Chapter 17 #2
Not able to stay still, he stood, prowling around her, watching as the pulse in her throat quickened. He walked behind her, and when she turned her head, he tsked. ‘Face forward, Clio.’
She clenched her jaw, mutiny flashing in her eyes, but did as he asked.
‘I told you I would strip you bare. I meant what I said.’ He stood close enough, their bodies almost touched.
Heat pulsed off her in waves so powerful, the air shimmered between them.
Before he could reach for her nightgown, it began to smoke, the cotton flared like a lantern wick, then turned ashy grey and fell from her body like burned paper.
Sooty dust lay around her feet in a ring on the carpet.
He whistled low, stepping back to admire her generously curved arse. ‘That was a wicked little trick, my sweet witch.’
‘Wicked witches have the best tricks and the most fun.’ Clio didn’t move, but he knew she was smiling.
He took a single finger and traced it down the pearls of her spine.
She hissed in a breath. Pulling her hair to drape over her shoulder, Thomas forced himself to remain focused.
It would be so easy to get lost in the silky tresses.
But there was so much more to discover. He leaned forward, pressing his lips where her shoulder met her neck.
‘A bastard like me couldn’t possibly resist a witch like you.’
Clio swayed, and he gripped her arm, holding her steady as he sank his teeth into the skin he had just kissed. Her body tightened, and a jolt of electric current bolted through her and into Thomas.
Fucking hell. She will ruin me.
Never before had a woman affected him on such a visceral level. Her power poured into him, enhancing every sensation. He forced himself to step back, refusing to lose control before they had even started. He was as randy as a schoolboy and just as likely to unman himself.
Do not spend before you’ve even gotten her onto the bed!
‘Go and lie down. On your back.’
She hesitated. ‘W-what are you going to do?’
‘Watch you.’
‘Oh.’ She glanced over her shoulder before slowly padding her way to the bed, her bottom swaying like a metronome counting the rhythm of his heart. He saw the flash of strawberry high on her inner thigh as she climbed onto the tall bed.
A birthmark.
He couldn’t wait to trace it with his tongue.
She flipped to face him. Finally, he could look his fill of her, gloriously naked. His gaze caught on glossy pink scars swiping over her abdomen and right arm like slashes from a beast with razor-sharp talons. They were healed, but she must have sustained them within the last year.
Anger raged through him, sweeping away his desire. He strode to the bed, climbed onto the feather mattress, and ran his fingers over her smooth skin.
‘Who did this to you?’
Clio froze. She tried to scoot away from him and cover the marks. He caught her wrist, then the other, pinning her hands over her head. When she bucked her hips, he held her in place with his own.
‘Tell me, Clio. Who did this to you? Give me the name of the blackguard so I can hunt him down and kill him.’
She shook her head, her amber eyes gone wide. ‘You can’t. She’s already dead.’
Realisation dawned, and with it fear. ‘A ghost did this to you?’
‘Such things rarely happen.’ Clio swallowed, drawing his gaze to the delicate column of her throat. A throat he had seen darken with bruises from a different spectre.
‘What about being choked? Was that also rare?’
Her delectable mouth hardened. ‘I told you, he didn’t mean to hurt me.’
Thomas nodded, his own sense of helplessness transforming fear into cold determination. ‘I don’t want you speaking to any more ghosts.’
Clio’s jagged laughter cut through his tightly reined control. Her wrists grew warmer beneath his fingers as a blast of heat engulfed him. ‘I gave you leave to command me in seduction, but you will not control my actions anywhere else. If you can’t agree to that, this ends now.’
The very idea of some insubstantial spirit leaving such horrible scars on his woman tore at Thomas’ already ravaged soul.
But she isn’t my woman. She has no wish to be my woman. And if she were mine, I still could not control her choices.
A brutal lesson he learned during his doomed marriage and one he couldn’t afford to forget.
If he pushed Clio on this, she would make him leave.
What would he gain other than aching bollocks and a wall separating him from her?
If she was determined to put herself in harm’s way, his best chance of protecting her was to ensure he stood beside her.
And to do that, he would need to agree to her demands, even if it countered every instinct in his body.
‘Will you at least promise not to conjure the viscount and his wife unless I’m with you?’
She exhaled through her nose in a delicate expression of frustration. ‘I can’t control when a ghost will appear. But I promise to include you when I go to the nursery to seek them out. Will that suffice?’
Not even close.
But it was the best offer he was likely to get from Clio.
‘And you will call for me if they come to you when you’re alone? Or send Sir Robin. Surely he’ll put aside his dislike for me if you’re in danger.’
Clio’s smile stole his breath. ‘He doesn’t dislike you. He just likes provoking you.’
‘A trait you both share.’
Her amber eyes danced with mischief. ‘Perhaps. Now will you hold to your promise? You spoke of conflagration, but I am not burning yet.’
Damn her for being so impossible to resist.
‘I have always prided myself on being a man of my word.’ He let go of her wrists and pushed himself up.
Slowly, with lazy intent, he dragged his hands down her body, caressing the curve of her breasts without letting himself play with her nipples.
Not yet. He bumped over her ribs and feathered over the slashes on her abdomen, willing her body to feel pleasure where once she endured pain.
He enjoyed the flare of her hips before pausing as his thumb reached the birthmark on her inner thigh.
‘What have we here?’
Clio clamped her legs together instinctively.
‘Show me.’ He forced command into his voice.
Hesitation created a crease between her brows. Slowly, she relaxed her legs and let them fall open, showing him more than just the strawberry-coloured star high on her inner thigh. Pink lips peeked from the nest of black maidenhair, wet and glistening.
‘Beautiful.’ The word couldn’t possibly encompass the fullness of her magnificence, but it was all he could manage.
She arched her back, a silent offering of something more precious than all the Queen’s vast riches. He pushed off the bed, needing distance if he was going to maintain his control. Stepping back, he tried to memorise her in this moment, an image he could take with him always.
Clio’s breasts were full and delightfully belled.
Her creamy skin contrasted against dark cherry nipples.
His cock pulsed painfully as she pulled herself further back on the bed, her breasts jostling with the movement.
This must be a new level of self-torture, and he was ready to revel in it until the pain became pleasure.
‘Do you like what you see?’ Her low voice nearly broke him.
‘You are perfect.’
Pale skin flushed rose.
He still had the leather straps in his hand. He smacked them hard against his thigh, needing the sharp bite of pain to help him focus. Clio jumped at the loud thwack, her eyes growing wide as she focused on his leg.
‘One day, perhaps we can experiment with spanking. I bet your bottom would turn such a delicious shade of rose.’
Clio bit her lip as the candle next to her flared.
‘Would you like that?’
She inhaled, her ribs pressing delicately against her skin, and then nodded. ‘Does that make me wanton?’
His lips curled in a knowing smile. ‘No. It makes you undeniably, irrevocably, and absolutely wicked. But I recently learned wicked women have the best tricks and the most fun.’
Her breathy laughter eased some of the tension growing between them.
‘But I don’t think we’ll explore that today.’
Thomas didn’t miss the flash of disappointment before she nodded in agreement.
Dear God. Her tastes run as dark as my own. A miracle. And a tragedy.
It was a cruel twist of fate to give him such a perfect partner when there was no way to take their relationship any further than the fortnight they shared at Blackthorn Manor.
But he would not think of that now. The only moment that mattered was this one.
If he only had these fleeting fragments of time with Clio, he would not waste any of them on regrets.
He had the rest of his bleak life for that.
‘Hands over your head.’
Clio complied, the movement doing fascinating things to her breasts.
Thomas walked to the bed, running his hand along the sensitive underside of her arm, over the crease of her elbow, to her wrist. He focused on his task, wrapping one length of the leather around her and quickly tying it to the headboard.
He moved to the other side, mirroring his actions with her left wrist. As he tested the knot, he trailed his hand back down her arm.
When his fingers brushed over the soft hair at her armpit, she tightened, trying to pull away.
‘Ahhhh. You’re ticklish.’ A bubble of joy burst in his belly.
‘I am not!’
He tickled again, with more intent and was rewarded with her breasts swaying as she tried to squirm away. But the ties held firm.
‘Not fair!’ Clio gasped.
Thomas stopped, pulling back. Her words struck a chord within him. ‘So much of life isn’t fair, is it?’
Clio’s giggles died. Her eyes were locked onto his, and Thomas knew she saw far more than he wanted. Far more than anyone before her ever had and anyone after ever would.
‘How have the fates wronged you, Thomas?’
Temptation swelled once more. To open up the poorly healed scars hiding his rotten soul and let the poison pour out of him.
Seep into her. Destroy whatever was starting between them.
A courageous man would do just that. End this now.
It was the kindest thing he could do. Because anything between them was doomed.
But he was too selfish to destroy this moment, not before he tasted her.
Not before she screamed his name in ecstasy.
‘Tonight is not a night for confessions.’
‘What if I want your confessions?’
Thomas forced a smile. ‘You gave me the reins, remember? Such an important detail. Or did you change your mind? We can stop now. Whenever you say.’
Anger, familiar and beautiful, painted a new flush over her skin as her scent blended with burning ozone. ‘I don’t wish to stop.’
‘Then stop asking questions. I have a better use for that pretty mouth.’
Watching her desire war with her need to understand him was enthralling.
But desire must have won as she slowly parted her lips and licked them.
Thomas walked to the end of the bed, needing to complete this quickly.
He made fast work of one ankle, then the next, and finally, let his gaze trail up her calf, over her knee, along the pearl skin of her inner thigh where her birthmark begged to be licked, and paused where she glistened with liquid need.
Her midnight maidenhair only intensified the innocent pink of her swollen lips.
His mouth watered. He didn’t want to taste her.
He needed to taste her. To lick, and suck, and savour every single drop.
‘Fucking hell. You are stunning.’
Clio squirmed. ‘You can’t possibly think I am beautiful… there.’
‘You are beautiful everywhere.’ He ran a finger over the sole of her foot, delighting as her body tightened. ‘Even the bottom of your feet.’
Clio scrunched her nose and shook her head in dismissal.
Thomas bent down to press a kiss against the top of her foot, then her ankle. He nipped her calf and nuzzled behind her knee.
‘What are you doing?’ Clio’s voice was ragged.
‘I’m kissing your pretty parts.’ He climbed on the bed, moving to her inner thigh where he swiped his tongue over her star and sucked the skin into his mouth.
He pulled back and marvelled at the change in colour from strawberry to plum.
Alternating soft kisses with sucking bites that would leave marks by morning, he slowly devoured every inch of her body.
The idea of leaving little love nibbles thrilled him.
She would look at herself and remember what he did to her.
How her body melted under his ministrations.
How the very mark she had been born with was altered because of him.
‘Thomas…’
He was inching closer and closer to her core. His fingers played over the jutting bone of her hip, then gripped to keep her steady.
‘Yes, Clio?’ His mouth nearly brushed her soft petals. He knew she felt his breath against her most sensitive flesh.
‘Don’t.’
He froze. His lips hovering over her wet pussy. His body was harder than steel. He would pull back. If she asked, he would stop. Even if it destroyed him.
‘Stop.’
Fucking blasted hell and damnation.
‘Don’t stop, Thomas.’
Relief rushed through him.
‘I wouldn’t dare, sweet Clio.’