Chapter 21 #3
Damien’s head lifted sharply, his mouth opened. She gazed back, unafraid. His head went back against the tree, anger swallowed.
“The fallacy in your argument is that the tree is not capable of cursing anyone who looks upon it unmasked. That forces isolation. But you have shown me trust. I will, too,” Damien said.
“I will trust that you do not seek to get close enough to sink a dagger into my back. And that you will allow me to protect you from my affliction.”
When Maria shifted to look at him, he raised a hand.
“The dagger I refer to is metaphorical. I do not believe you plotted to assassinate me. I speak of the inherent weakness of… attachments. However, the affliction is not a metaphor. The curse is very real, and I will not lose you to it. “
“Everything is a trade. Weakness for pleasure, for contentment,” she said.
Damien was looking at her now, eyes sharp, taking in every line of her face, drinking it in.
“It seems like a high price,” he whispered.
A bird flew from above, through the canopy and out the other side. Maria pointed.
“See that? It knows that the higher it flies, the more vulnerable it is to hawks or lightning or just becoming lost and exhausted and falling from the sky. It knows that it can avoid such things by remaining safe in its nest. Clipping its own wings. But what manner of life is that? Safe but…”
“Dull,” Damien replied.
“Empty.”
“I thought I was content with my nest. My clipped wings,” Damien said, shifting against the tree to face her.
“And now?” Maria turned to face him, leaning towards him.
Damien’s answer was to kiss her. It was the sudden, violent movement of a striking viper.
Maria was caught in mid-breath, a breath that became a gasp, a hot puff of air against his mouth that sent his blood roaring in his ears.
Her body froze and then melted as his arm went around her.
Maria’s pliant body pressed against his, her warmth bleeding into his own body.
Damien felt the melting, felt the surrender and welcomed it.
He leaned back against the tree, and she leaned into him.
Her lips were soft and full, beautifully feminine in every aspect from touch to taste.
Damien kissed her deeply, intoxicated by every breathy moan that tore between her lips as they kissed one another again and again.
He savored the experience, breathed Maria in, absorbed her through touch.
Her curves were so smooth and soft that he could scarcely believe she was real, much less that he might deserve her.
His hands explored her, mapping her with careful notes taken of every shiver, every arching of her back and shifting of her hips.
He was a cartographer of sensuality, memorizing the map he made of Maria’s body through the thin fabric of her gown.
In return, after a moment in which she seemed to cling helplessly to him, Maria seemed to awaken. She groaned and whined and writhed against his body, as though she wished to devour her. It was as if even a hairsbreadth of distance between them was intolerable.
Maria’s tongue flicked hungrily against Damien’s mouth, meeting his in arousing duels.
Her fingers dug at the rigid muscle of his chest, plowing furloughs down the silk of his shirt, forcing open the buttons of his waistcoat where they were encountered.
His manhood ached with need, his trousers becoming tighter with every heartbeat.
She caressed his face, both sides of it, and for once, Damien did not recoil. Her hands, warm and reverent, lingered on the mask that had for so long shielded him from tenderness. He had forgotten it was even there until he felt her fingers following the cords around his head.
His breath caught in his chest. Maria’s movements were slow and delicate, and Damien knew that he could stop her if he truly wanted. Did he want that, though?
Or did he want her to touch him, to see him like no one had in so very long? She tugged at the knots, loosening them.
He stilled her hands with his own, firm but careful, then removed them from his face. A dull ache twisted in his chest, the possibility of her seeing him, truly seeing him, like a long-desired and unfulfilled dream.
Her protest never made it to her lips; he silenced it with his own mouth, with a kiss that carried the ache of something long denied. Damien groaned against her lips, gathering his courage.
And then he untied the laces himself. Lifted the mask away. Flicked it aside like a relic no longer needed. A gasp tore from Maria’s lips, and that single sound went straight to his manhood. Was it a sound of longing? He wanted it to be.
He hoped it was, but he did not yet have the courage to look at her and see what her face might reveal.
The mask landed in the grass with a dull thud. Leather stared up at them like a second face he had shed.
Damien looked at her—truly looked—and Maria did not flinch. Instead, her eyes were wide with wonder, her lips slightly parted. Maria gazed at him like he was the most miraculous man she had ever seen in her life.
She touched the angry, scarred skin with bare fingers. Kissed it. Feathered kisses down the side of his face, over his brow, down the edge of his jaw to the pulse fluttering at his throat. His breathing faltered.
“You do not know what you do,” he rasped, his voice throaty and raw.
“I do,” she whispered, her lips grazing his skin. A wild and ragged sound tore from him. “If there is a curse, then let it strike me now.”
His arms tightened like he feared she’d be torn from him, drawing her soft, warm body against his own.
When nothing came—no fire, no thunder, no curse—Maria smiled against his neck.
Her fingers curled at the nape of it, drawing lazy circles, and sent a shiver tracing down the path of Damien’s spine.
Her lips found his again, soft but sure.
She tasted like resolve and fire, and desire burned like an inferno inside him.
Maria wanted him as ardently as he wanted her, and the thought was enough to drive him wild with need.
Thoughts of taking her hard and fast in the forest filled his mind.
He imagined that same awed expression as he drove her to an earth-shattering release.
“You see?” she said.
“I see nothing. But that only means it waits.”
“Then let it wait. I have no fear of shadows.”
Her kiss returned, bolder now. His mouth opened to hers, their tongues meeting in a rhythm that quickly forgot caution.
Damien, who had often asserted his dominance quite readily, found a worthy opponent in her, for she refused to submit so readily.
Her body shifted, fitting closer, and Damien swore softly as he felt her warmth press against him.
Even the slightest touch of her body sent all his thoughts scattering like a dropped wine glass.
His hand swept down her side. Over the curve of her hip. Possessive. Grounding himself in the feel of her real, unbreakable presence.
“Your allure,” he whispered, voice hoarse, “is made more potent by every breath I steal from you.”
“And I,” she murmured, “am undone by the weight of your hands on my body.”
Damien’s hand gripped her hip tighter. Then slid lower.
He walked her slowly back until her spine brushed the wide trunk of the tree.
His tree. The one he’d climbed as a child, bled beneath as a boy, screamed into as a man.
He braced one hand against the bark beside her head.
The other swept under the hem of her gown, his knuckles sweeping over her stockings.
She gasped.
He pushed it higher, fingers grazing the vulnerable skin of her inner thigh, then trailing up the sensitive inner part until she trembled.
Her breath hitched, as his fingers sweeping through the curls that framed her maidenhood.
His mouth didn’t leave hers. He kissed her as though it pained him not to.
As though parting from her lips would undo him, and perhaps, it would.
Already, he ached and burned for her. He wished that he could freeze time around them and forget the world, savoring the taste and scent of her until the world ended around him.
His fingers found the silk at the apex of her thighs, damp and clinging. He had done this. Maria was as affected by him as he was by her. A sharp sound escaped her throat.
“God, Damien…”
He growled her name against her mouth as his fingers slid over her folds, teasing, parting, stroking her in slow, deliberate circles.
The wet evidence of her arousal coated his fingers, as he pressed one finger carefully inside her.
Maria’s inner walls clamped around him. She clutched his shoulders, hips jerking forward, seeking more.
His name spilled from her lips again, this time in a whisper that sounded dangerously close to a plea.
“Please… don’t stop…”
“Oh, I have no intention of stopping, my dear wife!”
He buried his face in her neck, exhaling hard against her skin as he rubbed her faster, the silk fabric no longer a barrier but a tease.
The scent of lavender and roses filled her senses.
Everything about her was so undeniably gentle, beautiful, and feminine.
It seemed impossible that any woman so magnificent could possibly want him, yet she did.
Her thighs trembled, and new wetness glistened over her pale, lily-white skin. Maria’s back arched, and a sharp cry ripped from her throat.
He shifted his hand and found the heat of her skin beneath, sliding another finger between the wet folds with nothing now to stop him.
She moaned; head thrown back against the tree bark, eyes fluttering shut.
He withdrew his fingers. Teased her entrance. She gasped and reached for him blindly, as if to anchor herself to his chest.
“I want…” she began, voice breaking.
“I know,” he breathed. “I feel it.”
And then he slipped one finger once more inside her, his palm cradling her, thumb circling that aching spot until she cried out with unrestrained need.
He moved in her, his pace patient but intense, curling his fingers as if learning her from the inside out.
She bucked against him, her breath coming in shallow bursts.
His other hand tangled in her hair and gently pulled, tilting her mouth back up to his.
Maria’s eyes were dazed, silently begging for more.
He could not even say if she knew what more he had to offer. Damien’s lips curled into a sly smile, delighting in being the first and only man who would ever show her such a world of pleasure.
She clung to him. Not out of fear, but out of need.
And beneath the ancient tree, masked no longer, Damien finally allowed himself to be a man, not a beast, not a phantom.
Just a man.
With a woman who wanted all of him. Maria cried out, her release shuddering through her with such force that the young woman’s knees nearly buckled.
“Now,” Damien purred, reaching for his own trousers and aching manhood. “This is how it feels to be mine.”