Chapter 15 A Sturdy Table #2
“No.” He tried to shake her off, but she wouldn’t be denied.
Holding him so tightly she felt his pulse pounding against her thumb, she said, “I want to know.”
“No.”
“Then…” Releasing him felt almost impossible, but she did, managing to turn from him as well.
But facing the forge, the dream he’d brought to life for her only broke her into pieces.
“I will… I will put this fancy behind me. I must focus on the device, anyway. I do not need distractions. And if… and if I wish to know what you will not show me, I… I’ll find a fellow in the village.
To… initiate me into the ways of the world and—”
A large hand slammed onto her shoulder, whirled her around. They were nose to nose, his chest heaving against her own. “You’ll what? With another fellow. From the village.”
“Find out more about the ache between my legs, what will make it go away.”
Hands like a belt at her waist, he swept her into the air. Her feet dangled as she careened through the room. He plopped her onto the worktable and slapped his palms onto the surface on either side of her hips. His eyes were cold.
“Does your brother know?” he growled.
“K-know what?” She only just kept her teeth from chattering. She’d never seen him so bleak-eyed, so dangerous.
“What a hellion you are. Don’t answer that. Of course he doesn’t.” The ice in his eyes was melting as his gaze roved her face. “You hide yourself well from everyone, princess.” His hand consumed her lower back and pulled her forward as he stepped between her legs. “Except for me.”
Her inner thighs brushed his hips through layers of linen. She squeezed her muscles, shackling him between her legs; an action without thought, a proprietary reflex born of pure lust.
His hand on her back was firm. His words more so. “You will not offer yourself to some strange man in the village or elsewhere.”
She lifted her chin. “I’ll do as I please. Isn’t that what you want me to do? What. Pleases. Me.” Each word a hot breath between them.
Each breath an eternity in which she waited to hear his voice. Then, finally…
What a wonderfully wicked smile he possessed, and it curled upward like a slivered moon, making her feel so very needy.
“That’s the Sybil I admire,” he said. “The one who does exactly what she wants, not a thought for propriety or rules or appearances.” He dropped his forehead against hers, his breathing ragged. “That’s the Sybil I can’t fucking get out of my head.”
“You can’t… get me out of your head?”
“You’ve walked right into my brain and refuse to leave. Leave, damn you.”
She wrapped her hands around his neck, and her thumbs, moving as if they knew exactly what to do, stroked the strained tendons there. He closed his eyes with a groan and twisted into her embrace.
Placing her lips just at his ear, she whispered, “No.” She would have smiled after that.
But she couldn’t.
She was too busy being kissed.
It felt as if she’d been dark, and every candle and every fairy orb within her flared to life at the same time. The touch of his lips alone enough to… to…
Oh Hestia, not enough at all.
So she dug her hands into his hair and dragged him closer, squeezed his hips tight with her thighs, and clung like one metal binding to another.
He parted her lips and their tongues tangled. The moan between them could have belonged to either one.
Touch me, touch me, touch me. Too busy with her mouth to say it.
But somehow he knew, and his hands were hot on her shoulders, pushing down the bodice of her gown.
Circle cut and low, fashionable and—damn—ripped now.
Bowing his head, he found her nipple, began what he’d started in her bedroom until thought dissolved, and she arched into him, scrambled to be closer.
Hot kisses down her neck, teeth nipping at her ear.
Her fingernails down his spine and back up, her tongue tasting the texture of the scruff along his jaw.
A clash of teeth, a symphony of heavy breaths.
His hand a brand on her breast. The clothes between them too damn much.
She wanted to touch his skin, and he wore no cravat.
Lucky her. But the V that opened his chest to her gaze was too small.
She ripped at the shirt in his waistband, tugged it up, up, until it snagged on his waistcoat.
Gone. Quickly, down his arms and to the floor.
Forgotten.
The shirt too because nothing now kept her from whipping it off him, and then…
She’d not been able to stare her fill when she’d found him in the boiling bathtub.
She licked her lips, placed a kiss on the flat expanse of muscle that covered his heart. His skin was golden everywhere as if the sun had kissed him at birth. His chest was smooth, free from hair, and the muscles of his stomach bunched and coiled at her every touch.
He never stopped kissing her, even as she pulled back a bit, tempering her passion to devour him with her eyes.
Sweet Hestia, he was a beautiful man. She’d known that intellectually.
But it was different when such beauty was focused on you, when it had poured itself around you and seemed set on using itself up to give you passion.
His beauty at a distance was something to appreciate.
She’d even found it, at times, mildly annoying.
But close and focused entirely on her—it was transformative. Of him, of her. Neither would escape this fire without changing.
He dropped to his knees.
No. No, no. He could not leave her. Not this time.
She grasped for him, already missing his warmth.
But something about the way he peered up at her made her stop.
There was a promise in his eyes, and she needed to know what it was.
He seemed a man engaged in the seriousness of life and death, not to be disturbed.
The hem of her gown he contemplated like the greatest of puzzles.
Smooth as silk, he lifted that hem and wrapped his hands around her shins, stroked upward, dragging her skirts along with him until he could push them above her knees, abandon them at her waist.
He undid one ribbon of her stocking.
With his teeth.
He bit the narrow, pink satin and tugged, and when the bow was untied, he slipped the ribbon’s end from between his lips and pocketed it.
“What will you do with that?” she asked.
He did the same to her other stocking: bit, untied, pocketed.
“What will you do with that?” she asked again.
His only answer was a grin as he lowered both stockings at once and set her bare foot on his shoulder.
The other foot, the one that had been injured, he took his time with, caressing the arch and kissing the inside of the ankle.
His full mouth thinned when he studied the sole of her foot, the scar she knew was still red there.
He stroked his thumb down it, seemed to make up his mind about something, then inched closer.
He dragged his lips along the inside of her thighs, leaving hot little kisses that spiraled higher, faster than his lips could move.
Everywhere he touched her became an explosion of sensation that cascaded everywhere he didn’t touch. She grasped for his shoulders, stroked up his neck, tangled her hands in his hair, made a little cavern of her body around him, not knowing what he planned.
She was smart enough to guess. Though it seemed indecent. Impossible.
She’d never been short on curiosity, though. And she’d always been bold when no one was watching.
Except for Apollo.
He was right about that.
With him, she could be herself without care, so she unfolded herself, rested her weight on her palms behind her, threw her head back.
As his lips settled against her core.
As he kissed her and killed her all at once.
She almost leaped into the air when he parted her sex with his tongue. Only his hands—firm and strong on her hips, chaining her to the table—kept her from taking flight, kept her pinned in place so he could… so he could…
Holy Hestia, so he could play.
A game or an instrument. She might as well be both. He knew what he was doing, how to win, and every lave of tongue against flesh, every indent of fingers into skin, every scrape of fingers through the curls at her center taught her how to play, too.
Later. Later.
Now let him do as he pleased, and he seemed pleased to drive her mad.
Her mother had told her about the little bundle of nerves he was teasing and teasing, making her fingernails dig dents into the previously perfect surface of the worktable.
But she’d not been told about how it made a woman feel.
Perhaps there were not words. The closest she could find came moaning from her mouth.
“More. Please, Apollo, more. I need… I need…” She screamed, tendrils of pleasure roping round her, sinking into her skin, remaking her.
Did she melt or did she fly? All she knew was that on a convulsion she opened her eyes, saw him standing before her, between her legs, staring at her with such focused intensity…
His shaft in his hand, stroking up and down.
As pleasure rippled through her, forcing her eyes closed, she reached for him, brushed with the barest tip of her fingers, the velvet head of his member.
He cursed, and something hot and wet spilled across her thighs.
She wanted to open her eyes, to see whatever had happened, but she was too limp, too relaxed and happy to do much more than lay there.
She patted the table beside her. When he did not join her, she patted it again.
He was going to ruin this lovely haze if he did not join her right that instant.
She had the oddest urge to cuddle with him. With him!
He seemed to realize she was not in the mood to be disobeyed because soon the table creaked, and he was lying on his back beside her. She opened her eyes and studied his profile as he studied the ceiling. He looked… disgruntled.
So she kissed his cheek and rolled on top of him, settling into the crook of his arm, her cheek against the heat of his naked shoulder. He was slick with sweat, and when she kissed his neck, she tasted salt.
“Why,” she said with a sigh, “are you so distraught.”
“Because I’m not a green boy, but one touch of your wicked fingertips sent me shooting off like a fountain.” He picked up her hand where it rested on his ribs and kissed her palm. Angrily.
Laughing, she brushed hair off his temple. “I’m a novice at all this. You’ll have to use plain, biologically correct terms.”
“Good God, you’re mortifyingly innocent.” He heaved a sigh. “I’ll buy you some books. Perhaps I’ll write you a book. That might prove a fascinating venture.”
“There you are.” She patted his chest. “I’d begun to worry the rogue who ravishes innocents and threatens old ladies had reformed.”
He growled and held her tightly, whispered hotly in her ear.
“What happened, princess, is that my cock was harder than it’s ever been.
I wanted nothing more than to stroke inside your pretty little cunny and spend my seed there.
Insanity. So I took my cock in hand and would have made it a bit longer before spilling my cum all over your luscious legs, but your hand got involved, and—well—if we ever do this again, I’ll have to prove myself a sturdier man than I’ve proved so far. ”
Every word a scandal, a titillation. She wanted more. “If?”
He groaned. “You must know how ill-advised this is.”
“I do. But… do you want to? Would you be willing? A liaison…?”
“Hades damn my eyes.” He sighed. “Yes.”
There was a sunrise inside her, and she nuzzled his neck.
Until a sound outside the door made her freeze.
Apollo cursed, sliding to his feet and pulling her skirts down to her ankles at the same time.
She stood with a sigh, rearranging her clothes and trying to tame her hair.
She patted the table where she’d been spread before him like a feast. “Such a sturdy piece of furniture. Where did you procure it?”
“Had it made. Carpenter in the village.” He undid her as she did herself up, pulling curls out of her coiffure, dipping her sleeve off her shoulder, wrinkling her skirts.
“I traded him five bottles of love potion. Fella’s been having troubles getting his little hammer up as much as the missus wants it up.
Lady Guinevere’s brews work wonders for a man’s cock.
And his stamina. I have no need of it, though. Don’t worry.”
She wasn’t worrying. She was hugging him tight. He’d had a table made for her. “In two days?”
“It was mostly done. He was making it for the pub, but I commandeered it.”
“I’ll never receive a better gift.”
“It’s a few slabs of wood glued together.”
She hugged him even tighter. “Come to my bedchamber.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Don’t think about Temple.”
“I’m not thinking about your brother,” he grumbled.
“He never has to know.”
“You shouldn’t seem so willing to laze in the arms of a man like me.”
A man like me.
A man who built her a forge.
She knew him to be a villain.
She knew him to be harmless.
Humans were complex, weren’t they? Brimming with contradictions, passions, sorrows.
She could not forget his mistakes. But perhaps she could open up her view of him to include more than that.
Not that it mattered. This little liaison had no future outside of these walls.
Once the threat of Stone was punctured, she could return to London, and whatever she had here with Apollo would end.
But until then…
“A kiss or two will do no harm. Just here and there. Maybe a bit more.”
He grunted. “I suppose I can consider it doing my duty, keeping you occupied and out of trouble.”
She broke away from him, wanting to touch every little bit of the forge, to assure herself it was real. Hers. All of it hers. And the man at the center of the room, lounging against the table? Anytime she glanced at him, she found him wearing a satisfied little not-quite smile.
“I’m not supposed to have this,” she said, drawing her fingers across one long shelf. “No woman should…”
Apollo cursed. “To hell with them all.”
The sun was starting to set, and the light flooded through the window, splashing across the table. And in the soft pink-and-yellow light, he tipped her chin up.
“Say it, Sybil. To hell with them all. I’ll give all of it to you, everything they say you shouldn’t have. Just say it.”
Her lips formed the words easily. “To hell with them all.”
He grinned. “Louder.”
“To hell with them all!” Outside, birds careened off branches, and inside, she felt lighter.
And, for the first time in a long while, even though she was miles away from her family and home, she felt less alone.
She shouldn’t trust Apollo. Not forever.
His loyalty would never last that long. But while it did… .
For the man who’d made her a forge, she could forge a little trust.