself, even though she’d done no such thing. Niall had never given her any indication her wishes would have any bearing on his choice to keep her. Given the circumstances, he’d shown her mercy. Until today.
    There was a leak somewhere off in the distance, a maddening drip, drip, drip . How would she exist with that as her life’s background track?