Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
Later that night, dressed for sleep, I bolt through the shared bathing chamber and bang on Lachlan’s door.
My fist has barely touched wood before it flings open—was he just standing on the other side waiting for me to summon him?
“I knew you’d come to your—” The smug smirk falls from his face when he sees my stormy expression. Of course, he misreads it, starts fussing and cradling my cheeks. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Did someone upset you? I’ll fucking—”
“You upset me.” I knock his hands away, nearly melting at his care. I shove an issue of the Gazette into his face. “No lies between us, huh? When were you going to tell me about this, then?”
He takes the paper, his eyes scanning the headline, then folds it and places it on a shelf. He has the audacity to look pained. “Desmond and I agreed it would be best if you never found out.”
“Oh, you and Desmond decided, did you? You didn’t think it pertinent to share that Duke Cernunnos murdered the only other woman to make it past the presentation ceremony?
You are a damnable hypocrite, Lachlan Cathal!
Lies by omission are still lies. And in case you’ve forgotten, my life is at stake! ”
“Your life is my primary concern.” He rakes a hand through his hair, sighing. “I’m sorry.” When he lifts his gaze, there’s nothing but sincerity in it. “Truly, Charlotte. You deserved to know. I should have told you.”
A man admitting he was wrong? And so easily? What a novelty. I never thought to experience it.
“Then right it.” I cross my arms over my chest and step back to lean against my door. “The Sky Gazette values flavor over facts; not the most reputable of sources. Tell me everything you know.”
He pulls out a stool and sits before me, our eyes level due to our height difference.
“I don’t know much. No one does. Ever since it happened, Cernunnos has been something of a recluse.
He never leaves Tír na Dubh. Barely even leaves his own estate, if the reports are true.
We were all so hopeful. To have the very first quarry after the king and queen’s deaths find two pieces of the Bannrhorn?
The Wild Hunt was damn near assured. She’d been with Sabre—”
“Sabre?”
“Duke Cernunnos’s first name. She’d been with him for nearly two months, but she disappeared on the eve of Mabon, right before the Hunt was set to begin. She never found his fragment, and the ring returned to Desmond a day later. The only reason that would have happened was if … ”
“She had died,” I whisper.
He nods. “Sabre refused to speak about it. Didn’t decry his innocence nor proclaim his guilt. And there was little we or House áine could do since neither has any authority in Tír na Dubh.”
An icy fear settles into my bones. Did I need to know this about my third would-be suitor? I don’t dare say it out loud, but maybe Lachlan was right not to tell me.
“The Gazette spun their own version of the story. Most of the celestial Otherworld take them at their word.”
“And what do you believe?”
“I don’t know. I want to believe that Desmond wouldn’t willingly send you to the home of a murderer, but … ” He shakes his head. “I just don’t know.”
“He doesn’t have a choice, though, does he? If he doesn’t, I’m dead anyway.”
I lean my head back, staring at Lachlan through slitted lids, restless and hungry now that anxiety over my circumstances has smothered my fury.
He’s shirtless, has a hand tucked beneath his arm, innocently popping his biceps. His muscles are a familiar weakness, one I’ve had plenty of time to inoculate myself against.
But the combination of contrition, fear, and bald craving on his face?
I am done for.
“About the other night,” I begin, “you were right, and—”
He crushes me against the bathroom door and slams his mouth down upon mine. The kiss is desperate. Voracious. Like he’s been waiting far longer than a single week for it.
He lifts me up, then wraps my thighs around his waist, trailing kisses across my collarbone as his hand traces the curve of my waist.
“I was going to make you wait,” he confesses in a needy rasp. “Was going to deny you for another week, even after you came crawling back to admit you want me as much as I want you.”
I wrap my arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer. “I do. You stubborn idiot. You know I do.”
“I hope not. Because every minute this week that I didn’t have my hands on you or inside you was fucking torture for me.
” He kisses me again, the hard heat of his cock punctuating his confession.
We’ve barely even kissed. “I stopped myself that night because it terrified me, the strength of my attraction. I haven’t felt anything close to it in …
a long time. Maybe not ever. And of course, I want the one woman I cannot have.
” He sighs a rueful laugh against my skin, running his nose along my jaw.
“But if we do this, I don’t want it to be a lesson or built on a lie.
Even if it’s doomed to be nothing more than … ”
He pulls back to look at me, wild-haired and feverish with desire.
“Let me have you. For real. Just once.”
I exhale a yes.
“Do you even know what that means?”
“Probably not,” I admit. Though I’m not wanting for sexual experience, I’m not sure exactly what to expect from his particular tastes.
Domination. Pleasure control.
I do know that I trust him. And that I’ve never been so desperate for a man in my entire life. Theoretically, I suppose I knew this type of chemistry was possible, but I’d never dared hope to experience it myself. “I’d really like to try, though.”
He rumbles out a laugh, then cups my face. “Brave, beautiful woman.” He plants a gentle kiss on my lips, then settles me on my feet. “Go stand in front of the mirror.”
Goosebumps pebble my skin as I do as he says. I hardly recognize the wanton forest nymph staring back at me, but I think I like her.
My silk night shirt bares both a single shoulder and a slash of stomach above my loose sleep pants. Flaxen waves tumble down my back, and my lips are blotchy rose and kiss-swollen. My eyes are dark, my dilated pupils drowning out all but the thinnest ring of hazel.
Lachlan prowls up behind me, the top of my head barely cresting the bulge of one powerful shoulder. He’s solid heat at my back, hands tucked under his armpits. As if he’s waging an internal battle, his desire to look overriding his need to touch.
I know which side I’m backing. I think I can tip him over the edge.
I grab the hem of my shirt, and—
“No.”
The command is short and sharp. When I catch his gaze in the mirror, the man staring back is different than the friend I’ve come to know. Harder. Rougher. Primal.
“When I want you undressed, I’ll do it myself.”
Callused fingertips caress my sides as he lifts the shirt over my head.
He’s seen me naked before—in that split second before I covered myself in the bathing chamber. That time, he averted his eyes, chivalrous to a fault.
This time, there’s no chivalry in his ravenous attention as it roves over my exposed breasts, my softly curved stomach. Heat rises everywhere he looks, and I curl fists at my sides, a breath away from begging him to put his hands on me.
“You’re a masterpiece,” he rumbles before he palms my stomach and pulls me against his chest, trailing his other hand gently across my collarbone. As if I am some fragile, precious thing.
It is not what I want.
Before I can express it, he cups the weight of my breast in his hand, then pinches my nipple so hard that I arch back into him. A shudder wracks my body, and my mouth pops open, but no sound comes out. I’ve never been particularly loud, even in the throes of passion.
“I love the way your breathing changes when you’re aroused,” he whispers into my ear. “You don’t make much noise. Aside from those tiny whimpers—which I love. No, I’ve got to pay very close attention to figure you out.”
He could slip into my mind to do it. So easily. But I think he likes the challenge of reading me naturally.
He’s cupping both my breasts now, tweaking my puffy nipples in a relentless wave of pinches, flicks, and pulls that has me writhing against him in exquisite agony. Better than any other time a man has touched me. And each time I jerk my hips, he grows harder against my lower back.
His lips graze my bare shoulder. “Your breasts are so sensitive. I could make you come with just a few more touches. Should I?”
I moan a low please, tipping the crown of my head against his rock-hard pectoral. The metal of his piercing presses into my scalp as I push my chest deeper into his hands.
There’s a low grunt of approval before he pinches my right nipple, then stretches it out so far, I cry, hovering on the razor-thin edge between pleasure and pain.
He’s gently circling the left, gossamer light, and the contrast between the two sensations pulses heat between my thighs.
My breathing goes shallow and, oh my god, he’s right, I think I’m about to—
He stops. Laughs. “You think you’ve earned it yet?”
I whine pitifully, then angle my pelvis back against him, chasing any friction I can get.
“I said no.” He smacks my clit, a sharp tap that’s not nearly as hard as he’s capable of, but still stings. He’s talking to me like I’m a pet. A thing to be used. His to control. It should be degrading.
And I am unfathomably wet.
A splayed palm against my upper back bends me over until my forearms are propped on the vanity. Lachlan’s fingertips trail down my spine as I watch him in the mirror.
There’s a touch of reverence in his commanding expression as he caresses my ribs, my hips. He tucks his fingers into my waistband and rips my pants down—but doesn’t let me step out of them. The fabric pools around my ankles, restricting my movements.