Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
T he sudden pressure startles me, yet at the same time, I had to know this is where things would lead. For this is always where they lead. It’s what men want from me. I’m a rare beauty. Something men want to claim and make theirs. They always want to take, take, take.
After the initial meeting of our closed lips, he pulls back ever so slightly, so a hair’s breadth rests between us. He drags in a deep lungful of air, breathing me in. Or steadying himself. He holds so still for a solid second, I think he might be wrestling with himself.
Our foreheads touch. He playfully nudges my nose with his. Then his lips descend. Just not to my mouth.
He brushes his lips along my jawline. I hardly know why I’m allowing this. Perhaps a morbid curiosity?
When he stops at my ear, he whispers in a deep growl, “Tell me where you like to be kissed.”
Those words—they do something to me. Something inside me stirs. Something that has been dormant too long. A restless energy crackles beneath my skin, and I throw all sense out the window.
I pull up the long sleeve of my nightdress, exposing the wrist of my uninjured arm, and draw a slow circle on the veins just below my hand. “Here.”
With amber eyes on mine, he grabs my arm and brings the limb toward his mouth, watching me as he kisses the skin there. Liking what he finds, he slides my sleeve up and up, exposing the inside of my elbow. His teeth and lips travel upward until he can kiss the pulse point there. His tongue darts out to kiss my flesh, burning me with the quick stroke.
I force my breathing to remain calm, but I’m far too excited now. “Here,” I say, touching with two fingers the base of my neck.
He steps forward, takes my hand from the spot, laces our fingers together, and pins our locked hands to the wall above my head as he leans in. I feel his hot breath first, tickling my sensitive skin. His lips are endlessly patient as they work at my neck. Endlessly obedient when I call out “harder” and “lower.”
He works his way down, down, past my neckline, at my command. Giving, giving, giving.
Aside from where his hand grips mine, where his lips brush me, we are not touching. He doesn’t grab at me, doesn’t paw at me, just gives me exactly what I ask for.
And for once in my life, I cannot stand it.
I pull my hand free from his, and he straightens, thinking perhaps I mean to stop him. Stop this. Instead, I grab his face and bring it to mine so I can be kissed properly. Except, he stands perfectly still under my ministrations. Doesn’t engage. Doesn’t return my kisses.
I hold him at arm’s length so I can look at him. His eyes are so liquid, his fangs peak out from under his lips, and he stares at me with something that can only be described as wonder.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing, I—I’ve just never done this before, and I don’t want to hurt you or for the beast to get out or—”
“Never done what before?”
He looks sheepishly down at my lips.
Kissing. He’s never done kissing before. How is that possible? Those lips of his are perfect for kissing.
“You won’t hurt me,” I say, nearly mad with the wanting of a proper kissing. I don’t just want to be kissed. I want to be devoured. To be made senseless. “Do you feel out of control?”
“Not right now.”
That takes me aback. “Then what?”
He reaches out and grabs a strand of my midnight hair. He starts twirling it around one of his fingers. “You’ve been hurt by all the men in your life. I don’t want to be another one. I need you to tell me what’s okay. I don’t know where to touch you or where to kiss you. I don’t know what’s too hard or too soft, with my extra strength. I don’t want to hurt you,” he repeats.
I have no response. None. I’m so baffled and touched. This has never happened before. No one has ever said anything of the sort to me before.
Even Sandros, who gave me pleasure, never once asked what I wanted. He gave and he took, and I went along with just about everything because I wanted to try everything. But this? Having a real choice—is it true? Or just something he thinks I want to hear?
“You’ve truly never done this before?” I ask, because I’m not sure what else to say.
“No woman has ever known my secret. I couldn’t risk being this close to anyone before. I can’t keep it concealed when I’m… impassioned.”
“Is that what you feel for me? Passion?”
“You. You make me forget all my rules and reasons for everything. You make me want to believe it’s possible not to be alone forever. You make me want to claim the whole world and gift it to you on a silver platter. You are unlike anyone I’ve ever known. And gods, but I love your mouth. The way it smiles. The words that come out of it. How it feels against mine. Just looking at your lips makes my mouth water.”
I bite my lower lip, trying to think of anything to say in response. Anything at all. But as if he can help it no longer, he kisses me again. His movements are clumsy at first, as he tries to figure out how our lips work together. But that lasts only a matter of seconds before I’m drowning in his kisses. And damn him, but it feels so good to be kissed again. When his movements slow, I think he’s going to stop. But I realize he’s only giving me control again, allowing me to set the pace.
Gods, this is incredible. In control yet out of control. Feeling as though I could do anything. When I go to wrap my arms around his neck, I hiss and pull away, my hurt arm throbbing.
“You’re injured,” Eryx says aloud, as though reminding himself. “Shit, what am I doing? I’m so sorry. We should get you into bed.”
I arch a single brow his way.
“I meant alone. You need to rest and heal. I will take care of everything else.”
He doesn’t leave immediately, instead staring after me as though waiting for something.
“What?” I ask.
“Do you find that agreeable?”
Agreeable? Is he serious? “You get one taste of me and suddenly you’re going to act as though you care what I think? Why bother and just go back to bossing me around as you always do?”
He scoffs and, upon finding me in earnest, says, “Is that what you want? For things to remain as they were before?”
“Don’t you? Surely you’ve had a slip in judgment?”
“I’ve had a slip in judgment?” he questions.
“Well, I certainly can’t be held responsible for my actions. I’m on laudanum.” The lie is too easy to find. Too easy to use to protect myself.
Eryx’s expression turns to one of horror. He looks around the room, and then his eyes land on the cup the doctor left for me. The one I didn’t drink, but Eryx likely comes to the conclusion that it was for me to have more of if I felt I needed it.
He rakes his hands in his hair, even pulls out a few strands. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I never would have—”
He cuts himself off and strides out of the duchess suite without a backward glance, but the door doesn’t slam in his wake.
I’m beyond exhausted, arm throbbing, but even after I climb into bed, my mind won’t let me find oblivion. It fixates on that horrible man, on his kisses and gentle words. On the way I hurt him by allowing him to think he took advantage of me. The guilt is consuming, but I can’t let it win.
Eryx… said the right words, did the right things, but I cannot trust any of it. Men will say and do whatever they can to get what they want. He’s had a taste of me. He will either lose his obsession or want more. Either way, I can work with that.
D URING THE NEXT FORTNIGHT , I observe constables coming and going. Men from the morgue arrive to collect the bodies. A special cleaning staff admits themselves into the manor to do a thorough cleansing of the master suite. I don’t know if I can stay in there again after this instance. Too many awful things have happened in that room now. Perhaps I should wall it off and let it crumble over time.
I have no clue what Eryx tells the constabulary, but I’m sure he gets Dyson and Argus involved, so it’s more believable that three men took out over a dozen intruders.
I visit Damasus, who’s finally recovered enough for visitors.
“I didn’t open the door for them,” he says during one of his first lucid moments when they lessen the pain medication he’s on. “Never would have let anyone into the house so late in the evening. They busted the door in, asked me where the master slept, but I didn’t tell them anything.”
No, that had been poor Tekla, who told them exactly where the master suite was so they’d release Karla. They threatened all kinds of harm on the girls before locking them into a cupboard on the first floor.
“I didn’t think I’d done any harm,” Tekla said when she saw me and my injuries. “I knew the master wasn’t sleeping there. I thought they’d find only an empty room. I didn’t think for a moment I was putting you in danger, Your Grace. I’m so terribly sorry.” I throw my arms around her as she cries, reassuring her that I was perfectly fine and all was well now.
I can’t help but be bitter toward the pain Eryx put my staff through. Damasus’s broken nose, Tekla’s and Karla’s terror, Mrs. Lagos’s white face when she saw the destruction done to the house, Kyros’s alarm when he couldn’t find Nico right away during the intruders’ attack.
Eryx needs to stop thinking he can handle everything alone.
Medora changes my bandages for me each day. The front door to the manor is replaced. The master suite smells of cleaning chemicals. My skin is healing.
We can patch up plaster. Replace broken wood, pound out the dents to the brass. But wounds to the soul cannot be fixed so readily.
I haven’t seen Eryx once since the attack. I don’t even know if he’s still at the estate.
We keep doing this to each other: offending the other and then avoiding. It has to stop. We should just be speaking to one another. Or yelling it out. I need to stop letting him get to me.
The doctor returns to the manor to check up on everyone. He removes my stitches before seeing to Damasus. I observe the exchange, wanting to ensure everyone is in peak condition. When the doctor is finished, he heads to the study, likely to collect his pay from Eryx.
They chat for some time before the man leaves, and I stare at the closed door.
It’s time to engage Eryx again. I cannot let this continue. I must be so close to the truth. If I can get the rest of it, we can be done with this whole charade. His secret consumes me. I feel as if I could just get my hands on the full truth, then my next move will become clear. Everything will make sense then.
When I let myself inside, Eryx is seated at the grand desk with his head in his hands while Dyson sits sprawled over the arms of a large chair in the corner and Argus stands with his arms crossed over his chest.
Three sets of eyes look up.
“May I have a moment alone with you?” I ask, staring down the pretend duke.
He looks… disappointed somehow, but he says, “Yes, of course.”
I walk to the center of the room, then glance back and forth between the other two occupants.
Argus rolls his eyes before plucking Dyson out of the chair and marching him out of the room.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Dyson says before the door shuts.
I turn to Eryx. “You told them?”
He rubs a hand along his brow. “Dyson is as tactful as ever.”
“Bragging about your conquest?” I ask, my voice bitter.
He swallows. “Hardly. I needed advice. I…”
“You what?”
His eyes narrow. “I don’t know anything where you are concerned.”
Oh, but he wants to. I can see it. I just need to get him to open up.
I go right for the jugular. Looking pointedly at my exposed, healing arm, I say, “You have brought fear and pain to this household, and it’s time you stopped.”
He swallows. “How do you propose I do that?”
“You can start by telling me everything. No more secrets. No more lies. No more surprises. Just let me help you.”
“I don’t know how,” he says. “I’ve carried on this way for so long.”
“Well, enough is enough. You take some time to think of everything you need to share with me and how you’ll share it. In the meantime, I’m going to make arrangements for your next lesson.”
“I told you, I don’t want you throwing more insults my way. I can’t—”
“I won’t. We’re taking a new approach. You have”—I look at the clock on the wall—“four hours to compile all that you wish to. Then we’re going out together.”
“Out?”
“Yes, to a brothel.”