Chapter Eighteen
BEN
I woke to the sound of rain against the windows. It took me an instant to remember where I was, and then it came back in a rush—moonlight on ruined stone, Dominic’s eyes on my body, laughter shared high above the clouds. Burying my face in my pillow, I groaned. This was becoming untenable.
By the time I made it downstairs, the breakfast table was empty save for abandoned coffee cups, a rack of cold toast, and a conker sitting next to Teddy’s usual place.
I ate quickly, anticipation under my skin that had nothing to do with twelfth-century disputes over birds. I was listening for footsteps in the corridor beyond the dining room, but silence reigned, and Dominic didn’t appear. Which was a ridiculous thing to notice.
Once installed in the records room, with the fire glowing gently, I reread my notes from the previous day, most of which were about the court case that had been buried in the middle of the genealogical papers.
It had referred to multiple previous disputes between the Gruffydds and Bedwyrs.
I hoped there’d be records of those legal fallings-out too, but if not, I at least had hints of issues with the ownership of swans—obviously no longer a problem once the monarch claimed ownership of all swans.
Then there were quarrels over wolfhounds and a field that had ended up with half of it ploughed one way by the Gruffydds, and the other half ploughed at a perpendicular angle by the Bedwyrs.
God, I was falling in love with these stupendously petty fourteenth-century dragons.
It bore out why dragons should never have territories that bordered one another too closely. The combination of territorial and hoarding instincts meant we didn’t make for good neighbours.
For perhaps an hour, I made progress with my work. Then the door opened behind me.
“I’m beginning to think this room is actually holding you hostage.”
My pulse jumped so hard it was embarrassing. I looked up to find him leaning casually against the doorframe, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. His gaze caught mine immediately and held for just a fraction too long.
“I think you’ll find most historians do this to themselves voluntarily,” I said, trying for composure and missing spectacularly.
“Explains a lot.” He wandered into the room without waiting for an invitation. “What deep, dark parts of family history are we investigating today?” he asked, dragging his chair next to mine before dropping into it.
“Fifth-century genealogy,” I said firmly. No more distractions.
“God, that’s sexy.”
I laughed before I could stop myself, and his mouth curved slightly, as if he liked making me laugh. Actually, no, not as if. He definitely liked making me laugh.
I focused back on the records. Or tried to. It was harder than usual to concentrate with Dominic beside me, sprawling carelessly in his chair while sorting his pile of correspondence with one-handed laziness that somehow still resulted in useful organisation.
Every so often he’d lean across to look at what I was reading, close enough that I could feel the heat of him beside me. Each time, my brain stopped functioning.
“You know,” he said eventually, “I think you’re weirdly invested in organising dead people.”
I wasn’t sure what to do with that statement.
“Which, now I say it out loud, is a deeply worrying sentence,” Dominic added.
I shook my head in mock despair. “There was a time when I could work without you distracting me.”
“That sounds suspiciously like flirting, historian.”
“It’s a statement of fact,” I managed. My cheeks were flaming, because it had been an ill-advised attempt at flirting, and I was absolutely crap at it.
“Hmmn.” The sound was low and amused.
I became aware that he was looking at my mouth again.
The room felt very quiet. Rain pattered softly against the windows. Somewhere downstairs a door slammed faintly, reminding me there were other people in the house, other lives continuing perfectly normally while I sat here acutely aware of every breath that Dominic took.
He reached past me for one of the folders stacked near my elbow. Or at least, I thought that was what he’d intended to do, but his hand grazed mine. The brush of his skin felt like dragon-fire.
He was very close. Close enough now that I could see the tiny shifts in his expression.
And then, slowly, as if giving me time to stop him, he cupped one hand against my jaw.
I should probably have said something. Instead I leaned into his touch before I could stop myself. His expression changed, almost as if I’d surprised him. Then he kissed me.
Gentle at first. Careful in a way I would never have expected from Dominic Bedwyr. His lips were warm and impossibly soft, moving slowly against mine as if he was offering, waiting for me to decide what happened next.
I parted my lips beneath his, and he made a tiny sound against my mouth. His hand shifted on my jaw, fingers curling slightly, and then his tongue slid between my lips. He tasted of coffee and Dominic, and I needed more.
When he finally drew back, I realised my hands had somehow ended up gripping the front of his shirt. And for some reason, I wasn’t letting go.
Neither of us spoke for a second. Then, because apparently I’d lost all higher brain function, I heard myself ask, “What was that?”
For once, Dominic looked genuinely unguarded. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
His hand was still on my jaw, just the way I was still clutching handfuls of his shirt, and he ran his thumb over my lower lip.
“I’ve been wanting to do that for days.” His eyes were warm on mine, yet there was the slightest hint of a crease between his eyes, something not quite worry but not quite peace either.
“And apparently I’m spending my life sorting your bloody archives.
So no, historian, I don’t really know what this is. ”
His thumb moved once more across my lower lip, and my eyes closed. The slight pressure had my lips parting, and then instinct overrode all thought and I pushed my mouth down on his thumb.
Oh, God. He hissed in a breath as I sucked gently, tasting him, the rough pad of his thumb sliding against my tongue and sending a wave of heat straight to my cock.
I finally relinquished his thumb, dragging my eyes open, and his face… He was breathing hard, his eyes swallowed by darkness as he watched me.
No one had ever looked at me like that, as if I were the centre of everything, and I had no idea how to do this. Oh, I knew how to kiss someone, how to have sex, how to share lives as well as a bed. I just didn’t know what to do with the way Dominic was looking at me.
So I kissed him again. The soft sound he made into my mouth nearly undid me entirely. God. One of his hands slid into my hair as if he couldn’t help himself, and I pulled at his shirt, needing him even closer.
Somewhere in the middle of it, I became aware that he’d stood up without breaking the kiss, drawing me with him until I was half-trapped between his body and the edge of the table.
We finally parted, and then he kissed the sensitive spot beneath my ear. I gasped, couldn’t help it, and he went back for more, holding me still as I squirmed against him, needing to move, to do something.
He muttered, low and wrecked against my skin, “Christ, Ben.”
My knees nearly gave way. His hands tightened on me instinctively, steadying me. And there it was again, that startling care beneath all the heat. I turned my face against his throat, breathing hard. He smelled faintly of dragon-smoke and Dominic, warm skin beneath clean cotton, and I wanted him.
“You do know,” he said, voice rougher than I’d ever heard it, “that my bedroom is literally next door.”
I think I made a little sound, something small and embarrassingly turned on.
“Come with me?” he said more quietly. There was no arrogance in it, no assumption. It was an invitation.
And God help me, there was never any possibility I was going to say no.
His hand circled my wrist as we made it to his room, and there was no way he could miss the thundering of my pulse.
I came out of my daze when he led me into his bedroom.
It was almost exactly how I would have imagined it—not that I’d let myself think about his bedroom.
Or him. In bed. Clothes were piled half on and half off a chair by the windows, haphazard stacks of books gave a cheerful middle finger to the almost-empty bookshelves next to them, and his bed was unmade, duvet and sheet tangled in a mess at the bottom of the mattress.
My cheeks heated as I jerked my gaze away from his bed. Which was ridiculous, given why we were here. But the bed—Dominic’s bed—made it real.
He closed the door behind us, and I turned to look at him, my throat so dry that there was an audible click when I swallowed. He stalked towards me.
“You know,” I said, hanging on to what was left of my calm by the skin of my teeth, “for someone who doesn’t know what this is, you seem pretty confident about it.”
His lips tugged up in a slow smile. “Oh, this isn’t the confusing part,” he said. “I know exactly what I want to do to you, historian.”
I swallowed again, and then he was in my space, so close we were breathing the same air. But where I would have expected him to back me against the nearest wall and snog me within an inch of my life, he reached his hand out and brushed his knuckles against my jaw.
“Okay?” he asked, his eyes steady.
“Very much so.” The words spilled out before I could stop them. Oh, God. Who even said things like that outside of a Victorian novel?
There was a smile in his eyes, but then he leaned in those last few inches, slanting his lips over mine, and coherent thought deserted me. His tongue was in my mouth, teasing but not enough. I pressed closer, needing more, and reached for the fastening of his jeans.
When I slid my hand inside and my fingers finally touched his silky cock, he made a noise into my mouth and pushed into my hand. But then he broke the kiss.
“Don’t,” he murmured, drawing my hand away and kissing my palm. “Not yet.”