Chapter 31 #2
My gaze fell to the circular scar over his heart. The untouched skin at its center provoked a tempest of emotions. Joy, that he no longer hid his scars. A twinge of jealousy that I could not display my mating mark with equal pride. And love—so much love.
“Close your eyes,” he murmured.
I ignored his command, keeping my focus on his tanned olive skin. I followed the line of his scar up his throat, where it disappeared into the black forest of his beard and reemerged across his lips. My focus lingered on his mouth as I remembered all the places that mouth had been.
What I wouldn’t give to be back in the Sophos library, hiding from the pressures of thrones and fates.
For those two blissful days, there’d been nothing but us, and gods, we’d made the most of it.
My thighs squeezed together at the memory of his fingers threaded in my hair, his broad chest rocking against mine, the way he filled me so completely . . .
His eyes snapped open.
“Naughty girl.” His tone rolled with heady warning, gas on my growing fire. “I said eyes closed.”
I held his stare, feeling reckless and defiant. I had so little control over my life, I was seizing whatever scraps of it I could find.
His fingers grazed my skin, slow and taunting. “Do I need to remind you that good girls get rewarded?”
“I seem to remember being bad got me rewarded, too.”
A sensation of hardness throbbed between my legs, but its dark hunger wasn’t mine. Apparently, I could feel Luther’s arousal through the bond, too. My body responded in kind, my breath quickening and my skin burning hot.
“If you won’t close your eyes,” he said roughly, “I’ll do it for you.”
With a curl of his finger, the lights in the ballroom guttered. Shadows curtained the windows to mask the sapphire dusk. My senses tightened on the slow stroke of his fingers up my inner arm, an innocent touch that the pitch-black room turned thrillingly sinful.
Leave, my conscience warned. You’re too weak to withstand this.
But Luther’s desire made me feel stronger than I’d felt in months. In the darkness, I could pretend that what I did not touch did not exist, and what I did touch, I could conquer. The thought emboldened me. I shifted in my chair, causing his hand to brush the bare skin along my ribs.
“I wanted to give you a moment to relax in peace,” his voice rolled through the shadows, “but you are making it very difficult to relax.”
The ballroom doors cracked open with a sliver of light, and my heart sank—but a moment later they closed, and the darkness engulfed us once again. Luther’s hand stilled at the sound of giggling and shuffling feet. An orb of Lumnos light appeared in the far corner of the room.
“Put your magic away,” a woman’s voice insisted. “If anyone finds us, my mother will have a fit.”
A distinctly masculine chuckle followed, and the orb blinked out. “Fine. It’s more fun in the dark.”
Her girlish giggles were cut off by smacking, rustling clothes, and a breathy, unmistakable moan.
I seized Luther’s arm in panic. He remained completely still, and a cool mist wisped across my cheek. His magic, I realized with a start. He was using his shadows to conceal us, and with my magic blocked by the cuffs, I wasn’t able to absorb it. I was entirely at the mercy of his godhood.
Luther’s excitement at the discovery rippled through me as his magic thickened into a hand that wrapped across my mouth. Luther had no desire to announce our presence—and no intention of letting me go.
Across the room, the man groaned. “Fuck, you’re so wet for me, baby.”
I arched my back, my core seeking friction as I imagined those words from a different voice. It had been so long since we’d been together. The mating bond was growing impatient with brushing arms and skimming hands, and so was I.
The woman’s moans grew louder. Two more shadowy hands took hold of my shoulders, gently pressing me back against my chair, as Luther toyed with the edge of the fabric draped across my breasts.
Each touch was so light, almost accidental, turning my need wild with unfulfilled desire.
I stretched toward him in an urgent bid for more, and his hand shifted to keep its distance.
He was teasing me. Punishing me, perhaps, for pushing him away.
Or maybe he knew me even better than I thought. I ran from pressure. When forced, I fought back with all my might. But these alluring reminders of what I could have, if only I reached out and took it—that was how he’d torn down my walls. He seemed determined to do it again.
Across the room, the woman squealed with surprise, followed by the clang of items being knocked off a sideboard, and the creak of weight being laid on wood.
She laughed. “You’re going to get us caught.”
“Then you better be quiet,” the man said. “Spread those pretty legs so I can have a taste.”
His voice went silent, and her moaning resumed. I should have felt ashamed for intruding on such a private moment, but with every husky groan and mewling whimper that floated through the darkened rafters, my defiance grew.
I was sick of doing the wiser thing and being miserable for it. I wanted to be wild and indulgent and foolish. I wanted to banish my emptiness with something that would make me feel.
I found Luther’s hand in the darkness and guided it to my breast. He needed no more encouragement than that. He greedily palmed its soft swell, kneading the peaks between his fingers until they were tender and hard. Muffled cries of my own escaped from beneath the shadow hand across my mouth.
He shifted to the other breast, coming perilously close to the mating mark. I wondered, with a mix of terror and excitement, what would happen if he touched it. Would I light up like the midnight moon? Would his blood sing in harmony with mine?
The risk heightened my passion, making every stroke of his thumb a flying arrow. For once, the danger of being discovered became something I craved. I could no longer pretend that I was in control. Luther had me entirely at his command, and I fucking loved it.
His hand roamed—lower, lower—tracing the waist of my pants. I opened my legs, trying to will him on without words. He cupped my sensitive core, massaging through the leather. His warm breath spilled across my cheek as he leaned in to my ear.
“I wonder,” he said, “are you wet for me, too?”
Oh, I was soaked. My heart raced with exhilaration at the prospect of letting him find out for himself.
The woman’s moans turned into screams as she crested her release. The sounds of passion gave way to soft kisses, then silence. Luther stilled, and I sulked with disappointment. I wasn’t ready to face the distance between us that I knew would return once this moment ended.
Not yet. Please, not yet.
Then—
“You taste so damn good when you come for me, baby,” the man’s voice growled. “Bend over and give me that tight little ass. It’s my turn.” Wood creaked, the woman gasped, and the man let out a deep, guttural groan of satisfaction.
Every nerve ending sparked. Scandalous scenarios played in my head—how much could Luther’s shadows hide? How quiet could I be? Was I willing to risk being discovered face down on the council table, the Prince of Lumnos buried inside me?
I squeezed Luther’s wrist in a silent plea and bucked my hips, desperately searching for relief. He didn’t pull back, but didn’t move either, forcing me to guide his hand up and down my center.
Forcing me to admit to us both what I wanted.
He nipped at the lobe of my ear, and I might have come right then and there, were it not for the next words whispered:
“Make any noise, and I’ll stop.”
It was a promise as much as a threat—especially when his fingers slid beneath the leather of my pants, then the lace of my undergarments, straight to the slick heat that gave me away.
“That’s my girl,” Luther breathed, slow and reverent.
The shadow hand loosened from my mouth and wrapped around my throat, laying the gentlest of pressure against my pulse.
I hardly needed to be quiet any longer, thanks to our noisy friends across the room.
She was very vocal, and he was, apparently, very skilled.
The darkness echoed with a symphony of carnal slapping sounds, but the secrecy made it all the more exciting, so I swallowed my cries as Luther’s thumb swirled around my clit.
The dark, wisping hands on my shoulders moved to my breasts and toyed with my nipples.
Two more took me by the hips, their possessive grip somehow both ephemeral and impossibly strong.
Blinded by the darkness, every sensation was heightened—icy shadows prickling my heated skin, the scrape of his beard against my jaw, and the languid stroke of his very rough, very real fingers.
The feeling of his touch enveloped me. Even the shadows thrummed with his energy. With one hand still guiding his wrist, I reached out into the darkness with the other, and when it found his face, my heart sang at his contented hum.
Two of his fingers plunged inside me. I arched forward, burying my face in his shoulder to hold back my cries. My panting breaths drew in his woodsy smell—earth and cedar, pepper and musk—and filled my lungs with his scent, his name, his desire.