Chapter Thirty-Three #3
He parted them, stepping closer—not close enough, not close enough—and trailed his knuckles softly over the exposed skin, up, as she had teased him in the coach, up, already feeling her wetness for him on her thighs.
He caught her swollen bottom lip between his teeth, nipping it, his body humming with purely male satisfaction at the evidence of her desire.
You’re mine, he thought, only mine—
“Yes,” she was whispering against his lips, “yes—”
“May I touch you here?” he whispered roughly. He needed to know he could continue, that she wanted this. Truly. “I want—I
want to give you pleasure—”
“I will kill you if you don’t,” she gasped out.
He let out a soft, delirious laugh against her lips. His fingers stroked the warm seam of her sex, slipping a finger into
it to stroke her before finding the small, swollen bundle of nerves at its apex.
Her hips jerked at the touch, her legs clamping around him as her wide eyes locked on his, her expression dissolving with
undiluted pleasure. She mewled, a sound that would live inside him forever, and surged forward to meet his lips as he sought
hers, devouring.
This was right. This was everything. She was everything. No one would take her from him now, she was his to have, to protect, to love.
Heat ringed his neck, a flame burning just beneath his collarbone.
“Please,” she begged him, trying to draw him closer still, her hand working his shaft until he thought he might die from the
pleasure of it, of her. She was so wet for him. “Please—Hugh.”
That same heat turned to a knife, slicing through his awareness. He tore his lips from hers, his body from hers, clutching
at his chest, trying to pull that flame away from his skin. The charm—
The charm.
The thought blared through his lust-addled mind, dosing him like ice water. Viola reached for him, her divine body displayed,
primed for him, and God help him, he almost threw himself back into the bliss of that embrace.
Hugh clung to the thread of awareness the pain brought, stumbling past a well-appointed bed. The sensation of her skin haunted
his hands as he fumbled with the window and its latch. Cold, foggy city air tore into the room as he threw it open, bracing
his hands against the frame, drawing in breath after ragged breath.
The incense.
Some magic was hidden in or by the heady scent. Had Viola detected some trace of it? Was that the reason for her hesitation
at the door? But then, she hadn’t warned him . . .
Hugh pressed a fist to his mouth, trying to master himself, his blazing heart. She wasn’t to blame. He had brought her here, and the magic had come on so slowly, so thoroughly seducing his mind, he hadn’t noticed it was happening
until the pendant had finally absorbed enough of the enchantment to break its hold. It had felt like a natural deepening of
his own desperation for her.
His cock was hard as a diamond as he somehow restored his fall. Turning back to her was his second worst mistake of the night.
He let out a ragged groan and nearly fell to his knees.
After he’d abandoned her, Viola had reached down to pleasure herself, her eyes closed, her kiss-swollen lips panting. It was
the most erotic thing he’d ever witnessed. It was hell itself, knowing the truth. The cold reality of the situation, of what
they had nearly done, was the only reason he didn’t spend in his breeches like a lad of thirteen.
She was a goddess. Her beautiful, rosy face twisting with the sweet agony of chasing the high, and every instinct in him begged
him to replace her hand with his mouth.
You bastard, he swore savagely at himself, you fool, bringing her here—
Viola cried out, frustrated as release eluded her. The charm scalded him with the intensity of the magic it had sapped from
him, and the sting of it sharpened his restraint.
You cannot, he bellowed at himself. She does not truly want this, you cannot trap her in this life . . .
He risked losing his very mind as he gathered her in his arms, her body all but boneless with that same drugging pleasure
clinging to his own. He wondered if the incense heightened every touch, every sensation, as well, because the feel of her
against him was molten on his skin. Hugh shook his head, forcing himself to focus, to help her. He brought her to the window.
She shivered as the cool air struck her hot, flushed skin.
“No, sweetheart,” he murmured as she tried to keep him from restoring her bodice, to press his hands to her breasts. Hugh
nearly broke at her confusion, her pained noises of thwarted desire. Her pupils were huge, her lips begging for more of his
attention to be lavished on them.
Viola was all but sobbing with her need. “Hugh . . . please . . .”
“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry—it’s not real—it’s not—” He held her to his chest, locking his arms around her to keep her from writhing. Stars burned behind his eyelids as her soft body pressed against his arousal. She pounded a fist futilely against his back as she wept with desperation.
God, in the next life, send me back as a rakehell, Hugh prayed, opening his eyes to glare at the nude women painted on the ceiling. Someone who has no morals or qualms.
No, damn it. He didn’t want that, either. He detested those men. He just wanted her.
As if it could soothe away his own pained longing, Hugh smoothed down her skirt, his hand gently restoring her disheveled
hair to the best of his meager ability. Bloody hairpins were the Devil’s own instrument of torture, he decided, struggling
to slide one back into place. He wanted nothing more than to rip all of them out of her curls, let them tumble around him
like—
Hugh gritted his teeth. The smell of her perfume, her skin, her desire, filled his senses; he focused his whole being on it,
trying to commit it to memory. Using it to push away the narcotic effect of the incense.
“I want you,” she pleaded. “I want you, too.”
How much more of this could he take? All those times he thought God had spared him out of mercy or for some greater purpose . . .
it was just to keep him alive for this torment, wasn’t it?
He stroked a soothing hand along her back, feeling the shiver pass down her spine at that mere touch, drawing one from him;
their bodies and their souls were still in conversation.
Hugh shut his eyes. “Shh . . . it’s not real, sweetheart . . .”
The pendant around his neck pulsed with the magic it had absorbed, a cruel echo of the desire that throbbed in him. He hadn’t
realized she’d unknotted his cravat and opened his shirt until her lips found the skin at the base of his throat, pressing
an open-mouthed kiss to it.
He didn’t pull away, not even as her lips trailed up his neck in the sweetest of caresses. After all, Hugh had never claimed
to be a paragon of morality, merely decent.
Slowly, the tension in her body relaxed along with her pulse. She sagged against him, turning her face against his ridiculous
velvet jacket. Gently, he used his thumb to wipe away the smudges of her lip stain around her mouth, using his sleeve for
his own face. As much as he enjoyed the thought of her marking him in some way, claiming ownership, it would remind her of
this. Of what they had nearly done.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered after a long while, then squeezed her eyes shut. “No, I’m not.”
He laughed softly, resting his cheek against her soft hair as her arms came around his waist. She stiffened, as self-conscious as he knew she would be as the memory of the last few minutes washed over her, but Hugh only held her tighter.
It stunned him, the impulse. The need to feel as close to her emotionally as he was physically.
“I could die from want of you,” he whispered in her ear. “I would follow you, your devoted, worshipful servant, across lifetimes,
the way the sun chases the moon across the sky. I would weave my soul through yours so no man or god could ever part them.”
Her fingers pressed against the muscles of his back, and he wanted nothing more than to be drawn into her. “Then why?”
“You know why,” he said.
She exhaled. “There’s . . . magic in the incense.”
“And it means neither of us is thinking clearly,” he said. “I swore to you I wouldn’t do this, and I’ve come close to it twice
now. It’s unforgivable.”
Viola pulled away, her brow marred by anger. “Stop being so bloody honorable.”
Hugh would have answered, had he not suddenly become aware of a third presence in the room.
He spun Viola behind him, his gaze shooting to the far corner of the chamber, where a slim, pale figure reclined in a gaudy
chair, his booted foot crossed over his knee. His brown hair fell straight over the shoulders of his crimson suit. He’d chosen
a horned mask for himself, but his dark eyes were unmistakable.
“Don’t stop on my account,” Greystone said coldly. “You were just about to tell her all the reasons you’re a horrid cad, and
how she deserves better than some rake who’d take liberties in her father’s place of business.”
Viola’s heart hammered against his. Hugh took quick inventory of the weapons on him. A small blade in his jacket pocket, another
at his hip. But just then, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t die of mortification before the crime lord ever laid hands on him and
that this wasn’t actual hell.
“A voyeur, are you?” Hugh said roughly. “Though, what’s one more vice to a list of a thousand, I suppose.”
“There’s nothing that happens in my club I’m unaware of,” he said. “Including an imposter using one of my invites and groping
my daughter.”
Viola pushed away from him at that, whirling on the man. “And I’m certain you had nothing at all to do with that, or do all gaming hells use incense made by fairyborn?”
Greystone rose with the grace of a cat, removing his mask to reveal a younger face than Hugh might have expected. Only a scar
over his left eye revealed the hazards he’d traversed on his rise to the heights of criminality. There was an unsettling lack
of spark to his expression, as if everything inside him was still and shadowed.
Or dead.