Chapter Thirteen
A bath, a pot of tea, and a good night’s sleep should’ve restored me to a normal state of health and cheer in the morning, but when Aldrich pulled the curtains to reveal a beautiful sunny day…well, they hadn’t.
Climbing out of bed to do all the necessary morning things turned into more of a lurch and a stagger, and I had to support myself with a hand on the wall as I came back from the bathroom.
My optimistic plans to go out and see the city today now sounded nauseating and utterly exhausting.
Confusion to the enemy would need to wait until I’d resolved my own.
Aldrich abandoned the fresh tea tray he’d been setting out on my dressing table and lunged at me, catching me by the elbow and helping me back into my bed.
“You’re obviously ill, my lord,” he said bluntly, frowning down at me. “You ought to have a physician in to see you. Or a mage, whatever you think is proper.”
Further doctoring seemed unlikely to do me much good, given that Lord Benedict had found nothing wrong with me other than a dose of magical poison that had already begun to fade away when he examined me last night.
And the thought of explaining my situation to a stranger made me cringe—a feeling Stefan would likely endorse in the name of discretion.
I could ride this out with more tea and more rest, surely.
My vision took a moment to catch up with the movement as I levered myself onto my pillows. Arguing convincingly against Aldrich’s concern might take more strength than I had. I felt like I hadn’t slept for a week.
“I don’t think Lord Stefan needs to send for anyone,” I replied cautiously. “I’m merely rather tired this morn—”
“You are not merely tired, and Lord Stefan needs to do what’s necessary to take care of you!
” Aldrich’s eyes snapped with anger I hadn’t thought my mild-mannered valet would be capable of.
“You were ill last night, and you’re still ill this morning, and Lord Stefan made you cry, and I don’t care that he’s my employer, no one should be—”
“He didn’t—”
“—treated that way by a husband, particularly not when he’s clearly unwell—”
A knock on the door silenced us both. Another, more peremptory knock, had Aldrich grimacing and going to answer, pulling the door open a discreet few inches to protect my nightshirt-clad body from the gaze of whoever stood on the other side.
And then he froze, shoulders tensing up around his ears. “My—my lord,” he stammered. “Lord Remi is still abed, but—”
“I’ll save you the trouble of trying to lie to me,” Stefan said, voice aridly dry. “I overheard every word, and no, I’m not going to throw you out on your ear, despite the way you threw me out on mine last night. Ask Lord Remi if I can come in.”
“Let him in.” I cleared my throat, which had become suddenly tight. My skin flushed with heat. “And then you can go for now, Aldrich.”
Aldrich stumbled back as Stefan swung the door wide without waiting for it to be opened for him.
The sight of him pushed everything else into a hazy background: his tall, broad-shouldered body, displayed to incredible advantage by the shirt hanging open at the neck and the sleeves rolled up to show muscular forearms, and by a pair of his tight breeches, worn without any stockings or shoes.
He hadn’t shaved, and golden stubble glinted on his cheeks and chin.
Those dark eyes rested on me with something stormy in their depths. Our gazes caught and held. My breath hitched, heavy tension gathering in my stomach, as if the storm had me in its grips.
Distantly, I heard Aldrich asking me if I really wanted him to leave, but the rushing hum in my ears almost drowned him out. “Yes,” I whispered. “Go.”
The sharp twisting in my abdomen intensified, and—oh, oh fucking gods.
My cock. All the sensations of the night before came flooding back: the way I’d half-stiffened for the first time in years while the poison took hold at the ball, the way I’d spent with Stefan inside me, suffused with perfect, bone-melting delight.
And now I’d gone completely, desperately hard, my erection pressing up against the weight of the bedding.
“Lord Remi is ill, my lord,” Aldrich said, his voice wavering but his loyalty clearly unshakable. “If I go, you need to—”
“I’ll take care of him, now get out,” Stefan replied, his sharp, dark gaze never leaving me. “You have my word. And if you presume to doubt it, I’ll toss you out the front door after all.”
Aldrich slipped through the door with a mumbled, “Yes, my lord,” and it shut behind him.
Stefan reached down and turned the key in the lock, still without looking away from me, his jaw tight and his whole body radiating a coiled tension that had my breath quickening, my heart pounding almost painfully.
Stefan prowled toward the bed, eyes flicking up and down my body, lingering on my parted lips and the exposed skin of my chest where my loose shirt hung open.
“This can’t be your curse again so soon,” he said, voice low, vibrating through me and setting all my nerves alight.
What would happen if he touched me, gods…
when he touched me, because he would—and if he didn’t on his own, I might start begging him to.
“Benedict said the poison would be gone by morning, so you ought to be able to last another day or two. Shouldn’t you? You’d know better than I do.”
“Remember, he also said it might take longer for me to be back to normal. I don’t know either.
The poison must have reset my curse’s cycle for now.
” If I focused, I could make my sluggish mind work, but most of the blood in my body seemed to have moved down to throb between my legs.
“Or…no, that can’t be it, because it doesn’t hurt. My curse hurts, always.”
“I’m glad you’re not in pain, but I’d still like to know what the hell is going on,” he said, and took another step, close enough now that he could’ve touched me.
Why hadn’t he touched me? My head fell back, my eyes sliding shut against a dizzying wave of prickling sensation that swept through me.
“Remi? You look like you’re about to faint. ”
Now he was touching me, his hands on my shoulders, strong fingers digging into my upper arms, and I moaned, a long, helpless sound, arching up toward him and reaching to grasp handfuls of his shirt.
I needed, and I didn’t even know what precisely, but he would.
Stefan would, because if I could trust my husband for one thing, it would be understanding physical desire.
I yanked him down, and he let out a startled sound, his knee landing heavily on the bed by my hip.
My eyelids fluttered open. I found him inches away, flushed and rumpled, his mouth open, eyes wide with—desire of his own, it had to be. I twisted my hands in his shirt for leverage and pulled myself up, pressing my lips to his with frantic force.
He tore himself away, leaving me whimpering. “Remi, you don’t want this, and you should try your potion agai—fuck, Remi—”
This time, when I yanked him down, he didn’t resist and he didn’t argue.
He wrapped one arm around my waist firmly enough to bruise my ribs and his other hand caught hold of my hair, pinning my head in place.
And then he took over the kiss, savaging me with his lips and teeth and tongue, stealing every last gasp of my breath.
His heavy body settled over me, crushing me down into the bed so perfectly, the weight of him on my cock making me writhe and try to spread my legs, shoving at the constriction of the bedding.
Stefan tore his mouth away from mine and nibbled along my jaw, sucking a mark under its angle, the hand at my waist slipping beneath my shirt to tease at bare skin.
For Stefan, this probably barely qualified as amusing, let alone arousing.
But for me…before Stefan, no one had ever touched me like this, and last night, I’d spent for the first time since my adolescent awakening.
And my body reacted to Stefan precisely like it had then to the fantasies I’d conjured in my youthful imagination.
Stefan moved down and latched onto my nipple through the thin linen of my shirt, mouth searing hot. My eyes rolled back in my head, and my muscles all clenched as I spent without more of a touch to my cock than the pressure of his weight on top of the blankets.
I shuddered and moaned, soaking my drawers, pleasure and humiliation combining to leave me feverish and sweaty and limp as my climax passed.
Stefan slowly released my nipple and lifted his head. My eyes wouldn’t open, but I could feel the intensity of his gaze as a tingling on my lips, on my burning cheeks.
“You’re going to give me an entirely too inflated estimation of my own prowess,” he said, with a rough note beneath the practiced irony of his tone that took my breath away. My remaining breath. I didn’t seem to have much. “At this rate, I might become arrogant. Or even conceited.”
That gave me the strength to open my eyes. This close, and in the full daylight, he managed to be even more unnecessarily handsome than he had last night when he’d been all perfectly groomed and illuminated by soft candlelight.
“Become arrogant and conceited? Not that you don’t have—”
His gaze flicked down to where I’d bitten my kiss-swollen lower lip to keep in the rest.
“Don’t have what?” He shifted his weight, nudging further between my thighs. My head swam.
“Some reason for your conceit,” I admitted.
“Pleasuring you would be enough to make any man think well of himself.”
“Don’t,” I ground out. “I’d prefer not to be treated like all of your—companions. I don’t enjoy silver-tongued lies, Stefan.”
The stirring of my cock suggested that part of me very much enjoyed flattering, silver-tongued lies, but the rest of me knew better.