CHAPTER EIGHT
GISELLA
I rolled in the bed, the brick at my feet a comfort against the cool body beside me. Memory of hands and lips and tongue blissed me out for a long enough moment for my body to relax against his harder form at my back.
I smiled in my dozy state—Minette must have heated the brick and pulled the blankets around me—at last thought, I’d toppled on top of the lot, and lay still in my bed as frozen as Sebastian when she came in to check on me.
I slept away the day until sun turned to moon. Then, Sebastian found me, his lips pressed to my throat, sucking in sweet, gentle kisses to reopen the wounds there as his fingers played between my legs, and I opened my body and mind to him, wanton for the all-encompassing pleasure that besieged me.
My cries could have raised the dead, or maybe the household, but he didn’t seem to care. When he was done drinking, his hand curled around my throat, holding me pinned in place while his mouth devoured mine and his fingers teased me until I sank against his body, exhausted yet again.
The last thing I remembered before I succumbed back to the dream realm, was his laughter filled apology for waking me, that he fed and I hadn’t.
His arms left me safe and protected, and I didn't care enough for food to break away from him in my dozed state, my body humming with his touch as he eased me into his arms.
Despite his apology, some part of my mind noted that he hadn’t retreated from the room, either.
Sebastian.
His hand slid along my legs, dipping into the curve of my waist. I already knew his touch, the length and pressure of his fingers familiar. Palming my stomach, he pulled me back against him. I forced my eyes open to see the night sky outside the window—though it wasn’t mine. No small balconette, no arch. This window was square and took up most of the wall space.
I sat, the blankets puddling around my waist. The wandering hand paused on my hip.
“We’re in your room?” I guessed, not turning around.
Waves drew along the coastline below the house. I’d thought he lived inland, but somehow my senses had been turned around during my wine-filled, night time journey. His room must face the back of the house, away from the gardens and forest I could view from mine.
From the mansion’s second story, I couldn’t see where the sludge and forests turned to tepid waters no doubt infected with the same prehistoric reptilian monsters.
His hands slipped around my waist, pulling me around, back to him, and I was met with those eyes that pierced my entire being. A shiver passed over me. I wasn’t the only one unclothed.
Swallowing hard, I twisted to look over my shoulder, clutching the sheet at my waist, hair tumbling haphazardly around my bare shoulders.
Heat burned within Sebastian’s gaze. His eyes never left my face, though I had the impression he took in all of me where I sat. He crooked a finger—the small movement sending a thrill through me as he drew me up his chest.
“Uh-uh,” I wriggled. “You promised to talk.”
Sebastian’s features smoothed. “Always with the talking.”
Two days of sex, of learning about the monster in my bed, let alone under it, swirled around me in a maelstrom of emotion. I couldn’t pick one down to focus on, and suddenly, everything was too much.
“Answer me,” I whispered.
Tears stung my eyes when he stared at me, stone faced. Don’t do this to me. I pleaded inside my head, hoping our silent conversation hadn’t been a figment of my imagination. The dual ache at my throat and breast certainly wasn’t.
I slapped his chest, but he didn’t move. No mark rose beneath his skin, though my hand stung.
“So you are—” I faltered, still staring.
“I am.”
I slapped him again, though it appeared to make no difference to him. “Don’t you do that.”
“Do what?” His face was smooth as alabaster, though I sensed a large degree of humor boiling beneath the surface.
“That,” I snapped, though the single word came out waspish. I swallowed and tried again. “Don’t you go all god-like on me.”
His hands clamped around my hips, and he rolled me beneath him with ease.
Maybe chastising a minor god wasn’t the best idea of the morning. Or night. My mind flitted back to the first day here— yesterday, today...my thoughts remained too muddled, my sense of time lost.
I’d thought my husband was a lay-about who chose to rise in the evenings on my first day. Not that those hours were that different from the rest of European nobility, but the truth had been far more haunting.
Sebastian snarled above me, his weight bearing down on the body he had spent so many hours teasing and using for his own pleasure while giving me mine
Definitely god-like .
“Do I look god-like to you?” he growled, the sound reverberating through his broad chest.
Without much thought in the action and lost in the feel of him, I nodded. His snarl grew as he pushed my thighs apart, sinking his hard length inside me in a single stroke.
I tossed my head back, my mouth dry on the scream that tore from my throat.
Then his lips were there, sucking as he worked his hips into me over and over, his hands gripping my rear for purchase. I swallowed the wave of pleasure threatened to black out the twin pain and pleasure as he rose to kiss me. Ruby lips glinted in the darkness, my body responding to his every wish.
Then he kissed me, demanding more, and then the night swallowed us both.
His fingers trailed the length of my spine as I rested on his chest, my body covered with a fine sheen of sweat. Sebastian’s, of course, held nothing. I sighed, tracing a hand over the ridges of muscle on his chest, down to his stomach.
“You’re too perfect.” I propped my elbows on his chest, remembering the last time I'd done this, and hoped we wouldn't be interrupted.
“You think I’m perfect?” His mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. “You don’t know anything about me, Gella.” His voice was as dark as his eyes, like velvet that wrapped around me.
An edge of danger tugged at me, heightening all my senses.
I thought about what I did know—which wasn’t that much—of his resilience to the bias against his kind, and there was plenty I needed to discuss with him. There was the way the servants were around him—had he terrified them for years? And the Gallery. That strong familial resemblance I suspected was the singular lifetime of one man.
Yet another conversation I needed to have. But he hadn’t killed me, hadn’t maimed me, though he contained the strength and ability to do so.
A wife would be easy to replace in such a remote home .
I winced at the thought—mine, not his—and prayed I hadn't gotten it wrong. It didn't matter much if I had; there was nowhere to flee to, nowhere to run.
I doubted I could outrun the beast of the man who hid behind the arrogant, crafted exterior of a much older lord, and shivered. The frisson of fear followed a hot dose of arousal that painted my thighs with slick need. I stared at his mouth, wondering if he would kiss me again, my lips still swollen and tender from our lovemaking.
My brain drew itself away from tracing his amazing physique with my eyes to ask a question—one of far too many cluttered in there. I started with the hardest one I brought up before, but he hadn’t answered me, not really. Sebastian was a master of evasion.
“The maid—I thought she’d harmed herself. But she hadn’t, had she? Charleton covered for you.”
His mouth set in a hard line. For a moment, I thought he wouldn't answer me again, then he let out a soft sigh.
“Yes.” His gaze held mine, steady. “I’m the monster you need worry about here.”
“I’m grateful it was her neck, not her breast, married man,” I murmured. “Or you’d be in trouble.”
He spluttered laughter, sitting up while he choked. I thumped his back unhelpfully.
“Oh, Gella,” He wiped tears from his eyes, and gathered me in his arms. I slipped my legs around his waist, pressing close. “You are certainly unique.”
You can call me crazy. There’s nowhere for me to hide, anyway.
I let the thought linger between us, then revolved back to my line of questions. “Do you force them to be here? The servants,” I clarified.
“Things are not done here as they are in France.” He stroked my hair, pulling the covers around me, though it wasn’t a cold morning. Nothing here was cold, it seemed, except for him. “Here, the local population is a little more…primitive. But for some reason, they seem rather grateful for the employment.”
I looked up at his tone. His lips twisted in that crooked smile again, self-loathing evident in the lines of his face. Not aged, exactly, but…fragile, somehow, beneath that marble facade.
“I know what you mean,” I said, thinking back to my arrival in New Orleans, adding to my list of things to ask Minette. “Do you age?” I blurted.
He laughed again. “Yes, I age. You won’t see it on the outside, but inside I am…rather broken, I’m afraid. Centuries of living death does that to a— well, I’m not a man any longer, am I?” His mouth twisted again, all his self-deprecating humor slipping from his face.
“You’re centuries old?” I whispered, my mind whirling.
His fingers twined in my hair, pulling my head back so my throat lay exposed to him.
“Tell me you’re not afraid, Gella.”
I swallowed, curling my hands around his arms. “No.” My breath hitched, though his increased, puffs hit my skin. “I’m not afraid.”
His lips touched my throat, dragging downwards to where my pulse hammered beneath the surface and lingered there. “And now?”
Heat rushed through me at the demanding contact until I slumped in his arms, panting. I remembered the way his hand closed around my throat before, squeezing enough to restrict my breath. Between my legs, swollen flesh throbbed.
“No,” I moaned, my voice was ragged. Something far darker than fear rose inside me. I arched against his touch, biting back a whimper.
A light pressure hit the sensitive curve of my neck, and I stifled a whimper. My flesh broke out in a shiver as his teeth pressed harder, the tips breaking the skin.
And now?
“I’m not afraid of you, Sebastian.” I curled my hands in his hair, pulling his head down, pressing his teeth deeper against my skin, encouraging him. Pain bloomed around where his lips touched me then numbed, soothing. His tongue dragged across the surface of my throat.
I tipped my head back further, letting my hands drop to his shoulders. My eyes closed, every sense heightening as he supported me, though I could barely feel his lips on my skin. A feral, angry sound ripped from his chest, and his hands were gone.
I fell back onto the bed, dizzy, the room spinning around me. I tried to sit, pushing my elbows back, but his weight bore down on me. I stared up at him, my breaths shallow, desperate for more contact. My entire body craved his touch, as though I were drunk on him.
You see the monster I am, Gella?
The velvet voice in my head dropped away, his tones harsh, abrasive in my mind, but it didn’t change my reaction to him. Stubborn, I managed to raise my hands, closing them around his arms. My grip was weak, and when he came to me, it was by his choice, not mine.
“Spread your legs, Gella,” he commanded. His voice was laced with authority, and something cold that made me hot all over.
Biting my lip, I widened my thighs until he settled between them, his hard cock resting inside my entrance. The insides of my legs tightened against his hips, but he shook his head.
“Wider,” he grated. Sebastian shook his head when I lay frozen beneath him. “Don’t make me ask you again.”
I spread my legs until my knees ached with the strain.
“Good girl,” he murmured, sinking the head of his cock inside me. “Raise your hips, work me with the pretty little body of yours.”
I whimpered, but he stayed still and as unmoving as the morning I had woken with him in the library. His expression fathomless, I shivered beneath his granite gaze.
Move your fucking hips, Gella.
I moaned at the intrusion in my mind, already complying. His length slid into me, then out. I lifted myself up again, straining to complete his order. “You’re everywhere.”
You have no idea.
I cried out as his hand clamped down on my hip, his thumb sliding along the sensitive patch there, claiming me. “Sebastian!”
Without a touch of his teeth to my throat, I fell into a well of bliss so deep, I couldn't see anything but the flame of desire in his eyes.
Then there was nothing.