Chapter 25 #3
“Mmm.” He began to thrust, very slowly, telling Cat how tight she was, how hard she made him.
He said things that would have been appallingly crass if he didn’t say them in such a gentle tone that she wanted to melt at the sound of his voice.
He drew out her pleasure, teasing her with his hand, timed to his thrusts, until Cat writhed and gasped and couldn’t endure a single second more.
She came undone, her hands pressed into the top of the desk and Thane holding her tight.
He waited for her to come down, and then thrust again, harder. He was so savage that she was sure he would finish inside her with a howl, but he withdrew and spent himself across her lower back, groaning.
Cat reached back to grip his thighs, holding him near her.
Even the midst of her frantic pleasure seeking, Cat sensed a truth she’d denied until now, after sharing the story of her parents with Thane.
She was using the bliss he offered her as a way to blunt all the pain she’d been carrying.
A lust for life to avoid the agony of death.
Was it fair to make Thane a part of this twisted path she was walking through her grief?
Did he even realize the darkness inside her that was the very thing making her so responsive to his attention, so greedy for the fleeting happiness he could summon in her?
She looked over her shoulder. “Thane?”
His eyes opened, showing brilliant green. “Have I shocked you?” he asked.
She gave him a smile, smothering her rather unpleasant revelation. “Yes. I hope you do it again.”
“Give me a moment.” He sighed, running his hands over her bottom. “Don’t move, sweetheart. I have to clean you up. Cost of safety.” He pulled away and moved to a pitcher in the corner of the room.
He called what they just did safe? Yes, she understood that he withdrew, which was one way to lessen the risk of getting her with child. But that was just one risk. Cat’s heart thudded as she thought of how much she still wanted him. That was far more dangerous.
He returned with a wet cloth and washed her very carefully, then did the same for himself.
Pulling her skirts back down and straightening her gown, Cat thrummed with the aftermath of lovemaking. It was like a pleasant buzzing all up and down her body.
“We haven’t solved anything, have we?” he asked then. It took Cat a moment to remember that she’d come to talk.
“No, I suppose not. But I don’t consider the time a waste.”
“Well, thank you for that.” He’d managed to rebutton and retie himself into the image of a respectable, boring, duty-bound man.
Absolute lies, Cat thought with a surprising burst of fondness.
Then he stepped closer and touched her face, the gesture much more tender than she was prepared for. “Kitty cat, you do need to consider the option of marriage.”
“I really don’t.”
“It’s not a death sentence.”
“Neither is respectable spinsterhood. What I need is to know the name of the person trying to usurp my inheritance. And I believe that you and your comrades could find that name.” She smiled at him with what she hoped was confidence.
He just looked more duty-bound. “Kai started the search as soon as he realized the possibility. It’s extraordinarily time-consuming to search every random branch of a family tree, trying to track down possible heirs.
Solicitors do this all the time, you understand, as part of selling estates.
From them, we know it could take months, possibly years.
And remember, we don’t know which bad apple on which branch thinks he’s better suited to be heir than you. We have to search them all.”
Cat paused. “Months? Years?”
“Potentially. And that whole time, if you remain unattached and alone, you’ll be a target. Are you ready for that?”
She wasn’t. “I could leave the country?”
“And go where? You’d abandon Tacita?”
“Of course not!”
“So you’d uproot her instead.”
“Don’t be hateful.”
“I’m being practical, which you claim to pride yourself on.”
Cat glared at him. “I’ll find some solution.”
“One has been found.”
“I don’t care for that one.” She strode to the door, then turned. “You haven’t actually asked me to marry you. In a formal sense.”
Thane slowly shook his head. There was a darkness in his face that she didn’t like at all.
“So you have reservations too.”
“It’s complicated,” he said. “You don’t know everything you’d need to know about me.”
Why did that sound like a threat? She could think of only one thing that would stop him from making an offer. “Are you married already?”
Now he blinked. “What?”
“You could have married some fresh-faced lass like Andra before you went off to war, and now you have to hide it.”
He shook his head. “No. Do me a favor, Cat, and get the hell out of here. I can’t think when you’re around.”
“I’ll leave you to think, then.”
“Cat.”
She looked back over her shoulder. “What?”
“Leave your door unlocked tonight.”
There was no mistaking that expression.
“I shouldn’t. Anyway, aren’t you drunk?”
“Not anymore. You don’t have to make a production of it. Just leave the door unlocked.”
“Perhaps,” she said, leaving the room. She already knew she would.