Chapter 20
Vouloir
CLAIRE
Istood there, holding the tent flap for dear life, indecision holding me in place. I knew leaving wasn’t an option. There was no way I could pretend I hadn’t seen what I’d seen. I swallowed hard.
Or what I was still seeing.
Bastien didn’t move to cover himself. No. He was still gripping his thick shaft, slowly pumping up and down, up and down, then squeezing right around the tip in this slow, seductive rhythm that I wanted to learn. Like maybe he wasn’t finished.
He never looked more like a prince than he did right now. Sitting on a cushion with his legs spread. Unashamed and unhurried. Like there was nothing to be embarrassed about. Like he didn’t care that I’d caught him with his pants around his ankles.
Moaning my name.
I needed to know why he’d opened our connection and said my name. The desire held me in place. Maybe he’d been imagining kissing me the way I’d been imagining kissing him. And if he was, maybe I was doing something right after all.
This was all for a good reason, I reassured myself. The more he trusted me, the closer I could get. And the easier it would be to kill him. Because that was still my mission. Right?
On my next shaky inhale, I removed the cloak Tyson had given me and dropped it in the snow, along with my gloves, knowing the sight of royal blue would infuriate him.
Then parted the curtains and stepped inside the tent.
Bastien tracked my movements as I closed the curtains and did up all the ties.
I didn’t want an errant breeze to interrupt this conversation.
When I turned back around, my breath caught.
He was beautiful. Spent and glistening. And the desire to touch him like he’d been touching himself made sweat collect along the base of my neck.
I wanted to run my fingers over him and bring his hard length to my throbbing middle while he kissed me into oblivion.
I didn’t know why, or where the idea came from, only that there was a primal need inside me to be filled with him.
It was shameful, but I was already a ruin.
Bastien reopened the connection between us, which only drew me deeper into the fantasy. Pulling my attention into him and forcing me to unburden my worries as I listened to the sound of his voice.
“Why are you here?”
My stomach tightened and my muscles clenched.
Why was I here? The answer was simple, yet very, very complicated.
I couldn’t tell him that I’d been worried he was feeding from someone else or that he was in another’s tent.
Lusting after her. I barely wanted to admit that I had those thoughts to myself because why should I care what he did so long as I could get information from him? But for whatever reason, I did.
Clearing my throat, I responded with the most basic yet honest answer. “I was looking for you.”
There was a beat of silence.
That ache between my thighs crested to new heights when he released himself to grab a handkerchief and began wiping off his thighs, allowing me to look at him fully. At how hard and long he was. How thick this part of him was.
He tossed the soiled handkerchief on the floor, his gaze never leaving my face. The line of his dark blond brows pushed together in question. “Why?”
“You’re in a feeding tent, and considering I am the one you are supposed to be feeding from, I thought you would want to see me.”
“Feeding tent is nickname we use for tents designated for fucking.”
“Oh.”
He glanced down at his hard length, then back up at me, nonplussed. “When you saw I didn’t require a feeding, why didn’t you leave?”
The question needled me, and an embarrassed flush rushed back into my cheeks. Maybe he didn’t want me here. Maybe he hadn’t meant to open our connection and say those things.
I twisted my fingers together and looked over his shoulder at the brazier hanging in the corner—it was the only thing warming the small tent, except for the fire in my cheeks. “I-I don’t know.”
He said nothing, and neither did I. After a moment, my curiosity got the better of me. If he wanted me to leave, he wasn’t making a show of it or even moving to cover himself.
He was simply questioning me, like he always did.
“What were you doing in here?”
It was the first time his lips moved—one corner lifting into a smirk. I would’ve been irritated that he found my question funny, but he had the most beautiful lips I’d ever seen, and they were rather distracting.
“I’m assuming this is a rhetorical question,” Bastien drawled, “because you saw what I was doing.”
Another fresh flush of embarrassment filled my cheeks, and it was so frustrating that I had been as sheltered as I was. I’d never been given the words to articulate myself properly.
“You assume I have a name for it.”
Bastien quirked a brow this time. “You don’t?”
“I’m assuming that must be a rhetorical question,” I began, mocking him, “because you know I grew up in a convent. And that,” I pointed in the general direction of his stiff length, “wasn’t covered in my lessons on worshipping the Moon Goddess.”
He didn’t laugh like I thought he might. No. He raked his teeth over his bottom lip and rubbed at his long chin. Contemplating me. His silence did nothing to stop my desire for him. If anything, it intensified, and I had to shift my weight, needing to move some part of me.
His smirk fell flat. “You’re curious.”
Curious didn’t quite cover what I was feeling, but I supposed it was close enough for his understanding. “Yes. I am.”
“You stayed out of curiosity? Nothing more?”
No.
“Yes.”
I bit my lip. It was one of the few outright lies I’d told him, besides, of course, about my upbringing at the Nightfall Convent and Mama’s choker. But those lies were necessary to my espionage. This one wasn’t.
“And what are you curious about?” he asked. His hand slowly inched up his thigh, closer to the part of him that held all my attention.
My breath came out in a stutter. “I-I’m curious about a lot of things, Your Grace.”
“Like what?”
My brain went momentarily blank when his hand found himself again. Slowly massaging his length as he watched me.
“Does that feel good?” The question exploded out, causing the vampire to grin a wicked, delicious grin that had my heart beating even faster.
“Yes,” he said casually. “That is the point.”
More questions rose to my tongue, and I took a half step closer.
“Do you do it a lot?”
He made a satisfied sound in the back of his throat, grinning sheepishly. “Define a lot.”
“Every day?”
“If I have the time.”
I looked away from him again. Feeling unsure of myself and way out of my understanding.
These things weren’t talked about. But still, I wondered if he satisfied himself like this because he had a mate he hadn’t found?
Was he only allowed to touch her? If not, I wondered if he wanted to do that with someone else. With me, perhaps.
The sound of his voice inside my head brought my attention back to his face. “Miss Donadieu,” he said thoughtfully, “have you ever touched yourself?”
His look of genuine concern had a whole new flurry of emotions swirling inside me.
“Touch myself wh-where?”
He contemplated me before rising to his feet and pulling up his pants, but didn’t fasten the buttons. They hung low on his hips, open, doing little to conceal his hardness.
Closing the distance between us, he captured my hand, holding it gently, and with the other, lifted the hem of my shift.
I was trembling as he pressed my palm to my stomach and slowly, without breaking eye contact, dragged it down, stopping only when he reached the aching place between my thighs, and encouraged me to cup myself.
A hiss of breath left my lungs, and I thought I might fall forward.
“Right here,” he said, working my hand back and forth, back and forth, then pressing on one of my fingers until it parted my flesh.
My lips parted. My breath stuttered. He let me squirm under my own touch while his gaze tracked every twitch of my face. Meanwhile, his mouth curved in a dark smile.
“No. I haven’t touched myself like that.”
He leaned forward, letting his lips graze the shell of my ear. His breath against my skin had me dizzy. “Do you want to?”
Yes. Yes. I did. Only…
“I wouldn’t know what to do,” I explained, glancing up at him through heavily lidded eyes. “No one taught me. In fact, they’d probably say it was sinful.”
I wasn’t sure what they taught at the convent, only what I’d been told at home. Intimacy was for marriage and for producing heirs. Since I was fit for neither, no one had explained I could do this.
Bastien looked angry for the first time. He cupped the side of my face with his free hand, holding me so tenderly. “I know those convent sisters spent years trying to extinguish your flame, Miss Donadieu, but they could never fully do it. Do you know why?”
He paused, like he was waiting for me to answer, but I said nothing. There were no convent sisters, only my family. And he had no idea the reason why I was treated the way I’d been treated. Because I deserved it.
“There is a fire burning inside you. I can see it behind your eyes, burning hot and bright. I’m sure they saw it too and it scared them. You scared them because they knew you were made for more, so they decided to stomp that fire out.”
I didn’t know what to say or think. Not when he was making declarations that he didn’t understand. But… I so badly wanted to believe he could see something in me I couldn’t see myself.
He pressed his lips together, studying my face like he could see the fire inside me. It was breathtaking.
“But what they didn’t anticipate when they were trying to douse your flame was that they could never stop you from burning. You are fire.”
I was a failure. A disappointment. Not fire.
“Miss Donadieu,” Bastien continued, coaxing my finger to move over my center again, “feel the fire inside you. Feel it.”