Chapter Nineteen
There’s a new lightness to Claude as we move through the house together. He smiles more easily, chatters about the different flowers he used to decorate my skin.
“How did you decide what to paint?” I ask, remembering my earlier curiosity.
He pauses. “It was just whatever flowers came to mind, I suppose.” Before I can pry, we enter his bedroom, and the mood shifts.
I swallow as I remember the last time we were in here, the feeling of silk sheets beneath me and his weight on top, his mouth on my wrist. But Claude doesn’t pause, leading me to the attached bathroom.
It’s huge, all pale marble with gold accents, and a glass-walled rainfall shower that seems big enough for five people.
Claude turns on the shower while I’m taking it all in.
I’ve been refusing to imagine precisely how this is going to happen.
He said he was going to help, but that could mean a number of things.
But I should’ve known better to think even for a second that Claude would do something as practical as getting a washcloth.
Instead he steps into the shower’s stream, fully clothed, and gestures for me to follow.
I bite my lip. “This is your plan?”
He smiles at me as the water slowly plasters his shirt to his body. “Why not?”
Why not? There are a thousand answers on the tip of my tongue. This is too much. Too intimate. Exactly the kind of situation I was hoping to avoid when we began this arrangement.
Now, I am torn. I want this but if one of us breaks the contract, I’ll lose him.
There’s no reason I should be getting into the shower with him, but I step forward as though pulled by some unseen force.
The water is like warm rain as it patters over my skin, drenching my white dress. I tilt my head back, letting it soak into my hair.
“This shower is even nicer than the one in my room,” I murmur.
“You’re welcome to use it whenever you wish.” Claude takes my arm and begins to scrub at the paint, his fingers working in slow circles. The colors bleed under his fingers, dripping a kaleidoscope into the drain at our feet.
It’s easier to scrub off than I expected.
I definitely could have done this on my own.
But Claude’s fingers feel dangerously good as they massage my forearm, his thumbs providing perfect pressure as they work my muscles.
I sigh, head lolling back, as his hand moves up over my bicep and to my shoulder.
His fingers ghost over my collarbone before making their slow way down my other arm. Then he turns me around—I’m putty in his hands at this point—and massages my shoulders.
“Mmm.” I shut my eyes. “Do I have paint there?”
“Oh, yes,” he murmurs, his voice low and soft. “It’s everywhere, I’m afraid.”
His thumbs rub slow circles on either side of my spine, working his way down until he’s on his knees behind me.
My heart starts to pound, but my body is loose; I brace one palm against the shower wall as his hands skim over my ass before beginning to work on my thighs.
My dress is soaked through at this point, clinging to me.
But his hands don’t wander anywhere untoward as he washes the back of my legs.
He turns me again, and my eyes drift open to see him kneeling on the shower floor, soaked through, gazing at me through strands of wet, dark hair.
His white shirt is smeared with paint, and his eyes are heavy-lidded, pupils huge and dark.
The air is thick and hot between us, steam filling the bathroom.
He takes one of my feet into his lap, just like he did when he painted me. It draws my eyes to the obvious bulge where his wet trousers cling to him.
My heart races, my breath hitching. I have a thousand dirty thoughts that all violate our contract… and one that doesn’t. “Claude…”
His fingers slide up my calf, over my knee. “Yes?”
“Are you… thirsty?”
He stares up at me, pupils growing.
I lean back against the wall and lift my foot, trailing it over his chest before placing it on his shoulder.
He turns his head, just slightly, and I feel the faint press of fangs against my thigh. “Here…?” he murmurs against my skin, barely audible.
“Yes.”
I cry out as his teeth sink into my inner thigh. My heel hooks around his shoulder, pulling him closer.
“Oh, God,” I whimper, shaking. When my other leg gives out, Claude grabs it and lifts it onto his other shoulder without pause. He holds me effortlessly against the wall, hands cupping my ass, still drinking from me.
It’s too much, too good. Each pull of his mouth sends throbs of pleasure through my thigh, straight to my core. I grab a fistful of his dark curls, fingers digging into his scalp, not to push him away but to hold him there against me.
With my eyes shut, I feel when his fangs recede, when he closes the punctures with a soft kiss. I keep my grip on his hair, unwilling to let this be over yet.
“Nora,” he groans after a moment. “I can’t…”
I loosen my grip until he’s able to disentangle himself.
He moves, and without him supporting my legs, I slowly slide down the wall until I’m seated on the shower floor.
I open my eyes to find him still kneeling in front of me with an agonized expression.
My dress is soaked through, my legs still parted, so I’m sure I’m giving him an eyeful, but I’m beyond the point of caring.
“This is torture,” he whispers.
My head thumps back against the wall. “The damn contract,” I whisper. In this moment, when I feel wild and wanton and entirely unlike myself, I’m finally willing to admit I might have made a mistake.
“The damn contract,” he agrees. His hand brushes over the front of his too-tight trousers as he adjusts himself, and my gaze follows the motion.
It gives me another idea. An idea I shouldn’t have, let alone voice, but…
“Would it break the contract,” I say slowly, “if we were to… only touch ourselves?”
Claude pauses. “You mean…”
I slowly slide my hand down my stomach without breaking eye contact. He’s the one forced to look away, his Adam’s apple bobbing in a hard swallow, his eyes on the ceiling as he considers. “The contract forbids intimate contact, excluding biting,” he says slowly, as if struggling to remember.
“So as long as we don’t touch each other, we’re not in breach of the contract.”
“I suppose not,” Claude says. “But—” His eyes drop to me, and he stops as he sees my hand between my legs. “Nora,” he says hoarsely.
“What?” I whisper. “You don’t want to?”
“We shouldn’t.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
His hand drifts to the button of his trousers but pauses there. “I’m not sure I can control myself.”
“You can,” I say. “I trust you.”
The blues of his eyes are almost entirely swallowed by his pupils as he stares at me.
He slowly unbuttons his trousers and slides his hand into them, groaning as he wraps a fist around himself.
“You don’t understand,” he says, “how badly I want you. How badly I have wanted you, since the first moment I saw you.”
The sight of him is obscured by his briefs still, but my eyes follow the movement of his wrist, trace the blue veins in his forearm as they bulge beneath his pale skin.
“Then tell me,” I whisper. Then— “No. Show me.”
A small shudder goes through him. He removes his hand from his briefs to push his trousers down his thighs.
The white fabric of his briefs is soaked through, nearly translucent, the delicious bulge of his arousal on full display.
He watches the way my breath hitches, the way my hand slides over my panties, and then he pushes his briefs down, too, letting his stiff length spring free.
“Oh,” I whisper.
I watch his fingers slide from tip to base and back up again.
My tongue darts out to wet my lips as I imagine how it would feel to take all of that in my hand, my mouth, inside of me.
When I look back up at his face, he’s smiling at my reaction.
It’s a knowing smile, aware of his own impressiveness, and it should aggravate me but instead it turns me on.
I bite my lip and push my panties to the side. Claude’s smugness turns swiftly to a winded look, as though I’ve punched him in the stomach.
“God,” he says, his voice strangled. “Belle, si belle. You’re beautiful.” He leans over slightly, his eyes between my thighs, the movement of his hand quickening. “Spread your legs,” he whispers. “Wider.”
A delicious flush spreads through my body, all the way from a bloom of heat in my cheeks to a tingling in my toes, as I let my knees slide to either side.
Claude lets out an almost wounded sound, leaning forward to brace his free hand against the tile between us until his face is nearly level with my core, his heavily lidded eyes locked on me.
My fingers glide across my own wetness before circling my clit, the movement quickening to match the frantic pace of Claude’s hand pumping between his legs.
“Such a pretty pussy,” Claude whispers. “God, I want to taste you.” He doesn’t appear to realize he’s cut his lip on his own fang, a bead of dark blood swelling and running down over his lush mouth.
I imagine licking it off him, and let out a quiet whimper, pressing my shoulders back against the shower wall.
“Are you close, mon chou?” he murmurs.
The lush French words send a pleasant shiver through me. I nod, not trusting myself to speak. My thighs are starting to quiver, my stomach taut as pressure builds within me.
“Come for me,” he says.
I am helpless to do anything but obey. The orgasm rocks me from head to toe, making me cry out and grind against my own fingers, mouth hanging open and eyes fluttering in ecstasy.
Claude gasps, his hand sliding over his length in short, frantic pumps before he follows me over the edge, hips jutting forward as he spills himself onto the wet tile between us.
Then we are both still. There is no sound but my own heavy breathing, and the pitter-patter of the shower raining down on us both.
Claude slowly pushes himself up to rest on his heels again, his curls plastered against his forehead.
There is a desperate sort of heat in his face, making it difficult to hold his gaze.
I rest my head against the wall instead, shutting my eyes and focusing on breathing.
After a few moments, I hear Claude stand and button his trousers again.
When I open my eyes to look up at him, he holds out a hand, and I grab it and let him lift me to my feet.
His fingers are warmed by the water we’ve been soaking in, but still feel cooler than my own feverish skin.
Our hands linger together for a moment before we simultaneously pull away.
Our faces are inches apart, and for a moment I swear he’s about to close the distance between us, contract be damned.
But then Claude turns away and runs his fingers through his hair, shaking out his curls.
I stare at his back, where his wet shirt clings to his shoulders. It seems so strange, that things could be awkward between us after what we just did, but… we still haven’t really touched, can’t really touch, under the terms of our contract.
Which is what I wanted. Right? It all seems so fuzzy to me now. My head feels light; it must be all of the steam in here, boiling my thoughts into useless sludge.
“I’m… going to go get dressed,” I say, after a moment.
“Very well,” he says without turning to me. “I need a minute.”
I step out of the shower, feeling ridiculous in my sopping, paint-stained dress. After a glance over my shoulder to confirm he’s turned away, I shimmy out of the clinging material and wrap a towel around myself instead. Then I hurry to my room, to gather my clothing and my thoughts.