Pherenike - Chapter 110

His wet tip grazed her, and soon her foot was slick with him as well. Each time Actor gripped the top of her foot and rubbed his glans along the delicate arch, heat spread through her body.

It felt almost as if, with every motion, he was penetrating her, pressing into her deepest places. Not with his body, but with bare skin and raw longing. His thrusting hips and the desperate hand grinding himself against her foot only grew more frantic, more hungry.

For her part, Pherenike barely acknowledged his feverish expression or the obscene sight of her own foot pressed up against his massive e******n. Instead, she calmly smoothed her hair, gauging how much longer until they arrived at the palace.

As if none of this was her concern, as if she was utterly blameless.

Suddenly, Actor grabbed one of her hands as she played with her hair, biting her palm with a frustrated, almost animalistic need, his rough moan echoing against the mark he left.

Pherenike gave a soft, mocking laugh and dug her fingers into his hair.

“Biting like some wild animal?”

“Pherenike, hngh…”

“Even your daughter’s mongrel wouldn’t do what you’re doing right now.”

Her words were pure scorn, and it only drove him wilder. She’d given him just the tip of her toe, and that was enough to make him come apart. Actor pressed desperate kisses to her chest, her stomach, her thighs—clenching his teeth around the linen of her chiton, biting at the flesh beneath.

“Look at me, Lord Nikandros.”

Compelled, he lifted his head. Disheveled black hair and fever-bright eyes had wrecked his usual stoic mask. Pherenike reached up with her right hand, spreading thumb and forefinger wide, and pressed just beneath his jaw.

The strong man’s mouth fell open, a guttural moan scraping from his throat. She brushed her lips lightly against his and whispered sweetly.

“That’s enough, Actor. I’m bored.”

The queen’s gentle disdain was enough to drive the king to his limit. With a guttural, bestial sound, he tore at the carriage curtains, and as he reached climax, he locked eyes with her, clutching the blue drape around himself as if he were spilling himself across her bare skin.

The young king’s back arched, trembling like a dragon’s. Breath ragged, he wiped himself off and tossed the soiled curtain into the corner, now stained and ruined—the blue cloth that once symbolized the house of Epicydes.

“Now, clean the foot you’ve just dirtied, Your Majesty.”

Pherenike stretched out her damp foot to Actor as if testing how far she could push her servant. Instead of fixing his clothes, he obediently bent down and licked the arch of her foot, tracing the same path his hands had just gripped.

He licked over her instep, then moved up to her ankle, lifting her chiton hem but never disturbing its neat lines, his black hair vanishing beneath her skirts as if he were some eager slave.

The king’s lips moved up past her knee, onto her thigh. Pherenike watched, then slowly parted her legs for him.

When his mouth pressed against her damp underwear, Actor bit the fabric aside and kissed her bare flesh—not with the feigned reverence of before, but with hungry, naked need. He drank from her as if it were holy water, swallowing everything she gave him.

The king’s hair tickled her skin, and as his mouth burrowed deeper, her thighs tensed around him. Pherenike pressed his head closer, watching the outline of his head bulge beneath the loose folds of her dress.

A truly proper woman would never even look at such a scene. Pherenike laughed at him—and at herself.

In her mind, no matter what man touched her, the only one who owned the language of ‘husband’ was the first Deucalion. Not even the second Deucalion could claim that right.

Even though she came to love the Deucalion of Ogygia as much as the Deucalion of desert and sea, sometimes loving Deucalion itself made her feel she was betraying the other Deucalion. It was a ridiculous sort of fidelity.

Pleasure with another man was something she’d always denied herself. She clung stubbornly to the memory of her dead husband, yearning for what she could never have again.

Every shred of pleasure she found with Actor Nikandros felt like an act of desecration. Each moment of pleasure was a crime, a wound on her heart. It was a sign she was trampling on the love that now only existed inside her.

For her, s*x was a duty. Being used, being made to writhe naked, meant nothing. She simply endured and forgot. She tried to erase every trace of another man from her body, so that by morning she could pretend nothing had ever happened.

Yet when pleasure overtook her, when her whole body shuddered and soft moans escaped her lips for another man, she could only loathe herself. Each time she surrendered everything to Actor, to his hands and body, each time excuses and denials piled up.

Yet pleasure always won. At least, with Actor Nikandros, it did. For once, her sense of guilt was defeated. Perhaps it was because she could see his downfall so clearly. Or maybe it was simply because the end was near. The absurd pity she felt for him finally outweighed her shame and principles.

Pleasure climbed her spine, bright as a fever. Pherenike threw her head back and came.

The king, emerging from between her legs, gently pulled down the hem of her dress.