Chapter Thirteen #2
Taddeo prepared another cup without asking what she wanted in it, because he already knew, and set it in front of her. That small familiarity should not have felt intimate after everything else the night had contained, but it did.
“You should try to sleep,” he said as he collected his jacket. He caught her expression before she could respond and added, “Recommendation. Not sentencing.”
“Progress.”
“Apparently.”
He left her with the second cup.
Several hours passed before Isolde went to him.
The decision formed too slowly to blame on adrenaline.
She returned upstairs sometime after two, dried her hair properly, and read enough pages of a novel to understand that she wasn't retaining a word.
She watched the clock pass three while Northglass settled around her.
Guards remained outside. Somewhere farther down the corridor, a door opened and closed.
Nothing happened that required her to move.
She could stay in her room.
That fact mattered.
If she stayed here, Taddeo would not come looking for her.
He would not enter because he wanted reassurance after nearly losing her, would not decide that the kiss in the library entitled him to anything else, and would not interpret fear as permission.
She knew that now with enough certainty that when she finally got out of bed and crossed the quiet upper corridor, the choice felt different from almost everything else she'd done since Mercer Street.
A narrow line of light showed beneath the door to Taddeo's private sitting room.
Isolde stopped outside and knocked.
His voice came after a pause. “Isolde?”
“Can I come in?”
Another pause followed, long enough to tell her he understood the question mattered.
“Yes.”
She opened the door.
The room beyond was smaller than the formal spaces downstairs, built for actual use rather than presentation.
A low fire had burned down to orange embers.
Taddeo stood near the windows in dark trousers and a clean shirt open at the throat, his jacket and tie gone.
A glass of water sat near a folder on the side table, although she doubted he had read much of whatever was inside it.
His attention moved over her carefully. “You couldn't sleep.”
“Neither could you.”
“I wasn't trying.”
“That seems like cheating.”
The corner of his mouth shifted, but the guarded quality in his expression remained. “Did you need something?”
“Yes.” Isolde closed the door behind her and rested her hand against it for a moment before letting go. “Come here.”
Taddeo didn't move immediately. “Isolde.”
“I'm not asking you to decide whether I mean it.”
“That isn't what I'm doing.”
“Then come here.”
He crossed the room slowly and stopped several feet away, leaving enough distance that neither of them could pretend who closed it.
Isolde did.
“I've had hours to think,” she said. “I'm still afraid of what happened tonight.
I'm afraid somebody knew exactly where we'd be.
I'm afraid Corwin put something in my hands without telling me what it could bring to my door, and I'm afraid somebody inside your family knows enough to send armed men into my workplace.” She hesitated before adding the part that mattered just as much. “And sometimes I'm afraid of you.”
Taddeo's face changed.
She placed one hand against his chest before he could retreat behind whatever conclusion he'd drawn. “That isn't me asking you to leave.”
“You don't have to prove anything tonight.”
“I know.”
“You don't owe me anything because I got you out of the museum.”
The suggestion irritated her enough to sharpen her voice. “Do you really think that's why I'm here?”
“No.” His answer came immediately. “But I need you to say it isn't.”
That steadied her more than reassurance would have.
“I don't owe you my body because you protected me,” she said, feeling the slow rise of his chest beneath her palm. “I don't owe you because you killed someone who was trying to take me, and I don't owe you because you brought me back here alive.”
“No.”
“If I tell you to stop, you stop.”
“Yes.”
“Immediately.”
“Yes.”
“If I change my mind after I've already said yes?”
“Then you changed your mind.” Taddeo held her gaze without hesitation. “We stop.”
Isolde's fingers moved higher until they reached the open edge of his collar. “Ask me.”
His breathing changed.
“Do you want this?”
“Yes.”
“Because you're frightened?”
“No.”
“Because of what happened tonight?”
“No.”
Taddeo waited, and Isolde understood there was one more question even before he asked it. “Then why?”
She looked at him for several seconds before answering.
“Because I spent hours trying to decide whether watching you kill someone should make me stop wanting you, and it didn't. That doesn't make what you do good, and it doesn't change the fact that I'm still here because you won't let me leave. Both things are true.”
“I know.”
Her eyes narrowed.
Taddeo almost smiled. “I heard you.”
“Better.”
Isolde hooked two fingers into the front of his shirt and pulled him close enough to kiss.
Taddeo answered only after she deepened it herself. His hands settled carefully at her waist without pulling, and when Isolde leaned into him, he broke the kiss just enough to look at her.
“Still yes?”
“Yes.”
The restraint in him shifted, but it didn't disappear.
The kiss became deeper without becoming rushed, Taddeo's hands tightening at her waist only after she leaned willingly into him.
Isolde slid both arms around his neck and felt the tension he had been carrying since the museum in the rigid line of his shoulders, in the control behind every movement, and in the slight pause whenever his touch changed position.
She had never been more conscious that he could overpower her.
She had also never been more conscious that he wasn't.
That was the choice she had come downstairs to make.
Slowly, Taddeo released her waist and cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs tracing soft circles on her cheekbones.
Their eyes met, and Isolde felt her breath catch as she took in the depth of emotion etched on his features.
He leaned in again, pressing his lips against hers with a gentle intensity that matched the fiery desire coursing through her veins.
She could taste the faint hint of his scotch on his lips, mingling with the sharp tang of desire in the air.
As their tongues met, he deepened the kiss, exploring her mouth with a practiced ease that left her weak-kneed and shivering with anticipation.
A low growl rumbled in his throat, vibrating against her lips, and she found herself pressing closer still.
His hands slid down to her hips, pulling her body flush against his as he devoured her mouth as if he couldn’t get enough.
Their kiss broke only when they both needed air, their chests heaving as they stared into each other’s eyes.
Isolde could feel the rapid thump of his heartbeat against her own chest, echoing the pounding of her own heart.
She ran her fingers through his hair, relishing the silky strands between her fingertips as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, taking long slow breaths that tickled her skin and sent delicious shivers down her spine.
She gasped softly at the sensation, arching into him as he pulled back to nibble lightly at her earlobe before trailing hot, hungry line of kisses down her jaw, her throat, the hollow beneath her collarbone.
She felt the points of his teeth, not quite biting, and the slow exhale of his breath over her skin.
He did not rush this. Isolde was aware of every inch he covered, every moment his mouth lingered, the way his hands mapped the shape of her ribs and the arch of her lower back with an unhurried reverence that bordered on worship.
She clung tighter to his shoulders, wanting—needing—him to keep going, but also shivery with the anticipation that he might make her ask for it.
He wasted no time. Taddeo scooped her up as if she were weightless, setting her down on the sofa in one fluid, careful motion.
Then he sank to his knees before her—an unspoken promise in his posture.
His fingers splayed over her thighs, brushing the thin cotton of her pants, tracing slow, teasing lines downward and then back up again.
Isolde’s heart thundered so fiercely she was certain her ribs would bruise from the inside out.
He looked up at her, eyes dark with need, waiting for the single word he would never assume on his own. She barely found her voice to whisper, “Yes,” but it was all the invitation he required.
His hands slid higher, thumbs catching the waistband of her pants.
With a deliberate tug, he peeled them down past her hips.
The cool air kissed her skin, and the exposure made her breath catch in her throat.
He pressed open-mouthed kisses to the insides of her knees, then over the soft, sensitive flesh above them—higher and higher—each kiss hotter than the last. Her whole body trembled, fighting the urge to clamp down on him.
When he finally pressed his mouth to her through the cotton, the shock of his tongue against her wetness was electric.
He paused to inhale her scent, then slowly peeled the fabric aside, one finger tracing slowly upward parting her folds.
“God, you taste so sweet,” he murmured, voice rough. “So fucking good for me.”
He licked a bold line up her center, then sank his tongue deep inside her.
She nearly jerked off the couch, hips bucking, and he chuckled low in his throat.
“Mm, you feel amazing,” he growled, darting his tongue again—this time with excruciating slowness, savoring every tremor of her thighs.
Isolde’s legs shook as she realized he wanted her undone by slow torture until she begged.
She did. “Please,” she gasped, nails digging into his scalp.